Death to Life podcast
#126 From Guilt and Divorce to Strength and Unconditional Love: Christina's Journey Toward Faith and Freedom
Summary:
Join us as Christina shares her journey from religious upbringing, through a failed marriage and guilt, to discovering freedom from sin. Her story of growth, healing, and unconditional love is a beacon of hope. From feeling lost to being transformed Christina's tale shows redemption through faith amid struggles.
Discovering righteousness by faith in a Bible study sets her on a path to see who she actually is. Get ready for a rollercoaster of hope, faith, resilience, and love.
Timestamps:
View more resources on our website!
0:00 - From Legalism to Freedom
13:22 - Overcoming Shame and Transformative Love
18:17 - Struggles and Divorce
31:40 - Finding Faith Through Dinosaurs
40:33 - The Transformative Power of the Gospel
49:34 - Bible Study and Emotional Struggles
57:52 - Transformation Through Bible Study
1:05:43 - Discovering Unconditional Love and Overcoming Resistance
1:11:31 - From Friendship to Love
1:25:36 - Understanding Our Righteousness With God
Keywords: Faith journey, Religious upbringing, Failed marriage, Guilt and shame, Rediscovering faith, Transformation, New beginnings, Friendship to love, Healing
Looking for discipleship and fellowship? Join a Circle at lovereality.org/circles
Summary:
Join us as Christina shares her journey from religious upbringing, through a failed marriage and guilt, to discovering freedom from sin. Her story of growth, healing, and unconditional love is a beacon of hope. From feeling lost to being transformed Christina's tale shows redemption through faith amid struggles.
Discovering righteousness by faith in a Bible study sets her on a path to see who she actually is. Get ready for a rollercoaster of hope, faith, resilience, and love.
Timestamps:
View more resources on our website!
0:00 - From Legalism to Freedom
13:22 - Overcoming Shame and Transformative Love
18:17 - Struggles and Divorce
31:40 - Finding Faith Through Dinosaurs
40:33 - The Transformative Power of the Gospel
49:34 - Bible Study and Emotional Struggles
57:52 - Transformation Through Bible Study
1:05:43 - Discovering Unconditional Love and Overcoming Resistance
1:11:31 - From Friendship to Love
1:25:36 - Understanding Our Righteousness With God
Keywords: Faith journey, Religious upbringing, Failed marriage, Guilt and shame, Rediscovering faith, Transformation, New beginnings, Friendship to love, Healing
Looking for discipleship and fellowship? Join a Circle at lovereality.org/circles
Death to Life is brought to you by Love, reality, a good gospel ministry. Our mission is to tell everyone willing to listen that in Christ, by faith, they are free from sin. Everything that we make is free and remains free because of the generosity of thousands of people like you. Thank you.
Speaker 2:The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can and that's why we want you to hear these stories, stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to Life.
Speaker 1:The judge asked is this marriage damaged beyond repair? And I said yes, judge, and I felt like Peter denying Christ three times because he asked three times. And when he asked the third time he was streaming down my face and, like I said, had I known then what I know now, I would have said no, like nothing is damaged beyond repair, because God's love is so powerful that it can fix anything.
Speaker 2:Yo, welcome to the Death to Life podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is with Christina. Christina has a common tale, but, true, she is raised in a very religious home and she wants to do well. When she can't keep that up, she ends up taking off and checking out the world for a while and it does not fulfill its promises. This episode deals with divorce and with trauma and as she continues to move forward, she just wanted to do well, she wanted to be enough, and she tried really hard and it just didn't end up working out. But then her life ended up changing when she saw the gospel for what it really was. This episode is powerful. Her story is powerful. If you grew up with a religious, legalistic background and then, because of that, you entered into the world and realized that didn't fulfill its promises either, I think that you'll appreciate this episode and you'll find a blessing in it. So let's get into the episode. This is Christina. Buckle Up, shrap in Love. Y'all, appreciate y'all. Let me ask you this when do you feel like when it comes to spiritual things and your understanding of God and your life? Where do you feel like your story starts?
Speaker 1:Man, that's a heavy question. It's hard to pinpoint. I think everything I know that I was like from childhood. I was really rooted in God. I was raised Adventist, so I had a really solid foundation, but it was never like sealed, it was just what I had been raised and I think I was missing what I have now. And, yeah, it's weird, I was a young Adventist kid. I was raised in this stringent, strict rules and then I don't know, because I didn't have or understand my identity or anything like that it was really easy to walk away from. And so then I went through most of my young adult life my teenage or my 20s, I don't even know just the later in and just not doing good things.
Speaker 2:Where did you grow up?
Speaker 1:I was born and raised in New York and Long Island and I'm one of six kids. I'm up the baby girl my brother's the youngest, but I have four older sisters and, yeah, my father was actually, yeah, my father's Sicilian and my mother's Noblodon, so she's, I got some Irish in her too, a lot of Irish in her, maybe I should say but yeah, we're very Italian family.
Speaker 2:And so you grew up in Long Island. Did your parents used to live in the city, or were they always Islanders?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they lived in a few places. I think Long Island is like home for them. But, like my dad lived and worked in Brooklyn and things like that, he did work in the city but, yeah, their home was like Long Island as well. My parents went to high school and they grew up there as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so did they get introduced to Adventism at a young age.
Speaker 1:Yes, my mom was raised in an Adventist environment. Her father, of course, was like very Adventist and my father was super Italian and so he was Catholic through and through, catholic, super Catholic. That was like a weird thing, because when my parents started dating, my mom wasn't Adventist, she had fell out of the church and when she got married, she actually got married in a Catholic church, which was really hard because my grandpa walked her down the aisle in a Catholic church for the Catholic ceremony. So that was weird, because growing up, when we were kids, my dad was still Catholic and my mom was like Adventist, so we were doing Sabbath school and Sunday school. Oh, mercy. So yeah, there's this really funny story. I remember my sister she was in like Sabbath school and they were like, oh, what's the name of the person who got swallowed by it? And she goes Pinocchio, like okay, that's just how you're like, how much.
Speaker 2:She's not wrong, though she's not wrong. Yeah, kato had to come and save you said it was pretty strict. What does that mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think when my mom used to lay out a suit for my dad every Sabbath for him to join us in church and he would like never put the suit on my dad has his testimony alone is like maybe something that should be on this podcast. But he has like a really wild life a lot of criminal activity, a lot of coming to Christ, just all the good stuff, and so he just never would come to church. But she would lay out his suit every Saturday morning and then one Saturday he'd put the suit on and he joined us in church and it was like a wild, like transformative experience and where then I think my parents like both dove in, had first into Adventism and they just wanted to immerse themselves in it and be really good at it and, of course, save their children and do the right thing by God. And I will say my mom and dad have done an excellent job. I was raised in a home free of alcoholism, free of poverty. I wanted for nothing. My parents worked really hard to give me a wonderful life. I'm super successful because of them, so I'm very incredibly grateful to them. But we did live in a really strict Adventist home where it was just like I don't know you're seeing that the TV, what we watched on TV and what we who we talked to, what we did. I wanted to go to be in the swim team and some of the events for my swim team were like on Saturdays and I couldn't go to them, or something like that. Or the Sabbath was the Sabbath and it's the most important thing and which is I respect that it's important. But when you're raised in this environment where you feel like it feels very condemning like I was, I thought I was following a God who would punish me if I did something wrong you start to feel really heavy all the time where you're like, oh gosh, I can't mess up. And then it gets to the point where you feel like maybe you've messed up so many times that you're just tired of feeling guilty. I remember I went to you after I did this a little bit in college and then I took a step back from college because some things happened in my personal life and I went to the Lay Institute for Evangelism. I went to Bible College it was like a 14 week, I don't know thing where you can learn how to evangelize and like how to share Bible studies with people and my brother and I both went and did this and when I was done I went back to college. But when my brother was done he went and he was like full on Bible worker, evangelists, and he got a job for some churches and he moved out to California and he lived out there for a while I'm not sure how long but when he came back he just said he was an atheist. And I remember my mom being devastated over this and I went to talk to my brother and I was like what happened? But I think you get to this point where you just they have these, he was telling me I've heard this before too. They have like atheistic ceremonies where they want to unbaptize you, so blow drying you to get the water off of you. Because I think it's the point is like when you feel so much guilt or you feel so much shame that you just don't want to believe at all. It's the good news is my brother is not an atheist anymore. We've come round. That was a very long time ago. We've come around since then, but it was a brief moment of doubt and fear and shaming yelts, I think, because we were postured in the bass phrase I heard a lot just in the church and growing up in my home is if you sin like David, you need to ask for forgiveness. Like David and like with Bathsheba and then the baby. And then he was like, prostrate on his floor seven days, no eating, no drinking, like in prayer. And so that's what my life looked like when I would sin. I was just flat on my face.
Speaker 2:This wasn't really going on when you were like a little kid right, You're like, when you're a little kid it's just Sabbath school and good times. But when you got, when did you really start feeling the shame?
Speaker 1:When I was a little kid I was exposed to just like weird, like very sad. My father struggled a lot with depression and he tried to take his own life quite a few times and then my mother struggled a lot. My dad did struggle with some pain medicine, like addiction, and he ended up cleaning himself up. So I think, like from a young and then I was the youngest of four older sisters, so I watched my sisters just live a little promiscuous or a little wild, and so I think the exposure to right and wrong and shame came at a younger age than maybe most or I don't know nowadays, but like maybe what was expected. So I felt if I watched a movie and somebody said a curse word, even at a young age or something, I would be like, oh my gosh, like I'm, this is not good, I'm going to be in trouble. And I remember just even like my choice in music, I would try and pick. This is like back in the day when I was like, oh, what was? Like cutlass and news boys and like all those older bands or whatever, and I would be like, oh, I'm going to listen to this and that wouldn't be enough. I vividly remember showing like my mom and my uncle like, oh, look at this Christian band that I'm listening to. And I played them a song and they literally just sat me down like I had a problem, and they were like, oh no, this is not, this isn't good. And I was like, no, it's good. Like when it was news boys yeah, I don't remember who it was, but it was not apparently not good enough, right. And you get this feeling where you're like, oh, I, nobody's getting into heaven. I'm thinking at a young age I was like, okay, I'll just try and be better. But I think when I was a kid, yeah, it was like like sunshine and rainbows. But but maybe at a young age, I noticed that I had some shame, even just from small mistakes I was making. And then it came big, when I was 18. And here's some boy. Oh no. And I fell in love and here's like. He's been my best friend since I was in high school or middle school. We met when we were like 11 or 12 years old and after high school we got together and he had joined the military. But I had premarital sex. Him and I were intimate before we were married and I was just distraught. I was like this is it, my life is over, everything good about me is gone and you have to marry me. I was poor man and I was like I'm sorry. I like literally Indian burned his arm into marriage at 18, 19 years old because of that.
Speaker 2:You ended up getting married. Yeah, and you think? It was because that you guys had sex. That was like the main reason I loved him.
Speaker 1:He was my best friend, but I would have much rather had done that. I feel like the weight of that same was like so overwhelming to me that I thought it would go away if I, if we just got married.
Speaker 2:What did God think about you?
Speaker 1:you think oh that I was just like naughty and dirty and like he had gifted me with something pure, and then I just threw it away.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:That's what I thought, yeah.
Speaker 2:When you're explaining this move to your folks, do you also explain the main motive? God, no You're just like I'm going to get married to this man right now because we're in love, are they? Tripping Were they like what?
Speaker 1:No, because my mom and dad met when they were 12. And they got married at a very young age as well. And they're 63. They've been together for over four years and in their mind, like a young, a young couple meeting in different childhood, that was yes, go for it. The idea of like career is very different in Italian culture. I wanted to go to college, I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to. I didn't want to have kids. They really had no interest in even being married at like. Maybe at some point in my life I did, but I was a career and success oriented. But in like Italian family they view family as a mark of success. So getting married young and having lots of kids is valuable, is important. Me coming and be like I want to get married at 18 or 19. And I imagine to my parents were like. I've heard the phrase to from like Paul, where he says if you keep yourself from like impurity, get married if you're, if you're not able to keep yourself from impurity or something like that. Like that concept sits in their mind as well. So yeah, if you can't not be un-pure, impure, whatever, just go get married. That's better. They'd rather that. So what?
Speaker 2:did your boyfriend slash husband think about all that?
Speaker 1:He was obviously just like a kid, so like you would have thought this guy had gotten repregnated. It was like I don't know. I first just came to him crying. I'm like we have to do this and it's like he's okay, he'll like I just work it. I think it's just like I don't know. I've never really asked him. He's a great guy and he he's always been like in my corner. I'm super grateful for everything and even with my current husband, austin I tell him and I've heard this even in the podcast, I think Joyce has said it before and even Will I've heard their testimony were like, had we known then what we know now, we probably would still be with the other spouse and I've voiced that exact saying. And that doesn't mean that obviously I don't love Lee. I can say I love him immensely. But it does. It makes your heart feel some kind of way. If you know what you know now, if you knew it then there's no way that you wouldn't be able to unconditionally love through any situation. So it's just that powerful that's really what I mean Like the testament of God's transformative love is so powerful that it could literally fix anything that would have been broken.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you guys got married. What? When did you get married? What was the?
Speaker 1:yeah, I got married when I was 19.
Speaker 2:19.
Speaker 3:So 2000 and the plan was just to have kids.
Speaker 1:I was trying to keep away from that. I did not want kids. I knew from a very young age that I didn't want to. I didn't want to be a mom.
Speaker 2:So you got married, 2010, 19,. You're gonna. What was your future looking like in your mind then?
Speaker 1:Just being a wife, like. And then the thing was to this was like the height of the war too, and I get to stay in Iraq and my husband at the time he right out of high school just joined the army because now you have a wife. So I think he did that not for me, but it was just his plan. But he joined the army and then he ended up getting deployed. So the first year or so of our marriage, first two years of our marriage, he wasn't really home. He was in Afghanistan and this was back. Before you could just eye message somebody in a war zone. I would have to wait for emails or get satellite phone calls from him, so we didn't really talk. We did get to FaceTime or whenever, every once in a while, but we didn't talk a ton when he was gone and our relationship was like strained from the beginning because even though I married him so then now sex was okay I still felt dirty and so intimacy was like really hard for me even in marriage. I felt like I was doing something shameful and wrong. On top of everything, he married somebody who did not want to be intimate with him, not really because of him, just because of me Because of how my relationship with God, what I thought he thought of me when he came back from being overseas, it just it wasn't good. I didn't know, we were just kids. I didn't know how to respect his suffering or be empathetic towards his. I don't want to say PTSD, but the trauma that he had experienced overseas when he, by the time he came back, were like 22 years old, you're just like I don't even know. He has this whole emotional situation going on that I just didn't even know how to respect or address or approach. And so, yes, he, after less than a month of being home, he actually left me Because I was like not being loving, not being attentive, not being like supportive at all, I just completely detached. I actually remember my friend. She came over to my house, my apartment, the day before Danny was supposed to come home from being overseas. For 18 months he's been gone and the apartment was like a disaster, like it was so dirty I hadn't really prepared for him to be home at all. And she was like, hey, let's clean this place up, but your husband's coming home today or tomorrow. And I was like just not ready for him to be home Because when I knew intimacy would have to resume and I, this person feels like a stranger and I still feel like that it's wrong and I just didn't want to do it. So, yeah, he left and I like never fault him for that he's never. He was always very good to me.
Speaker 2:It's just a really like super great guy, and so you guys were like married and around and around each other for less than six months, or less than a like. How long were you actually?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like before he left. Yeah, less than a year, Because he was like away, he was doing like all his training and all that stuff like that, so we didn't spend a ton of time together and then he left and it was like a long time he was gone. I would say it totaled out to two years of just being apart In completely different time zones, completely different countries, and it wasn't talking every day, it was just like yeah.
Speaker 2:So when he leaves, what was your response to that?
Speaker 1:I just at first just let him go and then I went looking for him and then I found him living in like a frat house and he's not in a fraternity and not in college. So it was a weird time in our lives and I think that too I had fallen so far spiritually. There was like no connection to God and I tried to push that on him. I remember I tried to make him a vegetarian and so while he was overseas I would mail him the veggie meat stuff. I had sent him the veggie meat and anyways he would be like eating meat when he was in Afghanistan and I would get so upset with him. It was just so dumb. I'm like how are you going to do this, love God? Just so very condemning. If you didn't believe what I believed or you didn't act how I want to do, that actually, then it was wrong and it's just not good, it's not success.
Speaker 2:He's in Afghanistan and you're like sending him struples.
Speaker 1:I know when I was saying about me right. Right, yeah, we can laugh about it now, but at the time it was really serious and I was so dumb and anyways, when he got back I tried to make it work and this was my mantra. I kept saying, look, we can't beat him, join him. And so he was going down this really terrible spiral of just depression and maybe substance abuse. And I say that's why I ended up with so many tattoos, because I was like, yeah, let's just jump on this bandwagon and I'm just being revel and just drinking, doing drugs, get tattoos, just pull, send it.
Speaker 2:So you started getting tattoos, just out of a rebellious thing.
Speaker 1:He like I remember he went in to get a tattoo and I think I wanted to show him that I wasn't like this Christian goodie too. That was part of the reason. Like he was like you don't want to be intimate with me, even though we're buried at you, like all you say is I'm very condemning about everything he does, and so I was like you what You're right. So we're just like gonna let the pencils thing wave the other way and you just get desperate. You're just like trying to not get a divorce when you're 22. And obviously divorce in the Adventist world was like super taboo, so I definitely did not that's happened. So I was like trying to do everything I could to not let that happen.
Speaker 2:So, except lean on God, yeah, so after you find him in the frat house and he's yep, what happened? Was it just now? I'm not coming back, or what?
Speaker 1:I think we try to make it work on his part. He was always. He was always just there for it. I'd say I'd like to try. He'd be like okay, and then I'd be like this isn't working. And then he'd be like okay, like I don't know. But I think he just finally ripped the bandaid off. He's. I don't want any part of this. I think he felt like he was dragging me down and I, there it was, just there was nothing thriving. We're just. At one point we were just still married but living completely separate lives. I had moved to Orlando to like go to college, go back to college and and he lived in Gainesville and we like never saw each other, never thought I had a husband, but I never saw him, never spoke to him. One day I got emailed divorce papers which I didn't even know you could do. It came in an email.
Speaker 2:How did that hit you? Were you just good Now I can move on or were you Bad?
Speaker 1:No, not good. No, I remember waking my dad up at midnight or something and crying to him and I'm like, if just call him, dad, call him, and if you call him and you tell him he has to stay married to me, yeah, not good. Because I didn't have any sort of identity, Like I didn't know who I was, and in the small sense of the last little thread that I felt kept me connected to God was that I wasn't divorced. That I wasn't Because in my mind, if I, if Danny and I, had gotten divorced, then any person I would be with after that I am an adulterer, Because there was no justifiable biblical reason for divorce. So I did. I was like this small little thread that I felt was like holding me connected to God and I just didn't want it to break, which is stupid.
Speaker 2:This is sad, so so sad. So what was? What was next for you? What was?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we did get divorced and it was like just the nicest divorce you could ever imagine.
Speaker 2:This is a sweet divorce.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we like. I really vividly remember the day I got divorced. It was two days before my birthday. I was. I had made it into grad. I got into grad school and at this point Danny and I had been completely separated for years. But I was in grad school. I came back to to go court to get divorced. I didn't have a lawyer, I wasn't asking for alohoni, we don't have any kids, we have nothing, right? No shit. We were just. It wasn't even a thing, right? So we just meet up at the courthouse. He's a suit and tie. I'm going to dress, because I think you're supposed to dress up for court, as far as I knew, at the age of 23 or whatever. And, yeah, we, we sit down, we start going through pictures like all the family members, the dog just sitting there, and then his lawyer. He had a lawyer and she came up and she was like when is this girl going to get here? And Danny, this is her. But just because we were so friendly, it was like it was like seeing an old friend you hadn't seen in a really long time and we really care about each other and we're we're very kind. We're always kind to each other.
Speaker 2:Somehow sadder in my heart. I know you're here.
Speaker 1:The really sad part is we go into the courtroom and the judge comes in and he's wow, thank you guys so much for dressing up. You guys look like a real, you're really a sad list looking couple, thank you so much. And we're like no problem. And I'm on one side and he's on the other side and the judge looks to me and he goes I have to ask these questions. So I stand up and he says I don't think you've ever been through a divorce, but it's not a pleasant experience. But I, mine was probably as pleasant as it possibly could have been. But the judge asked he says is this marriage damaged beyond repair? And I said yes, judge, and I felt like Peter denying Christ three times because he asked three times. He said to me is this marriage damaged beyond repair? He asked again. I said yes, judge, and when he asked the third time, here is streaming down my face and then Danny's like hands in his face crying over there. And the lawyer was like upset that the judge had asked three times. She says this is unprecedented. And the judges I just don't get it. I just I don't get it. And I was like, yeah, I yeah, it's damaged beyond repair. But I think about. There are many regrets I have in life and, like I said, had I known then what I know now, I would have said no, like nothing's damaged beyond repair, because God's love is so powerful that it can fix anything that the kidneys is. Even though him and I are divorced, we are still very good friends and my career has been us and me is just super helpful. His heart being transformed in Christ has been, you know. Oh, don't tell us the end.
Speaker 2:But no, I think, I just think that. I just think, oh, it's just sad picturing you there.
Speaker 1:Oh, so sad, yeah, so sad. And then we got divorced and we walked out of the courthouse together and I'm crying and he walks me to my car and he gets going to do okay, this is so sad. I don't know who it is. What kind of divorce ends like that, but that's how it ended and that, I think, perpetuated the feeling that I had no right to divorce this person. But I had. Now, if I go and try and deal with another person, I'm an adulterer. There's no saving this. It's just unless they end up marrying Danny again. And that was kind of my plan. I thought, okay, maybe 10 years and then we'll, I'll just that way, I will be an adulterer, but then I'm an awesome.
Speaker 2:So so, after this, your plan moving forward was to get your career on track and who knows what's going to happen in the future, but it's mainly about your career.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just was like I want to finish college, and by this point though, I had found God again, and it's really crazy, I'm going to tell you. You probably have heard like a lot of ways that people find because I was thinking about it. I didn't want to think about this podcast too much, which I'm glad we did it quickly after you asked, because I was like, oh, I'm just going to think about this so much, I don't want to think about it. But I was thinking last night, the spirit brought to my memory what brought me back to God from all of this, and it's such a funny, weird, merrily thing. But I worked at a museum and I was like an educator at a museum and they used to have me do the dino digs presentation. People would come to the museum to see the dinosaur exhibits and I would I would just point to the dinosaur and give all these facts about all the dinosaur bones. And they handed me a packet and it was like this is basically all the information on all the dinosaur bones we have in the museum. Just memorize it and deliver it like it's a script. I was like, okay, cool, so I start reading through this dinosaur packet and it's 65 million years ago and I'm like I raised where that's not right. So, like interesting. So I started to let me do a little research on dinosaurs, like the dinosaurs we have in our exhibit, because I wanted to maybe give a little more facts than just what like the script. So I started to research all the bones we had in our dino exhibit and the information I found brought me back to God, and I know that's the craziest thing, but I just thought I have a seed like there's a creator, there's. We had a dinosaur in our exhibit, it's the like an Edmontosaurus. And there's another dinosaur called thethel, whatever, thoris, whatever. But they found this dinosaur. Its heart was like intact and it has a four-chambered heart, like a warm-blooded animal. The point of this is that heart is soft tissue. It wouldn't be 65 million years old. It was found in wad, submerged and mummified, enough because of catastrophism, the earth being flooded and they found a four-chambered heart and a dinosaur. And they're like, oh, dinosaurs are reptiles, whatever. And then, just until 2000,. They're like, oh, turned out, they're not right, they're warm-blooded, just like human beings, which is like a huge discovery. And I was like what is the way you're talking about this, right, like why is this little piece of information in the Washington Post and like nowhere else. Right, it's just the craziest thing. And then we have another dinosaur in the exhibit. It was called the thylosaurus and it has, like all the bones, have, symptoms of the bends. And the bends is when you get nitrogen bubbles in your blood and your butt because you come up from being down at depths too quickly and, if you think about, these dinosaurs would dive down deep to eat ammonites on the bottom of the ocean floor. But if you flood the earth and you raise the water levels, these dinosaurs have to dive way deep to try and get their food and then they come up too quickly and die from the bends and there's all the bends, and I'm so sad that is sad.
Speaker 2:Thyrannosaurus rex is trying to stay alive and he had to go to the bottom. He kept getting deeper and he came up and he died. It wasn't it all came out.
Speaker 1:It was the bend. Yeah, so those water dinosaurs not the T-rex but thylosaurus. But it's fine, whatever.
Speaker 2:Oh, what happened to the T-rex? He just drowned. I couldn't swim. Those short arms couldn't make it Little arms.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, I'm doing all this research so I'm like, oh my gosh. And that's when I found Walter Byes and he has this whole series on pensionism and I was I'm very evidence-based person and so it literally brought me to God. And the nerdiest, weirdest way. If you think there's only one way to get people to the Lord, there's not, because dinosaurs did it for me.
Speaker 2:Well, so did at one point. In the middle of all this, you forget about God, and this just brought you back to no. God is real, and if he's real, it means a lot, or you had to explain that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was not that I forgot, it was just I backburnered it. I actually went digging for other religions because I thought maybe I could free myself from feeling any sort of guilt or shame about how poorly my life is turning out, when I want to be like this perfect angel and it's like all falling apart. So I was like I'm gonna go to like a Buddhist temple and I was exploring so many other religions because I thought I would find peace maybe in a different religion and so he would forget about it. I was just trying to evade, like, all the feelings that I was having and I didn't, instead of just, and then finally it was like I came down to it. I was like you know what that's it? God is gone, god is real, he's the creator. So I'll just lean into these feelings of shame and guilt and I'll just, I'll go back to him and I'll just like on my hands and knees crawl and ask forgiveness and we'll just start again. We'll start again.
Speaker 2:How did that work?
Speaker 1:Not well, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work, yeah, not well.
Speaker 2:But you had a new start.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah, Whenever that means. I don't know what did that look like?
Speaker 2:What did that look like? Did it like a reduction of guilt, condemnation and shame, or what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just avoiding all of things that were bad, which is impossible. I was like I literally lived like a hermit. I had I moved to a different state at this point. I had graduated grad school, I got my doctorate Right, I'm achieving all of my goals, like I said I wanted to. I got my doctorate I when I everything I was supposed to be doing I was doing and I was like, okay, I've achieved all my goals. Why am I so unhappy, like, why do I feel so lacked? I don't have everything, anything whatever. And Austin and I we had been on and off through grad school. When I was in grad school and he you're like you just couldn't, he couldn't stand me. I was the most condemning person you will ever meet, super condemning, which is weird, because I swung so far one way in like a rebelling mode, and then I swung way back. I just there was no happy medium for me Either.
Speaker 2:I was like that is actually not weird. That is almost like the playbook for somebody who does that. That is very we see it all of the time is someone who starts out super strict, then all the way gets crazy and then is gonna over correct and make it up to God. You know what I'm saying? I'll make it up to you. Yes, I'll make it up. Being more condemning, and God's the whole time is no, babe, I love you.
Speaker 1:Just chill, yeah, so Austin would break up with me a lot Because I was so condemning. It was just like a non-feasible relationship. There's no foundation in it. That was positive. It was always just like. We knew we loved each other and we had a lot in common. Austin is my best friend we had all our hobbies are the same. It's a great. We super, super happy married now that we have this peace and love in Christ. But at the time when we were just like he was just not really raised in any sort of formal religion and he was just like he was just not really raised in any sort of formal religion and I'm coming at him with like adventism hitting him over the head, and I'm imagining that if you ever did anything with him that you didn't want to do, but then you did, and then you were condemning afterwards and then it's super confusing, super confusing, yeah. For instance, I, yeah and I'll say that if you, him and I were intimate, obviously before marriage, when I was like feeling so shameful and guilty, I'm like okay, we're not doing this anymore, it's wrong, we can't do it until we're married, and this guy's, this girl, is literally deranged Please For him. He's not feeling any condemnation and guilt or shame, right? He doesn't understand this weight that I'm carrying. He's not Christian. People were supposed to be happy and peaceful and I'm just like I am happy.
Speaker 2:Be happy like me, and we're never going to have sex.
Speaker 1:They makes me think. You know the phrase people. People say why, fine? And it says connected. But it's not connected. It says act like it. You say you're connected, then act like you're connected, and that's how I feel is I would say I'm happy, I'm at peace and that's what your face is like, and nothing about you is acting like you're happy and you're religion or you're at peace in your religion, and I was not.
Speaker 2:Matt, we broke up a lot. We broke up all the time Did he break up with you or did you break up with him more? Who he broke up?
Speaker 1:with me all the time. I think I broke up with him once, but he broke up with me all the time. I would have broken up with me. I don't really fault him for it. I was like there's a lot going on. All of this was just a lot so.
Speaker 2:So at this point did you live in Colorado?
Speaker 1:No. So then, after I graduated I did I ended up moving to Colorado and that was where I was like, okay, fresh star, hit the restart button. I moved out there. I knew no one, I didn't have any friends, I don't have family there, and I moved to one of the worst places in Colorado. Yeah, and I thought, okay, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna remove TV shows, I'm gonna remove bad music, I'm gonna just read Yep. No, it's gonna work right this time for sure, this time it'll work Right.
Speaker 2:I spoke a couple of weeks ago and I said something about that. The gospel wasn't about behavior modification and people were angry, they were upset and I was like bro, like who had who wanted to behavior-modificate so bad that they made the rules on top of rules on top of rules. And then Jesus showed up and they killed him. They didn't even know. They're just like, not you and with their behavior from the outside and Jesus is oh, you're cleaning the outside of the cup. Oh, where Use your whitewash tombs, bro?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like the inside is rotten and everyone's like. But then someone says shouldn't we just obey, even if we don't want to obey? And yes, of course, if you don't understand why you shouldn't cheat on your spouse, it is better that you don't cheat on your spouse, but at some point you're gonna need a new heart, right At some point you're gonna need. Jesus.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is what I wish. I could just go back. And this is the battle I'm facing now is with people around me, like my loved ones, like my parents specifically, um, my mom and dad. They just don't have this piece and this joy. I think they'll like again, they'll say they're connected, right, but they just their whole lifestyle is. It just doesn't seem like it, right. They seem so sad or they seem like I and I just think I talk to them now I'm like, okay, this is what it looks like. This is, I think, the relationship that was always in Tinder. This is how us, as God's children, we're always supposed to be like, how we're supposed to be postured. Because the whole prostrate on the floor, 30 last years on your back, it's just not. You can't have peace and joy when you're living that life. You can't just continue to modify your behavior. It just it doesn't work. Every single episode of this podcast is the fact for that information. You know you want to start gathering evidence statistically for this. It doesn't work. You can try and modify your behavior all you want, but it's more. It's just. It's more than that right. It's the transformative power that we get when we receive our identity in God.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. You burned your CDs, you burned your DVDs and books living in the desert.
Speaker 1:What was next? Yes, I was really sad. I had sad all the time. I actually had journals. I do a lot of journaling, just journal a lot of my feelings.
Speaker 2:They're very sadly hand drawn books. Now Very sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just I look back and read them and hear I'm just like what, what is this melancholy girl like, is she? And then COVID happened, so I was even more isolated from the world. And then I had just gotten to this point where everything I was posting on social media was like a scream for a sad girl being so sad. And and Caitlyn Sizemore palpated that to the T and she straight up messaged me she's are you okay? That was like, I think, lidue when she asked me are you okay?
Speaker 2:Do you remember the post that you had posted? Just outside of Colorado being sad. Somebody affirmed me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's probably something like that. This song is really accurate. Actually, it was something that was clearly just okay. Somebody should check on this girl and this Caitlyn did bless her heart.
Speaker 2:I want to introduce you to a friend of mine, bernice Benabe, and Bernice has been running with us for a while and I just wanted to ask you this question how did you come across good gospel?
Speaker 3:It was my daughter, my oldest daughter had, actually. We were in a conversation one day and she said she said something that I had like never heard before Like you know that the Bible doesn't call us sinners and I was like what? And that was about it and I thought, well, I gotta think about this. But a few weeks later we were at her house visiting and then, after we left her home about, we had a seven hour drive and about an hour or two into the drive she sent me a link to the Death to Life podcast for Jonathan Leonardo's episode, and so my husband and I were in the car for another six hours or so. So we said, well, let us listen. So we played it and it was something. I was really impressed with, his testimony and so that's, that's just. We just heard it and then it went to another episode automatically and we were like what is this? So after that I was just super curious and we went home and my husband said something at church about this message we had just heard on this podcast and there was a couple there who knew who he was and they talked to us after church a little bit about it and then I just wanted to know more about it, so I just looked it up. I love, love reality up and on YouTube and listen to a bunch of sermon, so that was my introduction to it.
Speaker 2:How has good gospel been a blessing in your life.
Speaker 3:It's really it to me. It feels like, well, what it is like? Freedom. It feels like you just not stressed about religious stuff and just love. It's really what the bottom line is just realizing how much you love by God and because of that you're able to look at people differently, look at situations differently. And the other thing that really has touched my life is thinking and knowing and living like God says. You are so living what the Bible says, what the word of God says over my life, and believing that's how I live.
Speaker 2:That's so beautiful. You've been a blessing to us in so many ways, and one of those ways is that you have decided to partner with us and donate to the ministry every month. What influenced you to make that next step in donating?
Speaker 3:Well, one of the things was the love reality came to our town and I had the privilege of hosting them at my home, hosted. We were hosted, yes, and I loved it, and what I observed was just not what they were saying, it was just the way they were living and the way that they were. Everyone that was there at my home was relating to each other and the community they have, and I actually craved that and it was such a blessing to me and I just felt like what we have, what we're given, what we make it's to give and to serve others, and I've been blessed so much by the Bible studies and all the different things I have listened and watched and the podcast sermons and the community that I wanted to share and I wanted to continue, and if I can do that, then I'm going to do it, so that's pretty much it for me.
Speaker 2:Praise the Lord. You know what, with people like Bernice donating, we're able to keep on doing the podcast and we really believe that the stories will never run out. If we keep preaching this gospel, that if we're able to keep preaching it we're able to keep putting out these stories, then there's always going to be more stories. So, bernice, I just want to thank you. You've been a blessing to us and I'm sure you will continue, not just financially, but with who you are, to bless us in the community. Thank you so much. Thank you All right, let's jump back into the episode.
Speaker 1:Do you remember?
Speaker 2:the post that you had posted just outside of Colorado being sad. Somebody affirmed me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was probably something like that. This song is really accurate. Actually, it was something that was clearly just okay. Somebody should check on this girl Once Caitlin did bless her heart.
Speaker 2:How did you know her?
Speaker 1:Caitlin Sandsmore. She lived in Ocala, florida, where I lived growing up. I met Caitlin when she was like 14 or something. She was really young. Yeah, she was really young.
Speaker 2:And her dad was a pastor. Shout out to Caitlin she's one of my favorite people. I love Caitlin.
Speaker 1:I love Caitlin, I'm in her. When she was very young, her dad was a pastor of our church or a co-past, I don't actually remember, but he was there pastoring for a while or something. And, yes, I know her family really well, besides Mars, actually, her dad married, officiated my first wedding.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, yeah, Very nice. Interesting and so you knew her back, then she reaches out. She's like what did you do?
Speaker 1:What I do. Yeah, she's like you seem really sad. And then, by this point, y'all snagged her up.
Speaker 2:So she was. If you want to hear that episode it's a wild episode Just scroll back and find Caitlin. And we were operating on some different kind of stuff back then. God be praised that he showed us a different way, but even she was rocking with it and so she called me. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she was for sure receiving it, which is the important part. I think that was. Yeah, that was just how we vibe. She, her and I not really spoken. I, we just you have friends on social media and I'm like I know this person from way back when. I'll just be their friend and it's not like we had like a great relationship, but she did. She called me out on my sad girl band side and she was like hey, there's this Bible study, friday night Bible study. Yeah, I think you should come on, I think that would be good for you. And I was like fine, because I'm like totally religious now, so Bible studies are all I do, so why not sell more of my time with Bible studies? So I remember very vividly she sends me like the link and it's Friday night and I go to like join, and then Zach and Connor send out a message and they're like name something came up, whatever we're going to have to cancel this Friday. And I went into my room and I wept. Oh, I just remember feeling like I really needed God in that moment and I felt so just abandoned, alone, desperate, just all every single sign emotion you could put on a human being. I was feeling it out and for no particular reason, nothing really. I think sad, sad things have happened to me. It's been a kind of a sad life, but I don't know why I was sad.
Speaker 2:I've been listening to them for the last hour. I could tell you why you were sad.
Speaker 1:I was very sad. And then they're like we'll be back next week. I was like great, I'm just going through a whole other week. This Bible study is going to change my life. Little did I know it was actually the Bible study that changed my life.
Speaker 2:And then, a week later, shout out to Zach and Connor man, but why are y'all be canceling Bible studies?
Speaker 1:Y'all almost messed her up.
Speaker 2:That's on y'all. Yeah, I knew it was on them. So a week later were you like what was it about this that you knew, you didn't know? But you're just like I just need more Jesus time and so this is a Friday night thing, that'll be good.
Speaker 1:Right. If I'm being honest, it was my time to flex on people. I was like I'm enjoying Bible study. I know everything there is to know about Bible. I went to Bible college. I am an Adventist, I know everything there is to know, and I'll quote a verse and I will. I was like, oh, I can go help somebody and in return, they'll help me and or for me and it'll make me feel less sad. It makes me feel like I'm not doing wrong things, because I'm here like spreading the word and these. Bible study needs me. That's what I was thinking. It needs me as much as well as I need it because I'm dumb. I was dumb. Yeah, that makes sense, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so interesting. You're like these people need me and then the Bible studies canceled and you're like what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's just a red flag, but they don't actually need me.
Speaker 2:So then you get on a week later. Was it everything you had hoped for? What was your experience?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it was. I hated every single one of these people. It was the war, it was the worst. And I got on there and everybody was talking about like, how happy they were and that like triggered me. I was like I was thinking these people? Serena went on there and she was like oh, I'm just, I've had so much joy in the Lord and I'm so happy. And she is she. I remember the sentence she said she's. I can literally step out on my front porch and the whole world be like burned down in front of me and I've lost everybody I love and know and I would still be happy. And I was like this girl is an idiot. She is so dumb. I was like she does not know pain and suffering. She's only saying this because she has no idea the depths of loss and pain and suffering. Little do I, did I know about her.
Speaker 2:If you want to know Serena knows pain and suffering, check out her episode.
Speaker 1:I'm just a plug for all. Yeah, she was speaking her truth in the Lord because she I didn't know that at the time. So when I was listening to her talk I was like she's an idiot and she's just. She's been so protected and sheltered her whole life so she can experience joy. And, like me, who I've suffered so I can't possibly experience joy and I certainly can't get joy from God. And that song, where it's your joy, comes in the morning and I wake up in the morning no joy, not working. That song is not a lie and I was super hostile, unnecessarily hostile, and me, like you know, spirit just like, like, just points right to the first one. I'm like all eyes are on me and I was like, basically, you guys should. I was like calling them hypocrites. I was like you cannot talk this way.
Speaker 2:What you're saying but you were saying this on there, you were just thinking this.
Speaker 1:No, no, I was saying that.
Speaker 2:That's how they knew. I was like all of this, like you raise your hand in the Bible study. Yes, christina, you're like. All y'all are hypocrites and none of y'all are happy Sabbath. Is that really?
Speaker 1:like what you can ask them, but I would say it may they'll probably be like it wasn't that bad, but it was bad. In my mind it was like I was like just a delinquent. I don't know why they were so patient. I know why. Now they obviously when you can see the battle inside somebody and you, just like you can't help it, like all the same smile, even though that person is going through it, you're just like we got to. Here's our next contestant step out to the podium.
Speaker 2:We love it so much. We love it so much. We love it when someone's just mad, because that means they're close.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying? They're so close.
Speaker 2:They're getting something. And we're just sitting there and people who have seen it before and we call them gospel junkies. They love the gospel so much, they just want to get on these Bible studies just to watch people who start to get mad and you're like, oh brother, just let go of my friend, you're almost there, yeah.
Speaker 1:Bring it in. Yeah, and like when someone's mad, the last thing they want to see is like all these smiling, loving faces at you. It's literally just like it fuels the devil in you. He's just raging and angry and I almost got off. I literally had my fingers on command queue to quit. That's how close I was and they just kept, like dude, just hitting me. You know what it was. It was just evidence-based and I think either Eddie or Serena I can't remember who said it. They all obviously are the reason I got it. But somebody said like when I was saying all this stuff, they were like who told you that? And I'm like we need who told me? The Bible told me right, and they're like who told like where? And then they just started hitting me with verses and I was like I pride myself on knowing my Bibles, so like when these verses, they're like Romans 8 1 is there there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus? I was like, wait, I had never heard those first before. What was the point you were trying to make?
Speaker 2:What were you, what were you trying to offer them that they were rejecting?
Speaker 1:That if you sin like David, you got over here. You can't be out here. I don't need to get God my God finance. I'm like I what, what were you saying? You crazy hypocrite blasts me on you. I was like trying to sprinkle holy water green. It was not good. It's just like we're supposed to feel terrible.
Speaker 2:That's what the Christian life is all about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just feel terrible all the time, like you're being crushed constantly. But which is down? You look back now and you're like, wow, that was so dumb, so dumb, yeah, and then they just like they just didn't stop there. The best word I would use for this is lying suffering. Hmm and it makes the emotional to even say that, but they just displayed the most epic amount of long suffering for a human being. You could, and probably at the to them. They're like now. She was easy hook, line and sinker. We got her in one step in, but For me it was. They were on the call with me until like past 1 am.
Speaker 2:On the first time. The first time oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a 9 pm Bible study, well into the early morning. Yeah, and they and I got it right, like I received it. And the next day I woke up and everybody, like they, kept asking me the next day, checking in on me, like how are you feelings? And I said I feel like I've been hit by a truck, because and I know, maybe that's not what you'd expect, but I Just felt like I had been run over. I I Was really aware of like all my joints, my body hurt. It was almost like it's almost like I had a demon torturing me, my physical body and it was like literally cast out of me, and so what was left was like this body, that was like you know, and it like it did. It took me like a week or so to sort of like what was the idea that you grasped on to at the end? Just thought God loves me and I am enough and I'm worthy and I didn't do anything wrong. What I mean by that is there's nothing I can do that would make him love me less, and he's not in the business of punishing me Now. He wants me to have peace and have joy and he's proud of me and, even though I Didn't hit the mark with some of my behavior is not who I am and, like the second, I was able to just posture myself and an identity is like first and foremost, I'm his daughter. It just like it literally freed me from a demon. That's how I feel.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:I had the saddest demon living in me, not even delinquent, or the Lydrick's.
Speaker 2:Your, your demons, favorite band was dashboard confessional, that's 100% yeah vindicated.
Speaker 1:Hands down all those songs. Yeah, it was, it's on repeat.
Speaker 2:Emo, you were tired, then you just felt beat up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I felt beat up. I felt like I've been like living in a cage, all crinkled, or someone had been beating up my body. And then, yeah, I just felt like I had run a marathon. I've never done that. Well, maybe I don't know what that feels like, but I don't know. It is really. It was and it was a while I that week I was experiencing some interesting things. I kept just relaying what they I just had in a few hours, a few Lot of hours with them, but I was trying to repeat some of the things I had heard just in my head to keep any of these thoughts from sticking, or the bad thoughts from sticking. And I remember my sister called me, my oldest sister, melissa, and she asked me to. She had asked me to do something for her and I did not do and I forgot to do it. And this was just a small thing where I noticed my heart was like I felt freed. It was a small thing. She asked me to do something and had not done. And I was on the phone with her and I went to lie. I Went to lie to her about why I had not done what she asked me to do and, literally, as the lie was coming up, I felt it catch in my throat and In my instilling spirit, was like you are daughter, is not how daughters behave. And I was like I just swallowed the lie and I told her a really sorry. I know you asked me to do this, I came up short, I didn't do it, but Let me take care of it for you now or whatever. But I know just that one moment stuck with me because I felt like it was the first Intersection where I noticed the behavior modification came from my identity being seated in something so Powerful and so transformative that my heart was moved to not do that, to to not behave in the way that I'm not. I'm not Created to behave. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, did you keep going back to the Bible study with what happened in the subsequent months? Yeah, kept going was like Eating it all talking about we were talking about you, because whenever Somebody gets it like we have this text thread and someone will send out something like yo, this person just got it was wild, and all of us like really want to know about it, we're like to lose, and so I remember I don't know if it was Eddie or somebody who's texting in is just yeah, this girl came to the Bible study and she's on it and we're just like let's go and we send all of our let's go gifs and so we were literally talking about you in the background. And I now know that I wasn't at that meeting because I remember seeing and hearing about it and I was like oh yeah. Okay, let's turn up somebody named Christina. That New is on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah it was. It was quite the experience. I will never forget it. It was. It's Forever in my heart and, yeah, I just kept going back into every week. I was just learning more and I was like feeling fresh. I don't know who. I wish I could give credit to this person. It may even be you. I'm not sure where I heard it, but somebody in this love reality group mentioned something called airplane thought, where you let a thought if it's a bad thought or whatever come into your brain, but you treat it like an airplane. You don't give it permission to land, you just let it keep on flying. I don't know where. I've heard it.
Speaker 2:Somebody I don't think it was me, but now I'm gonna steal it. I like it.
Speaker 1:So I call them airplane thoughts and that's what I was just practicing. I heard somebody say it one of those first Bible studies. I was like just trying to keep those thoughts from landing. I was like you can come in, but just we're gonna send you on your way and I was working. I was working really well and obviously spending more time like when, my Like when I postured myself as good and righteous. Then when I was reading the words felt good and righteous, they didn't feel extreme for condemning anymore, and so I was just like energized and feeling really good. And that's when Austin re-entered my life.
Speaker 2:And he's catching you on one swing in his mind You're like, oh, now she's on this kick right now. Okay, I'll see my exactly.
Speaker 1:Yes, so I literally Him and I had connected. He came back from being overseas and he was in Colorado and so we were leading the same state, but like he was on northern part of the state, I was in the film part. But we reconnected and I was like, hey, I found this new thing. I just wanted to tell you, look. And so I was like I just want you know that God loves me unconditionally, he loves you unconditionally, and in my behavior towards you and the path was not reflecting of unconditional love I told him I was like I'd really like for us to be friends and I'd like to love on you the way you deserve to be loved, and I hope we could have a friendship.
Speaker 2:And he was like, Okay, oh, by the way, I want to unconditionally love you as a friend, and I didn't do it before that's on me. But Jesus loves me so much, how are you How's?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, that's right, and so he was okay, whatever, like when he would bring up, when I would bring up God to him, before it was, he would be like a same thing, unnecessarily hostile. It's like it just reminds me so much of a demon, where you're like, where you're just like trying, they're just like they get so angry. You're like, oh god, you see God, if you like Just angry, that was I could be like saying God out of context and he would like flare up. You're like I wasn't talking about God, lord and Savior, I was just Anyway. So he just I couldn't bring up guy. He would ask, really just at the time I viewed them at this mean questions or Unnecessarily hostile questions. Like you'd be like oh yeah, well, if God's like the Creator, then like who created God, what it aliens created God? And you're just like I can't answer those questions. Right, so nobody can answer this question. He would frustrate me so much because he doesn't care to actually learn about this. He just wants to prove me wrong or put me in a corner and it would make me so angry and I'm like forget it, we're not talking about this. I'm like bringing. I'm like you're gonna love, just like that working and yeah. So when I approach this new way where I was like you know, I don't have to do anything for it, and this is what Austin and I have. We recently learned this, but I'm applying it to back then. I didn't know it then, but you know the story of Elijah when he was like running from Jezebel because she had killed the prophets and stuff, and he like runs like caves and he's God, just kill me, let's just tap out, let's end this. And God didn't really say or do anything particularly theological. He didn't really hit him with scripture reading. He just sent an angel to feed him and then he went and taken. That and I think that's the essence of my gospel ministry Is I just like to feed people and let them rest, because that's what I needed and that's what Austin needed. And Austin was also very sad. Right, I was posturing him. It was the less than I thought. You, you, I thought he was angry and he was hostile and he's mean, I thought he was evil. At one point I literally prayed. I was prayed God, like he's unsavable, like let's just cut this what we lose. Like just don't waste your time, lord, it's impot. Like this dude is rotten to the core and Um, and, of course, when you talk to him and hear his testimony you you can hear all that. But I was just like, so for sure that he was just like you. We could not be helped. But then when I realized that my identity and like how I viewed Austin through the lens that God views me and views all his children, and I was like, oh, shoot. And Then that big smile comes on your face when someone's angry about God because you're just like, oh, you don't know how much I'm gonna love you. I'm gonna feed you and I'm gonna let you rest and you're gonna take a nap and you're gonna feel so much better. So I Literally was just just loving on him like he asked these stupid questions again. He'd be like oh yeah, we're studio. If guys real that hop up the moon is Circle or whatever. Just stupid. And I heard me like I'm like, wow, what a great question. I love how curious you are. I love that you're thinking about all these things I never would have thought about. I don't know that answer, but it's a really good question. And here, just stare at me and you look, stop being so nice to me and I like I just love you. I just love you. You just need some love. I'm happy to love you. And Then he's still really resistant to all this. But him and I were just friends. We like we were just hanging out. We go snowboarding together. We really enjoyed one company. I have a good relationship with his brothers and his family. It was nice to like I Was in Colorado by myself and it was. It was nice to go back to be with people I knew and hanging out. It was fun. And then I'm really scared of driving in the snow. I have a car accident in the snow many years ago so I have. I live in Florida like there's no snow, so I have a fear of snow. So when I was driving going to Nebraska, even though there was like no forecasters, no I, I in January, I thought I could get him to come to these miles study, like this event, if I told him I was scared to drive in the snow. So I was like can you drive, would you mind? Like, if you're not busy this weekend, I'm really super grateful and he's like sure I will drive you Because you're scared of this, the snow that doesn't exist. So he came and that's where you met him for the first time and and he was super hostile there, he was just like me on my first Bible study.
Speaker 2:Don't, don't tell his story. Don't tell his story, we're gonna get. I want to hear but this is a weekend. I think it changed all of our lives. It changed mine for sure. But I want to hear. So you, just, you just heard a bunch of us were gonna be in Lincoln and you're like, yeah, like. I don't live far from there, I'm down to clown, and so you just you got Austin Lee and you're like let me get out there. Did you have any plans, or you just wanted to be with the people?
Speaker 1:I, I wanted to Be with everybody, meet everybody in person, and and I wanted to get baptized.
Speaker 2:Did you know it was like Serena's gonna baptize me, or did you like somebody's out there is gonna baptize me?
Speaker 1:I had. I was gonna ask Jonathan, but he hit me with. You know, the person who discipled you into this should be the one to baptize you. And so I asked Serena, you know, because that first Bible study with her was really, I Feel, like the opening of my entire experience. And she was very gracious and, of course, filled with love to do it. So I saw this was my plan, because my plan is bigger, is better than God's ultimate plan. You know, I was still learning. Okay, cuz like, even though you get into this, you still, you know, you gotta work out some kinks. So it's not gonna be a perfect experience, like I'm not saying I was like received this, that Bible study and everything was perfect. No, I was about the trick. Right, I received this. And then there's like you're just trying to fight it and then you're like okay. So I was like, okay, here's the plan. I will say I'm scared to drive this. Now he will drive me, I will get baptized, he will witness my baptism. It's gonna be such a moving and emotional experience that he will himself will be like I love God. I Was like I've been talking and I know, okay, also, I really did want to be baptized, but I'm trying to hook him into seeing me get baptized. I thought if you could see it with his own eyes, like it would, like it would trigger something, I don't know. Yes, it was. It was, I think, a really important experience. So I'm glad that, despite all of what was happening, we still managed to make it happen. And it was so funny because I kept apologizing for us that he would go up to somebody and just Angri face, mean, mug him. Yeah, I just ask really angry questions and it just marks off and then I go up to him I'm really sorry, she doesn't. He's not, he doesn't have it, he's not, he hasn't received this. I'm super and I go. He saw, I was like following around every person he would see I'd go up to him like I'm really sorry to ignore him. Oh gosh, it is so. Here's Plus his heart. I think the biggest thing that came out of there, because I was running around apologizing for his behavior. Tyler came up to me because Tyler, he Tyler was Very long suffering with Austin and all his questions, and so afterwards Tyler came up to me and he was like I was like I'm really sorry, he doesn't get it, he doesn't have this and he goes, yeah, he does. And I was like, no, you don't. And I was like, christina, the best thing you could do for him is to posture him like he already had it. And I was like, duh, right, it's so simple. Like he does have it, what? Who am I to saying he doesn't? Like, obviously, he has it, we all have it. I literally just went home and that was what I did I just posture. I got baptized there. I know they get affected. Awesome at all. Maybe it did. Maybe in his story he could tell you in some shining moment, but I don't know. I just postured him like he had it and I just I loved him and I said him and I let him rest, which I think is everything he needed. And then it was like the Grinch was, heart just grew and and yeah. And then we were on a train ride together and we had spent a weekend snowboarding and whatever, and he was telling me oh, I was trying to re-enter the dating scene. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, and he's I think he said something to affect. Oh, we spent a lot of time together. If I was going to take another girl out, it would be weird, though I spent my weekends hanging out with my ex and I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense. We probably should, probably should, cool it on our friendships no boarding trips. And he's yeah, so I think I might re-enter the dating scene. And I'm like, all right, I hope you find the right person and I go help, whatever. And he's so, I'd like to take you on a date, me. I'm just like, way over my head. I'm like me, yeah, you. I was like, oh yeah, that would be great, so, so, yeah, we Just started when he was saying that he was gonna re-enter the dating scene.
Speaker 2:Were you a little sad oh.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I was sad. I thought I think I was sad, not because I think I was just sad, because I felt like my the time I would get to to I, if the time I would get to love on this person I felt like would be diminished. I would lose that. And I can't express to you how my heart had changed so much for Austin that when I looked at him I felt sad for him. I was looking at a man. I used to look at him like he was angry and hostile and he's rotten to the core. And now I look at him like he was just, he was sad and he was. He doesn't know who he is and I'm like, oh, I just he just needs a little bit of love. And you just like people who are just like their behavior Is bad or what we would say not good, bad, and you're just thinking the reason they're behaving this way is because they just don't know how much like, how loved they are, like you just, oh, I just all love you, you just get so. So I just I think that's what made me sad is like the thought of, yeah, like he Would be spending time with another person and I wouldn't get to Love on him the way I felt like I should have been loving him those years before. Yeah, so you started dating.
Speaker 2:I think I want to stop here. I don't want to jump ahead. I want, and maybe if you come on at the end of his episode and we can wrap that up together. But as you're thinking of this journey, as you're thinking of all the stuff that you're thinking of All the stuff that has happened, and you can go back to a time, if you go back to man, sweet, sweet Christina walking out I guess that's the the thought that hits me, because, man, I don't normally cry. A tear almost came out of my eye when you were telling me that story of getting divorced In the courtroom. If you could go back to that sweet girl after your ex-husband drops you off at your car and you're just sitting in the car and you're about to take off. I have a feeling it's like a sunny day in Colorado and you're sitting in your car. I don't even know where it was.
Speaker 1:It was in Florida, yeah, so it was super sunny in Florida.
Speaker 2:And you're just sitting there crying. If you could grab sweet Christina, this girl who really wanted to do well but wasn't doing well and you could just pull her aside and tell her some things. What would you tell that girl?
Speaker 1:So many things, just like the first of all, first and foremost, I am not cursed because I felt cursed Like I felt like no one could love me or I didn't know how to properly love other people. I'm not cursed that. My savior was cursed on my behalf and I am enough. I wish I knew how much protection I had from misappropriation. My entire existence is sealed up and I wish I had known that then I would be. I've had been a lot less sad, like I told the eddy this, because you know when we talk and like us and I have been married for a year and a half and I just said this, past two years of my life have been filled with the most peace and the most joy I have ever experienced. And I'm 33 years old and I'm like, oh gosh, can I have had this 20 years ago? It would have been a whole different life experience. Right, life itself would have been so different. But yeah, I just filled with so much peace and joy and I have this verse that I, this verse that I was doing some verse mapping. But I had this verse from Ephesians. It's Ephesians 1, 13 and 14 and it says in him you also when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. And I was looking up, like some of these Greek words and Hebrew words, the Greek and Ephesians and the term for sealed up, that the Greek word for sealed in this verse. It comes from a couple of different versions of it, but if it comes from a Greek root, meaning protecting from misappropriation or like a mark of genuineness, right. And then same thing with the Greek word for earnest In this verse it means for security, like you're giving something in in advance, right. And it also the root of this earnest word means to braid. So when I ended up rereading this verse, having foundation of these new words, I had wrote a note to myself and I said I really love the primitive word of earnest, meaning to braid or intermix, because my guarantee is that my trust and faith in Christ braids me into his truth and promise of my salvation and I am now one with him. I hear and understand the gospel truth and entrust my spiritual well-being in Christ. So my identity as a daughter is protected from misappropriation and who I am is intermixed with Christ. So I have security in my salvation. I just have this beautiful image in my mind of I don't know. I Am held captive by a false father who has put, postured me in a position of lack, who has misappropriated me, who has put me, placed me somewhere I don't belong and lied to me, has fed me all these terrible things. And then I just look to my heavenly father and he's hey, I'm your real dad, I love you, you are righteous, you are perfect and you're so braided and intermixed with me that you are me and I don't know. Now, that is just. It's a impenetrable image and it can't be broken. Once you find it, you can't unsign it, you can't go back. There's no going back. It's just this way. That's it. We're not sad anymore, we're just sad girl vibes.
Speaker 2:God loves Christina huh.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'm the favorite. Or is Serena going to say I have confidence?
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for sharing your story. This has been such a blessing to me. I just feel so encouraged and you're a blessing. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me on. I'm really excited to get Lee on here and you're going to love it.
Speaker 2:You're going to love it so good. I can't wait. It's going to be fun.
Speaker 1:I love you Rich.
Speaker 2:Love you. I mean, the thing that stuck out to me about Christina and her story is this idea of behavior modification. And if we just modify our behavior and just change our behavior bit by bit by bit, that is what will get us righteousness. And while it is not wrong to have good behavior, there's only two things that can really happen if we modify our behavior and have some success. Number one if we do have success, then we become self-righteous and we start patting ourselves on the back and self-righteousness is no righteousness at all. So that's if you're even able to modify your behavior. If you can't modify your behavior and you're trying so hard but you're wrapped up, then you'll end up just jumping off the hamster wheel of religion altogether Because it wouldn't have had the answers that you wanted. And to hear Christina talk about this and just to think that that was her answer, you know what? The more I travel, the more I speak, I see that that's what people really believe and it does not have the answers. So I just want to encourage you. If you are worried of your standing with God, you know what legalism is. It's just not understanding our righteousness with God, our standing with God. If you want to know more about that. I want to plug you into loverealityorg. I want to plug you into that and watch those videos to see what you're standing is with God because of Jesus Christ. And if you're struggling to believe that right now, I just want to offer this prayer Just repeat it in your heart, repeat it in your mind, even speak it out. Father, thank you for making me right with you Through Jesus Christ. I believe that I was lost, but you sent Jesus and he brought me back to you on Eagle's Wings. So I am here now and I believe that, because you say I'm holy and blameless before you, that I am in fact holy and blameless before you, not because of something that I have done, but because you've loved me with an everlasting love and you sent Jesus on a rescue mission and he in fact rescued me. So I just thank you and I praise you, and I'll praise you forever in Jesus's name Amen.