Meet Hannah, who grew up in a strict religious environment, battled depression, and found her way to freedom and a deeper connection with God. Her story is about overcoming fear-based beliefs, discovering self-worth, and inspiring others to find their identity in Christ. Join us for a heartfelt conversation about her spiritual journey.

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0:00 - From Fear-Based Religion to Freedom
11:36 - Growing Up Religious, Discovering God's Love
24:39 - Homeschooled With Strict Religious Beliefs
31:07 - Finding Independence and Discovering Toxic Relationships
36:54 - Recognizing Unhealthy Family Patterns
41:10 - Struggling With Family and Identity
52:11 - Suicidal Thoughts to Dean Journey
59:29 - Transitioning to Independence and Overcoming Challenges
1:04:53 - Depression, Burnout, and Finding Community
1:17:01 - Quarter Life Crisis and Inner Struggles
1:20:06 - Loneliness and Coping Through TV Binge-Watching
1:24:38 - Experiencing God's Presence and Transformation
1:35:14 - The Journey to Finding Freedom
1:44:37 - Realizing God's Spirit Lives Within Me
1:49:23 - Being Set Apart for Good Works

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Speaker 1: 0:35

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: 0:51

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: 1:13

I remember saying to God I was like I would rather not be alive than not do life with you. I can't imagine not doing life with God. And because I believed that God and my dad had to say the same thing, it just seemed like life was impossible because I couldn't please my dad and so, in that sense, I honestly couldn't please God. And so, yeah, it was like the only way out of this is for me to no longer be here.

Speaker 2: 1:39

Yo, welcome to the Death to Life podcast. Today's episode is with my sister, hannah, and I don't think we've had an episode like this on here before. Hannah is a beautiful young lady that was caught up in legalism, yet she had such a sincere heart, she wanted to do what was right and she ended up judging her own fruit. This led to her kind of wanting to get away and in her getting away, life did not go the way she wanted it to go, which led to depression and questioning God, and it gets pretty heavy. But there is beautiful life when the life is revealed, the life that she's had all along. And so, yeah, if you're interested to hear a story from legalism to depression, to light, then I think you're going to appreciate this episode and you're going to appreciate Hannah's heart, hannah's heart as you can see it so clearly. There's going to be more to this story coming up and I'm excited for you to hear it. I love you all, appreciate you all, buckle up, strap in. Here is Hannah. So where does this start, hannah, for you? Where does this start your spiritual life?

Speaker 1: 3:09

Yeah, I was a kind of unusual kid when it comes to spiritual things. I was thinking about spiritual stuff ever since I was a really little kid. I remember being like five or six years old and I wouldn't be able to sleep at night because I was just worried that I had some sin that was keeping me from God and that I wouldn't go to heaven. And I would stay awake for hours just agonizing over the smallest little things and thinking like that God was telling me I had to confess them and, yeah, I had a very fear-based view of God even as a five-year-old.

Speaker 2: 3:49

How did you learn that? How are you lying in bed at five years old and just there, unconfessed sin?

Speaker 1: 3:58

Well, before I share anything about this in the podcast, because I will refer to this a few times, I love my parents a lot and God has done some crazy things in their lives in the last year, but they definitely did the best they knew how. But the best they knew how was mega fear-based religion, and so I grew up having knowing about God and the view that I had of God and that was kind of reinforced was very much performance fear-based, and so I think that's where that started.

Speaker 2: 4:33

May I shout out to Paul and Carolyn Raine what a bunch of sincere, beautiful people. Hopefully I can chat with them one day. Well, fear-based, so describe that. It's just describe that kind of belief.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Yeah, so the mindset and I believe this probably until I was like 20, was that we had to be perfect before Jesus came and that we had to like right now, jesus is our mediator, and all of this. But the mindset that I grew up with was that before Jesus came again, we had to live a period of time completely sinless, otherwise we wouldn't go to heaven, and only perfect people would go to heaven, and people who had gone a certain amount of time without sinning, and that Jesus would no longer be there for us to confess our sins to and would no longer be like leading to the Father on our behalf. So we had to be perfect, and so that just terrified me because I was like there's no way I can do that and so there's no way I'm going to go to heaven. Basically, I think I probably believe that until I was maybe 12 or 13. Yeah, man.

Speaker 2: 5:46

so there's this idea and I've been saying this a lot that there will not be one unrighteous person in heaven, and I do believe that there will not be one unrighteous person in heaven. And there also will not be one righteous person in heaven that is righteous because of something that they did Right, but because they have the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 6:06

Yeah, exactly yeah, and that's not what I, like, grew up believing. I believed that it was what I had to earn, and so I knew I couldn't earn it, and so I was just like, well, there's no hope.

Speaker 2: 6:19

Okay, so how did that manifest in your life like that kind of fear based, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Talk to me. So as a kid I didn't have the clear mental capacity to reason through that. So it was just like this feeling of fear and it's not like my whole life was completely dominated by it, but I would say a large portion of my life was dominated by that, just because ever since I was a kid, I really did love God and so I wanted to please him, and anytime I was less than perfect in my eyes, I wasn't pleasing him and I was a failure because of that. And so I think it was when I was around 12 that I really started to understand God's love a little bit more, started to have more of my own personal relationship with him, and I was like this just doesn't seem right. If God's so loving, it can't be this. He can't just be wanting to send everybody to hell. I was like that just doesn't make sense. But I still didn't understand the logic of it. I just started to think, okay, like I know God's loving, so he must have some way he's going to work this out. I didn't know what it was, but like I started to be able to think, okay, yeah, there's a chance that, like, I might be able to get to heaven, and that maybe I'm not a total failure, but I still didn't understand. You know why?

Speaker 2: 7:44

Man, that's dark, yeah, but there's some light. That you're. Why did you think there was a chance? Just because you're like God has to be love.

Speaker 1: 7:53

Yeah, I, as I look back, there were some friends in my life who were in my life for about 10, 12 years in a really close way as I was a kid, who were about 10 years older than me, and they really understood the love of God and they showed that love to me so clearly that, especially when I was that's, I think, the big thing when I was around 12, but I just started thinking like this has to be what God is like, like this love that I see from them and the way they treat me and care about me. That that's the love that God has. And I think that made me start to question some of my fear, because I was like those two things don't line up, like love, that great, and this fear like it doesn't fit. So it was like two realities that I was. I didn't know how to combine them, but somehow I thought they were both true.

Speaker 2: 8:50

Yeah, all right, all right, mercy. So you're going on in life. How's it going Like? What did you? What did you? How did you feel about yourself? Oh, terrible.

Speaker 1: 9:04

Totally terrible. I was never good enough. I was a failure. I had to perform. I was a huge people-cleaser, insanely, probably pretty codependent to you, just because I really thought that my value was based off of how happy I could keep everyone around me, especially my family and I also. My family was actually in ministry, so we would travel around speaking at different events between like 10 to 15 times a year, and like my whole family would go. My brother and I work home schooled and so, yeah, kind of the background for my life was being in ministry and kind of, in a way of like being a pastor's kid. I had to be an example to everybody around me, kind of thing, and so I just there was a lot of pressure put on me and I also then put a lot of pressure on myself, so my expectations for myself were very high and, of course, I could never I could never live up to them.

Speaker 2: 10:03

Wow, so you're feeling pretty bad. I think that we were talking about not considering yourself a sinner and how people are like no man, we can't, don't take that away from us. There's this thing where we really want to consider ourselves, this thing, because did you, did you? Do you know if you even thought that way, or was that just that's under? Tell me about that.

Speaker 1: 10:26

No, I don't think I really thought like the center thing wasn't ever a huge thing because, like I was a very cautious kind of like good kid, like I hated to do anything that would displease my parents or God or anyone around me, so I wasn't like out there doing these crazy things. I just didn't feel like I could live up to the expectations that people and God had on me. So it wasn't so much from a center perspective. It's just like I'm a failure, I'm not good enough, kind of kind of mindset.

Speaker 2: 11:00

So did you get homeschooled, even through high school?

Speaker 1: 11:03

I did. I was homeschooled all the way through. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:07

So did you have a chance to see how some of this thought, like this thought pattern, did manifest it in your life, or was it just pretty much just kind of growing up pretty religious?

Speaker 1: 11:23

Yeah, growing up pretty religious and like, even though we were homeschooled, but because we were traveling around the, you know, around the country and even around the world pretty much constantly. It wasn't the typical homeschool experience where you're just home and you never see anyone. But at the same time, all of the people that we were seeing were people who were in this same mindset that we were in. So I didn't really know there was much else out there. I knew there was people in the world who didn't believe in God, but I didn't really know until I started to get into my early teen years that there was Christianity beyond the super, super judgmental, legalistic religion that I was seeing around me. But God to this day I really don't know how he did it, because I hear so many different stories and somehow, despite growing up that way when I was I think it started like I was saying around like 12, 13, 14, started getting stronger and stronger. I just started to develop this really close relationship with God and, even though everything around me wasn't showing me this side of God's character, really I could hear him speaking to me, like I could hear the Holy Spirit speaking to me ever since I was a kid and the stuff that he would speak to me was not fully in line with the stuff that I was growing up around. It was a lot more love based and that he really cared about me and that I wasn't a failure. And I didn't know where to even put that in my head, and so I was like, well, maybe this isn't actually God. It seems too good to be true. But he was. He was speaking that to me from 12 or so and that that had a huge, a huge effect on me. Yeah, so I think 12, 13, 14, I would have times where I would feel really close to God and then I would feel super distant and I would think it was all my fault and I would obsess over is there anything I'm doing wrong that's separating me from God? Because I was just relying on my feelings. And then, as I got older I think I was 17 when I had the probably one of the biggest moments at that point in my relationship with God where I had just been I was really just wrestling a lot of different things, just feeling like I wanted to do more in ministry, like I also still wasn't good enough, and just all these different things. I don't even remember all that I was trying to figure out in my head. I'm a very introspective kind of person, so there's always like a lot going on in my head. So even as it, even as a teenager, there was just so much going on. I remember we were in Hawaii for a vacation and I was like sitting on the little fee wall out by the ocean in the morning to spend time with God and just like looking out at the ocean and God was just really speaking to me that like his love was that great and that unending and that limitless for me. And it just clicked for me on that trip in a way that it never had before and I just God was my best friend. And on that trip it just really clicked. But I just really, really loved him and I wanted to be talking to him constantly and it wasn't. There was a lot of things in my life that I was doing because I had to, but my relationship with God was never something I had to do, it was something that I really wanted. And on that trip it just clicked in an even deeper way that like he's really my best friend. So it's crazy, because I have these two different, I have that perspective of God and then, at the same time, I'm still living in megaloagalism and feeling like a failure and like I'm trash and all this stuff. But God was. God was really speaking his heart to me through all of it.

Speaker 2: 15:21

It's beautiful and I love the way that God just shines through. His goodness shines through and we may not. You didn't know you were legalistic. No, nobody who is knows that they're legalistic. No one's. I'm super legalistic, I talk about that all the time. And because if they knew that then they would be completely against it, and so you didn't know that. You just thought I just need to get this behavior right or whatever. And sometimes we just don't know how. So then yeah, keep going. What was happening?

Speaker 1: 15:55

Yeah, so some big things that were going on in my life and kind of shaping me at that point I a big ongoing theme was that I just always felt super alone. I felt partly because like the ministry lifestyle where we were like constantly traveling and like I was speaking up front ever since I was like five or six, so kind of people kind of viewed me, even my peers, like on a pedestal and like I was unrelatable and I mean, to be fair, I was pretty judgmental because of the way that I was growing up and that was what what did that look like? It looked like simple things Like I. I believe Julie was a sin and all these kinds of things, and my parents would would be like you can't be friends with people who were jewelry. And so, in my desire to stay friends with, some of my friends would start wearing jewelry and I'd be like, no, you can't do that. That's bad, because in my head I did believe that it was. It was wrong, but more than that, it was like I won't be able to stay friends with you if you wear this. So I have to convince you that it's not okay. Yeah, it was just I. I had a lot of mega distortions about what following God was supposed to look like and I couldn't really comprehend that anybody who wasn't following God in the same way that I had been raised to follow God really understood God's character.

Speaker 2: 17:17

That sounds sweet, though, like you want to still be their friend. So you're like, I don't really like you guys.

Speaker 1: 17:22

It was a good motive, but it didn't necessarily demonstrate itself in the best way.

Speaker 2: 17:30

Yeah, so you're, you're, you're upfront, you're kind of judgmental, but you felt alone.

Speaker 1: 17:36

I felt, yeah, very alone, because a lot of times I wouldn't connect with my peers because they viewed me as oh, she's the speaker, she's so holy, and I didn't view myself that way, but I guess that was the way other people viewed me and I'm a more introverted, quiet person and I guess sometimes that can come off as like super standoffish and I guess that's not how I felt, but I guess I came across that way sometimes. So I just didn't feel like a lot of people really understood where I was coming from. I would, I would have close friends and then kind of a recurring theme all the way through my life is that I would get close to people and then something would happen and they would leave. And it was never something consist. There was never a reason that I could pin it on that I wanted to be able to pin it on. Is it something I'm doing wrong that's making people leave? Is there something I can do better? In every situation it was. It was something different. Maybe they would move away, or they would get married, or they would get into a busy phase of life and they wouldn't have time anymore, or, you know, it was never something that I could change or do anything about. And so that kind of just developed this like big trust issues in my mind, because I was just like, yeah, like as soon as I get close to someone like I'm going to lose them, and so in all of that I think my that made my relationship with God even stronger, because I was like, well, he's the only person that like is actually here for me. And my relationship with my family at this point was, on the outside, very good. Internally in my head, I was just a huge people pleaser, was super dependent on making them happy, and they all had quite a bit stronger personalities in me, so I would. I just kind of tried to be whatever they needed me to be not consciously, but so it wasn't. Externally it looked great, but internally it wasn't really that great.

Speaker 2: 19:39

Sounds like a lot. It doesn't sound like there's clarity.

Speaker 1: 19:43

Nope, definitely not.

Speaker 2: 19:45

And I think that one of the things is when we start to step into this, the truth that God has actually freed us, the gospel, becomes very clear.

Speaker 1: 19:56

It becomes.

Speaker 2: 19:56

This is actually what happened, and I have the privilege to believe it. If I don't believe it, I'm just not living in reality. And so then the gospel, like before, is, just like this, nebulous. Do I have salvation?

Speaker 1: 20:12

Well, exactly, yeah, that was the big thing. In this time period. God was speaking such truth to me and I was hearing it, but, like, whenever I would do something where I would mess up and I don't know, I was externally I was like a really good kid, like I never did anything bad really, but in my head I was still not good enough. And so whenever I would do something that in my mind wasn't good enough or whatever, I would feel like such a failure and I would go back to God. I'd be like I'm so sorry and like a lot of times it was just not spending as much time with him as I wanted to, which was crazy as I look back, because like my heart really wanted to spend time with him, but we were on the road, we were traveling, doing ministry, so I didn't always have the time that I wanted to spend and I would feel so guilty and every time I would just so clearly hear God be like I never went anywhere. I still love you, you're not a failure, you're my kid. But in my head I was just like that's too good to be true. Like how can you possibly love me like that? I can't comprehend that. But the seed was there, he was planting that seed in my head. And so when I was 17, and I kind of had that moment where I did gain some clarity and I just realized like how much he loved me, because my experience with when I had gotten attached to someone in friendships, that person would leave in some way or another, I projected that onto God. And so as I started to feel really close to him, I was genuinely terrified that he was going to leave me and which is crazy when you think about that logically with everything the Bible says. But I really believe if I messed up, he was going to leave me and yeah, I might still be saved, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't feel his presence and I wouldn't be close to him. And so for about I don't know two to three years, I guess two years, 17 to 19, I was just desperately trying to be close to God because I was afraid that he was going to leave me and abandon me and that I was going to lose that relationship I had with him. And so the thought of losing that was just. It was like a fear that would. It was just always there. It was like controlling my life, basically.

Speaker 2: 22:29

So, yeah, how did that work? Did that get you closer to God, or?

Speaker 1: 22:33

No, I mean I did. It did motivate me to spend time with him because I was like I don't want to lose him, but it was. It was exhausting and after a couple of years I remember finally just being like I can't earn it or not. I didn't clearly think that, but it was more like I can't, I can't keep the stuff of being afraid that everything I do is not going to be good enough. And so I was just like God, it is what it is. I love you. I'm going to keep doing everything that I can to be close to you, but I'm just going to have to let go of the sphere because I I'm too exhausted to keep trying to do this. And somehow, through realizing that, as I kind of let go of trying to control that, I actually got super, super sick. I was traveling internationally, I don't even know what happened, but I got crazy sick and was like super in and out of it for a couple of days. And when I kind of came back to I wasn't like unconscious. But you know, when you're like crazy high fever and you've kind of you just you don't have any any comprehension of reality. And when I finally started feeling better, I just heard God speak to my heart. He was like hey, have you been trying to stay close to me the last couple of days? And I was like no, like I think I'm completely out of it. And he was like and I'm still here. And I was like wait, like I didn't do anything for this, and you're still here. And I think in that moment it kind of kind of clicked that like I didn't have to try so hard to keep him around, that he like actually wanted to be there.

Speaker 2: 24:04

Huh, I love that, yeah, so what happened next?

Speaker 1: 24:10

So next, I had grown up being homeschooled. I actually did college online as well, so I was home for college too.

Speaker 2: 24:18

That was the way that Did you want to go to regular college or were you like cool?

Speaker 1: 24:23

No, I kind of wanted to, but I would never admit that, because the way that I grew up was so conservative that even going to an Adventist school was like bad.

Speaker 2: 24:35

Tell me about that, If you're, and I'm not knocking it I don't understand it. If your plan is to never, to always, be in the house doing school from the house, then what's the plan for the future? You get out of the house when you go to a job.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Yeah, so this is really significant for future parts of the story. So I'm glad you brought that up. But yeah, the mindset was that the family was the most important thing and so staying with the family and under the influence and really it was controlled but your parents was super important. So that was like any kind of going to school was bad because it was. You were now away from the influence of your parents and the protection of your parents. So that extended all the way through high school. It wasn't an option. And then even into college. If I had said to my parents, hey, I'd like to go to Southern or Andrews or something like that, it would not even have remotely been an option. So I an option because it would be like, oh, you're away from the safeguard and the sheltering of your parents and even, you know, in a Christian setting. It was like, well, there's still bad things out there and you can't know anything about those things, and so the only way to protect from bad things was to keep your kids right next to you, keep them in your house, stop them really associating with anybody that didn't believe the same way. So, yeah, I was. I didn't know there was a lot more to the world, to be honest, so then, what about when do you leave that?

Speaker 2: 26:08

when you get married, then?

Speaker 1: 26:09

Yeah, basically, which is funny because it's like how are you going to meet anyone? But I don't know. The mindset was that you either you don't leave home until you get married or until you're like in your late twenties and by that point it's okay. Well, maybe you're enough of an adult now that you can leave home.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Is that the same for guys and girls, or is it mostly?

Speaker 1: 26:31

It's worse for girls. But it's definitely worse for girls because there's a lot of that kind of headship. I grew up with a lot of that headship theology which is like the man is over the woman and the parents are over their children, and so the children's religious duty is to obey their parents and the wife's religious duty is to obey her husband, Kind of. It would be said that like you obey God over them. But it wasn't really meant, because what was implied is that if your dad or your husband said something, it was like the voice of God. So if you thought God was saying something different, unless it was like explicitly in a 10 commandments kind of thing, then you just weren't hearing God right and you had to obey the authority. So it was a lot of really twisted stuff.

Speaker 2: 27:20

And I'm sure that from the sincerity of your folks' heart, I don't think it's supposed to sound like that or even come across like that.

Speaker 1: 27:28

No, and it was put on them too. I'm sure you'll hear this when you hear their stories. But yeah, like in hindsight, I can understand that a lot of what they were putting on my brother and I was just stuff that was being put on them and it was just a cycle and just an unfortunate one.

Speaker 2: 27:46

So college online and you were living. Where were you living at this point?

Speaker 1: 27:52

This point, we're actually living in Arizona. This was another part of the story. We believed that living as far away from the city as humanly possible was good, because we'd be more ready for the end times. So we were like off the grid. We lived two hours from town, two hours from church it was crazy man Two hours from church. We didn't really even go to church because we'd have to get up at seven o'clock in the morning and pack a breakfast and then pack a lunch. It was wild.

Speaker 2: 28:22

So what did you guys do then? You just had a church at home.

Speaker 1: 28:25

Just stayed at home all the time, other than like when we would go on our ministry trips. So yeah, it was. Either we were out there doing ministry to other people or we were at home in our own little bubble that whenever you're in a bubble that's that isolated but becomes toxic. So yeah, it was. But at the same time, god did use that in those four years that we lived in Arizona I think it was when I was 15 to 19. I had we didn't have any friends close by and it really pushed me to God even closer because that was literally all I had and God used that to really really strengthen my relationship with him. And yeah, but it was not. It wasn't a healthy, because it was a healthy period of my life for sure.

Speaker 2: 29:12

Okay, so how long were you doing that?

Speaker 1: 29:16

So we were in Arizona for four years. I did college online. I studied Christian counseling and because it was online, I was always a very motivated kid. Like I went through college so fast. I crammed my associates, bachelors and masters because it was self-paced so most people use self-paced to go slow. I was like, nope, I've got nothing to do out here, I'm going to rush to do this as fast as I can. So I finished my masters and I think I finished college in two years. I didn't have anything else to do.

Speaker 2: 29:53

How old were you when you were done with college? 19. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:01

I mean it wasn't like a, it wasn't a like accredited program, but it was like an actual masters degree and I just like.

Speaker 2: 30:10

I'll just rush. Wasn't an accredited program it wasn't accredited.

Speaker 1: 30:13

I didn't understand any of that at the time. My parents actually immigrated to the US from England and so they didn't really understand the American education system and we didn't ever go to public school or any kind of school, so we just didn't really understand how it worked. But it was like a legit Christian masters in Christian counseling. So it was a lot of work but it wasn't necessarily something that could earn me a lot of money. But at the same time, at this point in life I kind of skipped over this, I guess. But I knew, crazy, ever since I was 13 and I started to get just a little bit of a vision of God's love for me. I knew that like I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing ministry to young people which is funny because I was only 13 myself but like I just I just knew that, like I wanted to help other people and I think I didn't recognize this at the time but like I was going through so much like feeling alone and, just, you know, being so hard on myself that I subconsciously, I think I wanted to prevent other people from going through that same thing. And so it was partly like I want to share how much God loves me, but it was also partly like I want to stop other people from feeling the way I feel. Not that I realized that, but yeah. So I was super dedicated to want to do ministry full time, and so I finished my masters at 19 and then I wanted to work as a girls dean. So I applied while I talked to a friend of mine who was actually the girls dean at Wemar Academy in California a little Adventist Academy up in the mountains and she asked me to come and be the girls assistant dean for a year, and so I was like well, this will be great, because doing college online, you don't really have any opportunity for like experience. And so I was like, before I get a job, like I really need to put some of this stuff into into practice. And she was someone who I really respected and so I was like I could learn a lot from her. And, surprisingly, I really don't know how my parents let me go and do that, because the mindset was you stay home, and their view for our family was that my brother and I would carry on in this family ministry that they had and that one day we would get married and we would raise our kids in this family ministry and we would basically all be doing ministry together until we die. And because I wanted to do ministry, that just fit into that plan of theirs perfectly. But the difference was that I didn't really want to travel around and speak for the rest of my life. I really wanted to work intentionally with young people on a day to day basis, and so that's where the meaning was really interesting to me, because I was like you know, you actually really get to know these kids and build a relationship with them, and so so yeah, I got that, that position of being an assistant dean at Weemaw when I was 19 and left home for the first time ever at 19.

Speaker 2: 33:10

Yeah, you look like you're 19 now, so I don't know how long ago was there.

Speaker 1: 33:14

I'm 26. So this was seven years ago. Okay, yeah, I still look like I'm a kid, but so, yeah, up until that point it was the best year of my life. I, despite the fact I'd never been away from home I really wanted to be. I would never say that because I knew it would make my parents feel bad and I love them and wanted to feel bad. But I really wanted independence, not to do bad things, but just to more things that, on my mind, were viewed as bad things. I just wanted to figure myself out, and because I was such a people pleaser and I was so dependent on the thoughts of other people, I just spent my life constantly trying to please everybody around me, to the point that I didn't even know what my own feelings and emotions were, especially like when I was around my parents, because I just wanted to make them happy. And so there was part of me that just was desperate for independence, so that I could actually have my own thoughts and feelings. So I remember, like when my parents dropped me off at Weemaw, I set up my little room in the dorm. I was so happy oh my gosh, I was so happy. I was just like, wow, I get to think for myself and I get to be my own person. And I didn't even really have that much independence, I didn't even have a car, but in my head it was like it was so much independence.

Speaker 2: 34:32

No, I remember being dropped off at college and my parents leaving and I was like this is the most freedom I've ever had. And there were kids going to the same school that I was going to, that the curfew for freshmen was 11 o'clock at night and this was the most restriction that they had ever had and I was like, what you guys don't have, we didn't. It was just like we can do whatever we want until 11. This is crazy. That was me. What do we even do? We might go and get candy.

Speaker 1: 35:01

I know I would borrow a car occasionally from campus and on my day off I would like go to town and go to a coffee shop and just sit there and read my Bible. And I was like this is so crazy, I'm so independent, Okay.

Speaker 2: 35:19

So what kind of stuff do you feel like you really learned that year?

Speaker 1: 35:23

I learned so much.

Speaker 2: 35:24

Like you didn't know.

Speaker 1: 35:25

Yeah. So I you know most of my attention was on the kids and on ministry and I absolutely loved it. Like I loved it so much. I just felt like I was thriving, I was in my you know just what I always dreamed of doing. I really, really had an amazing time there. I learned so much from the head dean. That was just such a good. It was such a good season. But in the last few months that I was there, I had been away from my family for long enough. Now it was like six months or so that I started to be able to see some of the toxic things that I hadn't let myself see as a kid, because I was surrounded by it and I started to you didn't even know to see it Right, you just just like. I did know it in some ways, like there were. There were certain just relational things, especially between me and my dad, that were just not not healthy. Just, he was a very strong personality, I was a mega people pleaser and it was kind of this codependent relationship. I didn't fully realize that at the time, but I always felt as a kid something wasn't quite right about my relationship with my dad, but I didn't know really what it was and I always blamed it on myself for, oh, I'm just not being good enough, I'm not keeping him happy enough, or if he would ever be upset about something, it was my fault in my head. And so, being away and actually having the freedom to think for myself, I started to recognize maybe this isn't all my fault, maybe some of these patterns are, like, actually unhealthy. So I started to recognize that something was off in this relationship that I had with my dad and all this people pleasing and like all this blaming myself. And, like I said, I never talked to anyone about this ever because, I think partly because my family was in ministry we had this like view that like we couldn't have any problems and if we did have any problems, we certainly couldn't talk about them, because how could you be the family who's in family ministry and, like, actually have family problems?

Speaker 2: 37:22

What was the ministry really about? Like, what would you guys speak on?

Speaker 1: 37:25

Oh, it's all about family relationships. It was all about like marriage, like parent-kid relationships. So, yeah, that made this even worse, because here I am feeling like I don't have a great relationship with my dad, but our whole career is about what an amazing family we have, basically. So, yeah, I finally, for the first time I turned 20 by this point the friends that I had mentioned earlier when I was like 12 years old, who were like my big siblings and who really showed me God's love. I was still really close to them and they were really close family friends and so for the first time when I was 20, I remember talking to one of those friends and kind of just telling him about some of the family stuff and kind of just getting his advice and he was the most probably important mentor in my life in a lot of ways and just like showing me who God was, and so him and several other different people in those circles who had the same viewpoint that I did and that my parents did and all these different things about what religion was supposed to look like. But, yeah, basically I talked about some of that confusion with the family stuff for the first time and just started to. It wasn't like any any huge thing, but I just started to recognize like, oh, it's okay to actually recognize that there's some unhealthy things in our family, like it's okay to realize that and it's okay for me to have my own opinions and my own emotions, and like, and just realizing that, even though that's such a like incredibly basic thing, just realizing that I felt so much joy and freedom and I was just like I couldn't believe it. I was just like I don't have to take responsibility for everybody's bad mood and think that it's always my fault, and like I'm actually allowed to have some of my own feelings. And that was that was like a huge revelation for me. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 39:15

Wow, so how long were you at Weimar?

Speaker 1: 39:18

So I was there for nine months and my parents had been supportive of me going there, um, but after going there, I think, they realized like, oh wow, if she. I think they saw how much I was enjoying it and they, I think they got scared that I was going to leave home, basically. And so about six months into my time there, they were like we want you to come back after this year and move back in with us and be part of the family ministry until you get married. And it wasn't like do you want to do this? It wasn't like a request, it was like this is what you're going to do. And the way that I had been raised, I understood when the Bible says honor your parents. The way I understood that at the time was that you do whatever your parents tell you, unless it's like if they say go kill someone like you don't do that because that's clearly in the Bible that you don't do that. But unless it's like super clear in the Bible that it's something that you shouldn't do, then whatever your parents say is law, even up until up until you get married. So when my parents said you have to come home and you have to keep working with the family ministry. I didn't think I had a choice. I genuinely did, and so I tried to convince them for a little while. I'm so happy doing what I'm doing, I really want to be a dean, I really want to keep doing this kind of thing. But it didn't go anywhere. And so finally I was just like, okay, I'm going back. And because I had started to recognize some of the unhealthy just like unhealthy emotional elements within our family in those last few months at Weimar, I was really dreading going back into it because I hadn't built a strong enough foundation of figuring out how to make decisions with God and all of that. Yet I was still pretty codependent on wanting to keep everyone happy. But a lot of my mentors strongly encouraged me to go home to be with my family, and that was where God was leading me, and so I guess I just didn't think I had a choice. And so at the end of my year at Weimar, I was so sad to leave. I was devastated to leave, because I loved what I was doing, I loved the freedom, I just yeah, I was really sad, but I thought I didn't have a choice, so I moved back in with my family. Yeah, that was the beginning of the worst year of my life, and probably the worst year of my parents' lives too.

Speaker 2: 41:43

Why? What happened?

Speaker 1: 41:44

So I had started to figure some of these things out. I started to acknowledge some of the unhealthy things that were going on at home for the first time ever. And so then, moving back into that, after having the freedom that I'd had for a year, I moved back in and my parents are still thinking of me like I'm a teenager and that they can tell me everything that I'm supposed to do and also my whole codependent thing. I just went right back to desperate people pleasing, living in fear and all of this kind of stuff. But the problem is, before I had been living that way but I didn't know there was anything else, so it was okay. Now I was living that way, but I knew that I didn't. I knew that's not who I really was, because I had experienced just a freedom from being so worried about what everybody thought and like all of that. And so I was. It was rough, it was really rough. I also started talking to a guy. For that I had, growing up, I never dated. I was one of those people who believed like, oh, you don't date clear in your twenties because if you talk to guys when you're a teenager, it's bad and all this stuff. So I was like super, super crazy mindset with that. So I was 20 and I'd started talking to a guy for the first time and I really liked him and, long story short, he. I started to find out things about him that did not fit the outward appearance, that he was studying to be a pastor, and I started to find out that he was going to clubs on the weekends and stuff and I was just like, okay, it's something not right here and so I ended it before it officially turned into anything. But we still had feelings for each other, we would still talk, we were still friends and then he ended up leaving the church. He ended up coming out as trans and it was a very confusing time for me. I mean, I'm this conservative little girl who didn't really know anything about the world and the first guy that I liked comes out as trans and I was just. I was just really confused and that really threw me off of. So that was all kind of going on at the at the same time as this year that I moved back in with my family.

Speaker 2: 43:57

Man, I didn't see that one going that way. You're just like, yeah, I really like this person. I know they're going to be a pastor, just kidding.

Speaker 1: 44:06

I was very confused. I was very confused. So, yeah, this year when I moved back in with my family, my mom was dealing with a lot of health issues and my parents kind of viewed my role to be to take care of the family. My role was to do all the cooking and all the cleaning, because my mom was really too sick to do it at that point and so I wasn't really allowed to get a job, even though I had finished being a Weimar and was like the plan. My plan was that that was like my year of experience and then I was going to get a job of some kind, but that when I moved home I didn't realize that when I moved home. But once I had moved home it kind of became obvious that getting a job wasn't an option, in that I really was just home to carry on with the family ministry and do like all the cooking and all the cleaning.

Speaker 2: 44:55

And.

Speaker 1: 44:55

I don't mean that in a bad way. I deal with my own health issues and so I totally understand that my mom was dealing with a lot, but there was definitely some. This wasn't on the kid and I was definitely feeling like I had to be the parent in the relationship, not just when it came from carrying the responsibilities, but also the emotional. And that wasn't necessarily something my parents were specifically putting on me, but because my personality always felt like I had to take care of everybody, I didn't feel like I could have any of my own needs and it was all just about taking care of my family. So my parents could tell I wasn't happy. I tried really hard to act like I was happy, but I was really not happy. I was really depressed. I missed doing ministry, I missed having freedom, I missed. I was just like super caught up in this codependent thing without realizing it. I didn't know what was going on. I actually had been depressed for a lot of this time, but I just didn't know it. I think I had been dealing with depression ever since I was a teenager, but in my family we didn't really talk about mental health a lot. My parents are British and the British mindset. You just talk about that stuff, and so I didn't know that, I didn't know I was depressed, so I was dealing with that and then, yeah, it was just an extremely stressful time. I think my parents were dealing with a lot of stress because especially my dad had always had this vision that our family was going to be a happy family doing ministry together. And that wasn't. That's not how it was working. He could tell I wasn't happy, even though I was trying to act like I was, and so that caused a lot of tension. I felt like I had to fake it all the time to try and look happy, but I really wasn't, because I really wanted to put my degree to use and get a job and these different things. And there was still a lot of very unhealthy, just emotional. We didn't know how to communicate it was. It was just not good. And so this continued for I don't know, maybe six months or so, and just progressively I was just getting more and more depressed, more and more miserable, taking on more and more responsibility at home. I just really didn't have any kind of wife myself or I didn't have any friends where my parents lived, because at this point they were in Montana in the middle of nowhere. So I didn't have any friends, I didn't have really any life to myself. And I think the hardest thing in that time was that I had started to. I'd always been hearing God's voice speak to me, but I had started to understand that I had my own independent, personal relationship with God and I could listen to him. But now that I moved back in with my family, my parents view was that if they their opinion on anything, if it differed from what I believed, god was telling me that I wasn't hearing God and that it could only be their opinion of it. That was God. And not only did they believe that, but a lot of my mentors at that time had that same mindset that whatever your parents tell you is the voice of God, even if you're 20. So that really confused me. First of all, I already wanted to please them and then, secondly, they're saying anything they say is the voice of God and I just I still really strongly felt like God was calling me to work as a dean and continue ministry for young people. But my parents were saying, no, that's not what God is calling you to. So I was just really confused, I was depressed. It was just bad it was. It was really dark. So yeah, after, after a few months of that, I just put on a happy face, but it was just getting worse and worse. The tension was getting worse and worse. In my family, I think my dad was dealing with a lot and he was kind of just taking that out on on us. And so there was. It was not a peaceful environment. It was very stressful for all of us and it was just. It was pretty rough. And so I just started getting more and more desperate and feeling I can't live this way. It would have been one thing if I had known it was just going to be for a year to take care of my family. That was kind of different. But what they were saying was that I couldn't leave the house until I got married and I probably couldn't get a job until I got married. And I knew I just had this whole situation with this guy. That really messed me up, and so I was like there's no way I'm getting married anytime soon. And by this point I knew enough to know I don't know enough about myself, I don't know anything about myself, I'm not ready to get married, like I'll just end up being a codependent wife. But I and also I live in the middle of nowhere. Where am I going to meet someone? So getting married seemed like a very distant thing. So in my mind it was kind of like this life that I was living, this was what I was stuck with, and that was on my parents mind too, yeah, like I was going to be living at home taking care of them for the next five or more years, and that felt like an eternity at that age.

Speaker 2: 49:59

Wow, so what happened next?

Speaker 1: 50:03

At this point I started getting pretty suicidal because not because I didn't want to be alive, I did. I had so many dreams and things I wanted to do with my life, but the way I understood it, I felt like the passions and the gifts that God had given me for ministry weren't things that I could use and that I was trapped in this unhealthy environment that I couldn't get out of, because the Bible says obey your parents. And my parents were saying you have to stay here. And so I just believed I was stuck, like I really believed I was stuck, and I had no way out. And at this point, like I was kind of being and I think, like I said, my relationship with my parents has changed drastically since this point but my dad being a much stronger personality and me being people pleaser, I was kind of being manipulated in some ways, not intentionally, I know, but my opinions were no longer my opinions. I wasn't really hearing God's voice very clearly because when I would start to listen to it, it would say something different to what my dad was saying and I'd be like no, no, no, that can't be God, because God has to say the same thing as my dad. So I was just extremely confused. So I started getting pretty suicidal and I battled with those thoughts for several months and it just kept getting worse and worse. I wasn't really talking to anybody about it because we were still in this mindset of you can't talk bad about your family, so nobody really knew what was going on. The couple of people who did know what was going on were of the same mindset as my parents, and so they were saying, yeah, you just do whatever your parents tell you. And I was just like, but it doesn't make sense and I don't. I was just very confused. So, yeah, at this point I started getting really suicidal, really depressed, and it got what does that mean Were you coming up with a plan? Yeah, I mean, the crazy thing was like I had done my degree in counseling so I kind of knew, like, how this stuff worked and I counseled a lot of teenagers through suicidal tendencies and stuff, and so I knew a lot about it. And at first it was just, you know, fantasizing in my head about I wouldn't have to be here anymore. And then it came up with thinking about how would I do this, and then it went to Googling how to do this, and then it went to making a plan of how to do this and it was over a lot of months. But I remember it finally got to a head when I was just realizing like I cannot live like this anymore, like the family stuff was just getting more and more intense as far as just conflict and like it was just it was getting really, really difficult. And I, you know, I was just like I can't do this anymore. And the funny thing is because my relationship with God was so important to me, I never crossed my mind to just leave my relationship with God and go crazy and go do whatever I wanted. That wasn't even an option. I remember saying to God I was like I would rather not be alive than not do life with you. I can't imagine not doing life with God. And because I believed that God and my dad had to say the same thing, it just seemed like life was impossible because I couldn't please my dad, and so, in that sense, I obviously couldn't please God. And so, yeah, I was like the only way out of this is for me to no longer be here. And so I I had a plan, I knew how to execute it. I wasn't planning on doing it, I really didn't want to, but I was just so dark and I remember my brother and I went on a ski trip to some friends of ours, so we were away for a night and I didn't go skiing, I mean, I was just too depressed and stuff. I thought that my family knew that they were completely oblivious because I was really good at putting on a confront. But, yeah, I remember that night, like when we stayed at our friend's house. I had the car, because we had my parents' car for this trip and I knew that, if left up to myself, I wasn't strong enough anymore to resist these suicidal urges that I had, and I knew I was going to drive to the drugstore and buy something that I shouldn't buy and it was not going to end well and I didn't want that. But I knew I didn't have the resolve to not go through with it. And so I remember this kind of crazy. But I remember putting the keys to the car in my coat pocket and going downstairs to my friend's room who wasn't super close to her, so of course she didn't know anything about any of this and just saying, hey, can I leave my coat in your room overnight? Because that was literally the only way that I thought I could make it through the night without doing something. Of course I didn't want to tell her about anything, so I was like, well, if the keys are in the pocket of my coat, my coat is in her room, I won't do this. And so that's what I did. And that night I made the decision that I couldn't do this anymore. And so, instead of doing something, I would obviously regret and everyone around me would regret, and I'm like, okay, I'm going to tell my parents that I need to leave home because this isn't working. And so I made that decision to do that. And that didn't go well. It didn't go well at all. Just ended in a lot of just family grief and them feeling very betrayed and, understandably, they just didn't understand what was going on. It was we were all living in death and so there was just a lot of confusion. So, kind of to fast forward, I decided after that night, I decided I was going to leave home. I went home the next day, I told my parents and they were like no, that is not an option and we're going to have you do Neil Nebley's Depression Recovery Program, because that must be the problem For people who don't know, it's like a program that helps people deal with depression. And I was depressed, but I was depressed because of the stuff that was going on and so I was like, well, that's not going to help. But for whatever reason, I was still so much of a people pleaser, I was like no problem, I'll do whatever you say. I'm not entirely sure why I did that, but I was still so just like under that mindset and so I just went into mega performance mode to just try and prove to my family that like I was still a good kid and like I didn't have to make them sad and all this stuff, and just kind of forgot about my feelings entirely and just put all of my energy into you know, making them happy and I focused on Did you go to the Neil Nebley thing, or that was like how did it get resolved? They ended up saying that I didn't have to actually go to the program. I could do the program at home. So I did do the program at home and it honestly just made me angry because I was like, yeah, I already know most of this stuff and I agree that a lot of these getting good exercise that does help you with depression, but when it's from a specific situation that needs to be resolved, going on a walk is great, but it's probably not going to solve it. So it didn't help. But I did it. I did everything that would make me a good kid, so to speak. So I did all of that for a couple of months and I think that really made my parents happy, because they didn't I mean they weren't being malicious, they just didn't understand what was going on and on their minds. I was happy now because I had managed to put on such a happy face and like our family was doing good, because I was just doing whatever I felt like everybody around me needed. And so at this point my mom was dealing with some health stuff and it looked like we might have to stop traveling for the family ministry, and so my dad was like, hey, it looks like we're not going to be able to travel for the family ministry. You seem like you're doing much better. If you would like to apply to be a dean somewhere, you can do that. And I was just like what, how did this happen? So of course, I jump on the opportunity, I start applying to schools everywhere. I get accepted to be the actually the head girl's dean at a school in Tennessee, at a boarding school, and so I'm just like, finally, I have a way out, basically, and was just so excited about that, and so I just kept a good face for the next few months and then I moved out that next summer and went straight from that situation of being extremely depressed to being a terrible situation, to being a head girl's dean at 21 at a school I had never been to, in a place where I didn't know a soul. So, yeah, that was pretty crazy.

Speaker 2: 58:50

Exciting, yeah yeah. So you get down there, you're 21. And this is like a high school boarding school, high school boarding school.

Speaker 1: 59:04

It was a pretty small boarding school. I think the girls dorm was maybe like 20 kids when I first got there, but still I'm 21. I've gotten from having no independence, no ability to make my own decisions, to I now have a car. I now have my own four bedroom house attached to the dorm. I now have a job where I am like in charge of these kids and I didn't want to make it sound like I went there just to escape from the family stuff. I was extremely passionate about ministry and this was like my dream job, so I was super excited about it and just so excited to do what I had always wanted to do and just show God's love to these girls and just I think one of my biggest desires was that the lack of understanding and like people to listen to me that I had felt and how alone I had felt growing up. I never wanted another kid to feel that way. So I was like I'm going to love these kids and I'm going to be like that safe place for them and yeah, so I started out there. My first year there was actually so good, like I was just so happy to be doing what I love, to have the freedom to just be able to think for myself. And it was really good. It was a really positive year. I mean, I was working 80 hour weeks. I was just like all into this. I know you've you've deemed as well. So you, you know that lifestyle and I was just. I lived by myself, so I would have a house full of kids every weekend, all weekend. I just I loved it. I really did.

Speaker 2: 1:00:43

No, it can be a huge well you're. You could be a blessing for you, but also a blessing for so many people and shout out to Academy Dean, you're doing the Lord's work. Yeah and so, yeah. So you had a good year, your first year.

Speaker 1: 1:00:59

I did. I had a very good year. Things were better with my parents for the first half of the year, and then I don't even know what happened. I think my brother was talking about going away to college and so that sparked a bunch of family stuff because he was still living at home. He was a couple of years younger than me and then it sparked all this stuff with me and then came out that my parents didn't support me being away from home and they were asking me to come back. And by this point I gained enough independence that I was like no, I've made a commitment to be here and I know this is where God wants me to be and so I'm going to stay here. And that didn't go very well. It went very poorly and didn't end up having a lot of contact with my dad for a couple of months after some really rough conversations. But at this point I think that's significant, because at this point this was the first time in my life that I had actually stood up and said no to someone. I was I love you, but I know this is where God has asked me to be, so I'm not going to leave this job and come home. And I had never done that before, I had never said anything like that and I'd spent a lot of time praying and I had learned to hear God's voice more clearly. I had realized that all of that confusion that I was going through in that year, that I was at home, that wasn't God, that was just, you know, my parents not fully understanding God and me thinking that I just being super people pleasing so I was, and I actually, at first, when I moved out from home, I was dealing with a lot of anger towards God. I was just like why did you let me go through all of this? Why was this last year so horrible and all of these different things? And I had a pastor friend who really seemed to understand the gospel in a way I had never heard it before, and so I started doing Bible studies with him, not figuring out like doctrinally stuff, but just like figuring out about God's character, and that started to make a huge difference in the way that I saw God and I started to realize that he wasn't forcing me to do whatever my parents said and that some of the things that my parents were struggling with in that season were just things they were struggling with they weren't things that God was putting on them. And so that I started to gain some clarity, enough clarity that, even though it was extremely difficult for me, I was willing to actually say no to my parents. And that was a really positive step for me because it was acting on what I believed God was telling me, even when there was a lot of pushback. And I had never been able to do that in the past. In the past, when I received pushback, I would just cave into whatever people wanted me to knew. After that first year there, that first summer when things were really rough with my family, I started dealing with a lot of depression again. It was different to when I was living at home, but I started to recognize like, wow, I'm actually depressed and I'm no longer living in this environment. I'm actually living in a pretty good environment. And so I was like, okay, there must be something more. That's wrong. And so I started taking antidepressants for a little while, and that I know. Everybody has different experiences, but I actually had a very good experience and felt like I could think more clearly. My brain was just able to function better.

Speaker 2: 1:04:24

What was the root of your depression, do you think?

Speaker 1: 1:04:26

I think that it was partly genetic, partly some kind of brain chemical imbalance and I'll talk more about this later. But obviously when I was living with my family for that year it was my confusion about how I perceived God. But by this point, when I was working at the Academy, I was not living under those viewpoints of God. I still didn't understand the gospel fully by any stretch of the imagination. So the cause of my depression in that season it wasn't about my misperceptions of God anymore. I didn't think and I still viewed. I was still extremely hard on myself but I just felt really alone and a huge thing in this time period that was kind of from 21 took me a couple of years to get over that guy. That it was like the first guy I liked to turn out not to be who I thought he was and I was kind of like, well, I guess nobody's who they think they are and I was just like didn't want anything to do with guys for a couple of years. And then I was able to move past that and I always dreamed of being a wife and a mom one day. And by this point I was 21, never dated anyone and I was like I'm really, I'm really ready to do life with someone, and so that was kind of a big thing. And then just being in deaning, I didn't. I didn't have any time for friends. Really. My life was fully consumed by ministry and by the kids and I loved them so much. I genuinely loved my job, but it was entirely all consuming. I didn't have a life outside of that. So it was lonely a lot of times because my life was constant giving but never actually really taking any time for myself. So I think some of that was like some of the roots of the depression, but I think mostly it was some kind of some kind of chemical imbalance in my brain in some way, I don't know. So, yeah, I started taking antidepressants, started doing better, and I think the big thing then through those next few years was a lot of arguments with God about being single. A lot. I would. I would just be so upset that I was like God, I'm doing everything I can to serve you, everything I can to try and put myself out there. But at the same time my focus is on ministry and I was like I just don't understand why you won't bring me someone to share my life with. I just didn't get it. And I had a lot of experiences where it was just like one of those things where it was like all all the guys I liked never liked me and the guys who liked me I never liked. It was just one of those, one of those situations. And so there was every time I was interested in someone and they would start to show interest and then they'd end up dating someone else and it just it happened so many times that I was just, I just got really discouraged and I was like I'm never going to find someone, I'm going to be single for the rest of my life, and I know I was only 22. So it was kind of crazy, but so I was 22. I'd never dated anyone. All of my friends have been in multiple relationships and I was just like I don't get it. What's wrong with me? So, yeah, that was. That was kind of all a part of it. And then at this point I started to get burnt out with ministry because I was giving so much of myself. I was working 80 hour weeks. I would stay out till two in the morning counseling kids. I'd be up at five in the morning to wake them up. I was destroying my health because I was just working such crazy hours. But I loved it. But I think at the same time, part of my motivation for ministry was that I genuinely really did love these kids, and part of it was that I wanted to prevent them from going through some of the stuff that I had gone through. But I couldn't do that because I'm a human being. And so I started to realize it doesn't matter how much I give I can literally give to the point of breaking my health and I can't stop these kids from having pain in their lives and I can't make their lives. I can help, but I can't fix it. I can't make their lives better and that just became really discouraging. And then I just started to feel like, well, doesn't matter how much I do, it's never really going to make a difference and I'm never really going to be able to take away pain and suffering, which I mean, it's true, that's God's job, not mine. But I didn't realize that at the time. And then I started to deal with some health issues. I actually got Lyme disease when I was a kid and it had been in remissions, like a disease you get from being bitten by a tick, and that kind of came out my last year at the Academy, because I was working such crazy hours and I had mold in my house and just anyway, I just ended up being really sick. So my third year at the Academy I was super sick, struggling to get out of bed some days but still working 40, 50 hours a week, and I started to feel like, okay, this is not working. I physically don't think I can keep doing this. But I had absolutely no idea what I would do if I didn't do that, because my whole life it had been. Everything was about ministry. I grew up in a family ministry where I was doing ministry ever since I was like six, and then my degree was Christian counseling and I wanted to do ministry, and then deaning was like my passion, and so I'm starting to feel burnt out and like I don't have anything left to give, but I don't know what else to do. This is my life and like at this point I was like, oh, I'm probably never going to get married, like nobody is going to want to date me, and like this is a toxic, toxic viewpoint. And so I finally took it to God and started praying. I was like I don't know what to do next. I really don't, and I just felt like God was saying at the end of this school year quit working here and move to Andrews and get a job online and just live there and build community with people, which so, for the people who don't know, andrews is a Christian university in Michigan. I was done with school. Why Andrews? It's kind of a funny thing. I felt like God was putting my heart to move to near a university where there would be a community. But for me, it was Andrews because I hate hot weather and I love the beach and there's not a lot of places where you can have the beach. You hate hot weather and I love the beach and you love the beach. So Andrews are great because there's Lake Michigan and it's cold weather. So that was that was my life. Fair enough, fair enough. So, yeah, I let the Academy know that I was going to be finishing the end of that next school year and I was going to move to Andrews. I didn't know anybody there. I didn't even have a job at this point, but God ended up providing that it was just like an online customer service job that I would be able to make enough to make ends meet and I would be able to have a break from ministry for the first time in my life. So, yeah, pretty, pretty crazy. I finished my time at the Academy and I also in that last year. Of course, covid hit and so for three or four months the kids weren't there. We were doing classes online. So I'm living by myself in this four bedroom house, can't leave the house because of COVID stuff, can't have visitors because of all the COVID restrictions, and I'm just like entirely by myself. And that really forced me to deal with a lot of my loneliness. And just it was during that period that I was like God, I give to you my desire to have a husband and if I never have one, I never have one. I'll just try and live a happy single life. But I wasn't really happy and I would. I would surrender to God about it, but I would get angry at God so often and be like why haven't you given me anyone? Why do I always have to be alone? And yeah, well, interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:12:18

So you get up to Andrews.

Speaker 1: 1:12:19

So I get up to Andrews. My health is in a pretty bad place. My work stuff went pretty rough that last year with COVID there was a lot, of, a lot of really unfortunate situations that happened at the school that I was at and extremely stressful. So that time I moved up to Michigan I was just exhausted, not in a great place health-wise, but just ready for this, really excited for this new chapter and this new season and excited to just be able to actually try and build community for the first time. Because I grew up post school so I didn't have a community. I didn't go to college so I never had community and then I went straight into beaning and I had no time to have community, so I've literally never experienced having community in my life and that was kind of my priority in the season was to just build community and try to live in a community with other people. So, yeah, I get up to Andrews and during the summertime there's not many people at a university, and so that first summer I get there, I don't know anyone. I rent the whole apartment and for pretty much two and a half months I am completely by myself. So summers have kind of become a dark time for me because I would genuinely go weeks without seeing someone, or I'd see people in the grocery store, I would go to church, but I didn't know anybody at the church yet and I'm just not the kind of person to go inviting myself over to other people's houses. I'm just a little more shy. And so that first summer that I was there in Michigan didn't know anybody was just completely and entirely by myself. Yeah, it was a very lonely, very lonely summer. I dealt again with a lot of anger at God, like why am I alone? Why can't you know all my friends are getting made? Why can't I even have a boyfriend? It's a lot of a lot of darkness. And so then the school year started. I start. God connected me with some really incredible people. At Andrews I made some really good friends and just yeah, kind of threw myself into community and just connecting with people and at this point my relationship with God had been really growing a lot and ever since doing those Bible studies with that pastor friend of mine after I moved out, I just understanding God's character a lot more and he was my best friend. I love spending time with him. I was in a lot of ways, really enjoying this season of not being in ministry so that I could just spend quality time with God and spend quiet time with God, and that was really, really good for me. And so my focus was kind of on spending that time with God and on just building great community and just yeah, so I just had, I had an awesome year at Andrews. To be honest, it was great. So, yeah, that was the first year that I was there. That had to be three years ago now, and so after that first year, of course everyone leaves for summer break and I was dreading it. All year long I was dreading it. I was just like for two and a half months there's going to be nobody here and I'm just going to be up here by myself. And now I've experienced community and I just I was just really not excited about it. I would start dealing with depression again. I come off the anti-depressants a while before, just because I was having some side effects and so I hadn't been on anti-depressants for probably a couple of years by this point, and as the summer started to come around and everybody started to leave, I really started to feel depressed. There had been a guy that I was talking to that I really thought was going to go somewhere, and he kind of just ghosted me for no reason, or at least no reason that I understood, and so that happened right at the beginning of the summer, and so I was going into this two and a half to three months of not seeing anyone and just being pretty much completely alone, and I don't think I realized how depressed I was, because it wasn't like I was sad, I was just really closed down. And so during the summer I started to get really angry with God. This is last summer actually yeah, not this current summer, but last summer I was really angry with God. I started to question a lot of my life choices and kind of had this I had just turned 25. So I was kind of having this quarter life crisis where I was like what do I have to show for my life? I live in this little tiny room with no air conditioning and I have no friends here in the summer. I'm single, I have no prospects, I don't have a job that I. My job was great for earning money and giving me flexibility, but it wasn't my passion. And at this point I was like I don't know if I can go back to deaning, because at the end of my last experience, I just had a lot of really bad experiences with having to enforce legalism that I was no longer okay with and seeing that lead kids away from the church, and I was just like I don't know that I can enforce those kind of rules in that kind of way and I don't know what I'm going to do with my life, basically. And so I was questioning everything not God, existence kind of thing, but just what I was doing here and just really discouraged and just really mad at God, to be honest. Just really mad at God because I thought, hey, I've been like, I've been following him all this time, I've been trying to do things right and he's never going to give me my own, like I always wanted my own family and I was like I'm 25, never had a boyfriend, it's never going to happen, and I'm just going to be the single girl who lives in an apartment and never sees anybody for the rest of her life, and it was just. It was just not a great place to be. And I also felt the grounding factor in my life all the way through was like listening to God's voice, and last summer I just didn't feel like I could really hear him anymore, and so I was just just feeling really lost and confused. But I didn't want to talk about how angry I was at God, because it was kind of like like when you earn a disagreement with your best friend and it's like you're really mad at them, but they're still your best friends, so you don't want to talk bad about them. It was that. And so it was like I didn't want to tell anybody that I was mad at God, because some of my friends weren't necessarily in the best place in their relationship with God, and so I knew if I told them about it they'd be like oh yeah, God's so bad. And I was like no, I still love him, I'm just really mad at him right now. So yeah, it was just kind of in my own little dark, depressed. I'm mad at God but I still love him and I'm going to be single forever kind of world, kind of not sure what the point of my life was. And yeah, it was. It was pretty dark and a big thing and I kind of forgot to mention throughout all of the time I was, since I left home and even before that, as a kid it wasn't in the same way, but the way that I would cope is just to check out mentally and emotionally for weeks at a time. So as a kid I would just I just daydream or read a ton of books and I didn't know how to cope with what was going on in my life. So I just removed myself from it mentally and grossed myself in books or school. That was probably why I did my master's degree so quickly. When I didn't know how to cope with my life, I would just forget about it and just focus on school. And as I got older and as I left home, that came just became. I would just watch TV. I would binge watch TV seasons and seasons and I would just forget my life entirely and like when I was alone for months at a time in the summer. There was nobody to know what I was doing, there was nobody to talk to. I could legit watch a whole season of a show without going to bed for two days if I wanted to. I didn't do that, but like it was just my way of coping, I would check out, I would watch TV and I would work, and last summer that was pretty much what I did. I watched TV all summer and I worked all summer and I was about it. I would have these moments where I'd be like God, I miss you so much, I miss spending time with you. But then I'd be like but you haven't provided for me, you haven't provided people for me. I can't live this life of being completely alone and not talking to people for weeks. It's not healthy, but you haven't given me anything else. So this is just what I have and this is what I have to cope with. And because of this lack in my life, well, I'm just going to cope with it the best way I can, and that's going to be to binge watch TV. So that's where I was at last summer and it got to the end of last summer. You know, I was so lonely and just not in a good place not anything like back when I was living with my family. I wasn't suicidal or anything like that, but I was just. I was just lonely and sad. And I had a situation where there was a guy that I was friends with, who I wasn't even interested in, who made some suggestions of things that he wanted to do with me that I was extremely uncomfortable with and it just shook me. I was just like wait, why am I even? What is going on? And I'm even having these conversations? Or even though I wasn't okay with these suggestions and I made it very clear, I was still like how did I get so? Like how did I even get myself into this position? And it's not the other person's fault, it wasn't my fault, it was just, it was just a wake up call to me to be like whoa, like how am I? How did I even get here? How did I get into this place of such darkness and aloneness and the stuff that I'm even considering this. And so this was this was during the summer. I was walking the night of the conversation with that guy and I was just walking out by myself with God and I was like God, I've really gotten stuck in my head this summer. I've just I've just been watching TV. I've just been totally immersed in just walking out my feelings and walking out you and I don't know what to do. Now I need help and I don't know what to do. And it's crazy how God works actually. Well, to mention this, this is important during the summer. Chris he's on the podcast Chrisman now. He was hosting a group that was showing Wave 1's videos at Andrew's and I went to one of those. At that point I was, I was really depressed. I didn't know it, but I, my brain just wasn't functioning properly. I heard the first sermon I was like cool, yeah, I know, jesus paid for my sins. Yup, nothing new there. I didn't go back to any of the other ones, not cause I didn't think it was good, but I was just. There was just too much other stuff in my life. I was just like this isn't relevant to me right now. I'm telling you that's what I thought. And then that night that I'm out walking like I wasn't like super, super good friends with Chris, but I ended up walking past where I knew he was living and I just felt the Holy Spirit say you're telling me that you need help. I want you to text Chris and I want you to ask him if you can meet up and he can pray with you. And I was like God, I don't even know him that well, that's so weird, I don't want to do that. And God was just like you need to do it. And so I was in such a place of I need God to get through to me that I was like fine, I'm not going to sit here and think about this, I'm just going to text Chris right now, because I know I'll check it out If I don't. And so I was just like I texted him and I was just like, hey, I don't really know why I'm doing this, but I feel like God's telling me that I need to meet up with you and if you can pray with me, so can you do that? And he was like yeah, absolutely. And so I connect with him the next day, and he was just encouraging me that God did have really beautiful things in store for me and that I could trust God. And I was like I know I'm just mad at him, but that conversation with Chris kind of just made me, made me kind of reset my priorities and be like, okay, like I'm done like trying to block out everything and just like watching TV and all this stuff, and I really just want to lean on God, even though I don't feel like he can give him enough. And so that's kind of where my headspace was at at that point. And then over those next couple of months this is last September, october I just started to really experience God in more and more powerful ways. I felt like that silence that I had felt from God was finally broken and God was talking to me again. I was getting up early every morning to read my Bible. I actually started doing therapy and working through. Had God been?

Speaker 2: 1:24:33

silent that whole time? No, not at all.

Speaker 1: 1:24:34

Not at all. I just was so locked up in myself that I didn't hear him. Yeah. And now that I was, yeah, I started doing therapy. I actually got back on anti-depressants because it seemed like from what I had done with therapy that my depression wasn't from a place of self-hatred. I had gotten to a really healthy place mentally by last fall, but I was still dealing with depression where my brain just wasn't functioning properly. And so I started a different anti-depressant and it was like a light bulb came on, like my brain had been slow, I wasn't able to process, I was just checking out, and then I started this new medication and it was like my brain works. I can think Stuff makes sense to me now, and I think that was actually a huge thing, because there's obviously lots of different reasons for depression. But that was a huge thing that God used to help my brain to be able to just connect the dots to stuff, because when I heard the gospel in the summer, it just didn't click with me at all because my brain was just not in a place that it could comprehend it. And so at this point my brain is healthier. I'm getting up early spending time with God because there's nothing else I would rather do. I was just really in love with God, really excited about God, and during this time I felt like God clearly spoke to me I do have someone for you to marry and I want you to trust me and stop doubting me about it. And I was like, but God, how do I know that? How do I know that's what you're saying? And he was just like I want you to trust me. And so I was like okay, god, I choose to trust you with that, I choose to let go of it and I choose to give it to you completely and I'm not going to worry about it anymore. And this time it really changed. I really let go of it and I, for the first time, was genuinely content and happy being single. And even though, during that period, there was a guy that I talked to that I really, really liked, who was a really, just a really quality person, and he felt like God wasn't leading him towards me, after our first few dates and even through that situation, I was like God, I trust you, I know you're going to take care of me. So, yeah, we're getting to the good part now. So this is when you guys come to Andrews to do your LR tour. I hadn't listened to any of the podcasts at this point. I'd been exposed to little bits of it through Chris and Connor and Erica were at Andrews at this point, so I I've kind of heard little pieces, but not enough that really made sense to me.

Speaker 2: 1:27:12

What were the pieces?

Speaker 1: 1:27:13

Just freedom from sin and stuff. But because of the, the lifestyle that I had lived, I never really felt I didn't have like addictions to stuff that I was trying to break. I wasn't living this crazy lifestyle. So I was like, well, that doesn't really apply to me. This is kind of funny. But I was like I don't really need freedom from sin, I don't, I don't really feel like. I was like, yeah, god, god's given me that, cool. So it just didn't, it doesn't really go anywhere. And so around this time, actually in October, I started dealing with major health problems the Lyme disease that I had blared up so bad that I couldn't get out of bed a lot of days. I was really, really sick. And so I remember I wasn't going to any functions on campus because I was just I was too sick to get out of bed. And I remember knowing that lab reality was coming and I was like I really want to hear their stuff, I really want to learn more about this, and so I was like God, please give me the strength to be able to go to these meetings, because I really want to go. And he did, he did and I went to all but one of the nights and I watched that night on live stream and I remember meeting you. I don't remember I don't know if you remember this but I remember you coming up to me one of the nights and you were like so how's this landing? And I was like, yeah, it's really cool. It's not really anything new, but it's really good. Because it just it had no, no, no, no you hadn't clicked yet Like I was like this is really awesome, this is really cool, and I was feeling the Holy Spirit in a way I never had before. But I didn't fully get what it was all about. I was like this is incredible and I'm really excited about it, but I don't really know what's different.

Speaker 2: 1:28:49

When, when someone says this isn't really new, that's like a common one. But I'm like okay, and to me it just means they're not really grasped yet.

Speaker 1: 1:29:00

That's what it was. That's what it was. But the thing that stood out to me that week that, I think, is, I think is so powerful and I want to encourage you guys with this I remember saying to one of my friends who was there I was like I didn't feel like anything that they really talked about was totally new to me, because I had done a lot of reading and read a lot of different books about the gospel, so the doctrinal side of it wasn't entirely new to me. But I said I was like there's something different about them. I was like there's something, there's just something about all of them. And I didn't even really talk to any of you guys that week because I'm shy. I was like no, but I remember like when I was up front leading worship, I would see like you and Ruth and Tyler and you were just like worshiping so hardcore and you were just so happy. And I just remember thinking like this is different. I've never seen people so excited about the gospel and that was really what intrigued me. It was I love Jonathan's messages, but it was also like there's something actually different about these people and I want to figure out what that is. So I started listening to the podcast and yeah, so this was like middle of November. I started listening to the podcast. I started watching wave one, wave two, basically getting my hands on everything that I could. I was still really sick during this time. I was only working part time, so I had a lot of time to listen, a lot of time to just kind of delve into all of this stuff, and it wasn't one of those momentary things. I think I actually messaged you about this back then. I was like I hear all these stories and people where it's like, all of a sudden they're free and I'm like but I feel like I've had elements of that all along the secret place with God. I'd been doing that since I was like 12. So I was like, well, that's not new, and this whole like freedom from sin thing is not totally new either, but it was. When I listened to wave two about healing from sin, that was what really hit me, because what I wasn't really battling so much with trying to be free from sin in my own life, I was still in bondage to sin and wrong as it had been put on me by other people. You know, I still, even though my relationship with my parents was a lot better by this point. I still I still struggled. I'd forgiven them, but I still struggled being around them just because of the past stuff. And, yeah, I still had a lot of that. I didn't have a freedom from offense kind of mindset. It was why did this for you and nobody cares about me as much as I care for them, and just all of this, this mentality. And so, listening to wave two about healing from sin, at first I was like I don't agree with this. I remember hearing baby story and I was like I don't agree with that. How can she say she's healed from all this stuff that's happened to her? It's still happened to her and still trauma, and but I kept listening and it just started to click and I was like okay, god really has done everything and it start. All of those things that God had been speaking to me over the years started to make sense and like I started to understand the doctrine and the logic of why God loved me the way that he did and that the Holy Spirit was not actually going to leave me. And just all of this stuff just started to click all at once and I was just like whoa.

Speaker 2: 1:32:29

Okay, we want to take a quick break right now and I want to introduce you to my friend, chloe. And Chloe, how long have you been rocking with Good Gospel?

Speaker 3: 1:32:40

I've been rocking with Good Gospel for four years now. Or how did you come across this message, man. I came across this message one summer in the sweet state of Hawaii at summer camp, surrounded by just a beautiful family of believers who just poured in their love and spoke life over me, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:33:06

How has this understanding and revelation, how has it changed your life?

Speaker 3: 1:33:10

It's changed every aspect of my life. The biggest thing it's changed is I now know that I'm loved and I have belonged in somewhere.

Speaker 2: 1:33:22

Mercy. So what made you decide to donate of your finances to keep the podcast going?

Speaker 3: 1:33:30

Stories need to be told because I know how much has impacted me to. It's one thing to read the Bible and I encourage that and it's beautiful, but what really changed my life and really helped a lot of this click for me was hearing the stories and experiences and the testimonies that people had to share, and that's what it really impacted my life, because I can see my story in every single person's story on this podcast, even if they have lived completely different lives. For me, I relate to every single person in some way.

Speaker 2: 1:34:09

Well, thank you so much, Chloe. You're a blessing to us and a testimony to us, and if you would like to donate to get these stories to keep going out there, you can go to loverealityorg and go to donate and donate to the Death to Life podcast, because we're just convinced that as long as we keep preaching gospel, these stories are going to be out there and we want to be able to get them out there, and I read what you said to me. He said hey, I just want to reach out and say thank you for the ministry and the podcast. I've been listening to it the last few weeks and all clicking for me and I was like, wow, this is on December 19. Somehow it was like my heart knew it for a long time, but I couldn't articulate it or fully understand even what God was saying. But now it's making more and more logical sense and I'm just realizing this is at the root of everything. It's crazy how much the truth really does set us free, and it's wild how it spreads like fire. I'm having so many cool interactions with people that can only come from God, as I'm sharing what he's doing and I'm just barely knowing how to articulate it. I'm so excited. And then you said this thing the realization that every sin comes from a lie we believe, and the sin is not so much the behavior as it is believing the lie. I've always believed the lies that affect me more internally than externally, so living a lifestyle of sin wasn't something I thought I battled with as much, but I was constantly struggling with not to see myself as crap and lacking. And that lack would make me feel like I had to provide for myself. But I'm realizing where my true value lies. I think, yeah, that was all on the same day. Yeah, I remember sending you that message Was this like a month after we had been there. And I'm like, oh cool, because sometimes we'll go and we'll preach and people are like, oh yeah, nice, you guys are cool people, nice. And we're like waiting to see young people. Are the wheels turning? Are you seeing it? And then a month later you're just man. That was such a blessing to receive that and encouragement to me that, oh man, some of this stuff is starting to make sense.

Speaker 1: 1:36:08

Oh yeah, it was crazy, and this is probably one of my favorite parts of the story. I've shared how, during the summer times when everyone would leave, I would get so sad, I'd feel so alone. I'd just be binge watching TV. And this time I had gone to see my family over Thanksgiving break and at Christmas break and I was along. I live a long way from my family and so I and I was still really sick at this point and so I wasn't really up to traveling, so I was going to be home by myself for two and a half weeks, like my housemate was gone, everybody at Andrews was gone. It's Christmas break, so I was like completely by myself. Not just this is Christmas. I wasn't going to see a soul on Christmas. I wasn't doing anything for the holidays, and in the past that would have me mega in my feels. I'd be like why am I single and I can't even spend Christmas with anyone and all this stuff? And this time it was so different. God was setting me free from that lie of living in lack. I think that was the biggest lie that I believe and why I was always so angry at God. Or I wouldn't have times where I was so angry because I was like God, you're not giving me enough. I don't have people in my life like how am I supposed to function like this and all of this stuff and this this Christmas, I was like I'm going to make the most of these two and a half weeks and I'm going to spend this time with God and I'm going to treasure every moment of this. And I'm seeing this as, oh my gosh, is going to be the worst Christmas ever. I was like I'm going to embrace this as the best Christmas ever I get to spend these weeks just God, just me and God. And it was one of the most beautiful seasons of my whole life. We ended up having a huge snowstorm. I couldn't leave the house for 10 days, so I legit did not go out. Church got canceled. I genuinely was stuck in my house by myself for 10 days alone, for two and a half weeks over Christmas, and I was so happy. I was so happy because I would still have those moments where I'd be like, come on, you know you're 26 years old and you're living Christmas by yourself in your apartment and you're sick and you can't get out of bed and all that stuff. What are you doing with your life, and in those moments, I feel like God would just speak so clearly to me and be like so, are you going to believe me, or are you going to believe those feelings? And I'd be like okay, god, you have said I had promises taped on my bedside table. I actually wrote down something that you said in one of the podcasts, something about God never positions us in lack, and when we're thinking in lack, that's not from God. And so I was just reaffirming that truth and choosing to believe that truth, and those were probably two of the best weeks of my life. Yeah, I did. I was so afraid at the beginning because every other time that that happened, I just would start off with really good intention to spend time with God, and I would end up binge watching TV and I was like, god, I'm going to do it again, I'm going to do it again. And he was like no, you're free from that, so stop believing that you're going to do it again. I was like, okay, and I didn't. It's not like I never, never, watched anything, but I wasn't running from anything anymore.

Speaker 2: 1:39:16

Yeah, man that's so powerful.

Speaker 1: 1:39:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:39:20

So how did you keep on growing?

Speaker 1: 1:39:22

Oh, my gosh. I just love this part of the story so much. So I had never really talked to my parents about anything God was teaching me. We had a great superficial relationship, but they didn't really know anything that was really going on in my life. And I remember during this Christmas break I was going to all the Bible studies, all the gospel community Bible studies and I ended up connecting with Serena after one of those and I had listened to her podcast and heard how she was like sharing this stuff with her dad and she was encouraging me. She was like God's going to use you to share this stuff. And I remember thinking I don't want to share this with my parents, I don't want to talk to them about this, because I just don't talk to them about personal stuff like that. But I was so excited about it that I just ended up calling them on Christmas day and calling them about it for two and a half hours and I was just like this stuff is so cool and I got off the phone with them and I was like what did I just do? I didn't even try to have that conversation. I just can't contain this, and so they didn't really comprehend what I was saying. But they loved me and they were like, okay, our daughter's really excited about this stuff. So my mom was like I'll join the Bible studies so that I can connect with my daughter. So she starts going to the Bible studies too and I just keep sharing more and more stuff with them, sending them the podcast, and they start being really open to it and they start joining the studies listening to the podcast. And then they start calling me and asking me questions and they're like so what about this and about that and all these different things? And it could only be God because some of the darkest parts of my life were to do with, just like, some of this confusion between what I thought God was telling me and what my parents were telling me and it could only be God that then he used me to share that stuff with my parents and have those conversations with them and them find freedom through that. It's just crazy, crazy stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:41:25

What kind of questions were they asking?

Speaker 1: 1:41:27

Yeah, just what about forgiveness? How do we forgive other people? And I was like, well, we don't take offense. And we even had conversations about that year that I was there and we talked about that. And they were like, yeah, well, I don't want to get into their story too much, but they were just trying to figure out what does this gospel stuff really mean? And so I would. Basically, I was just sharing with them what God was teaching me and they were like we can see such a difference in you. This stuff has to be like legit, you're so happy, something's going on here. And my circumstances at this point were not any better. I was still so sick I could barely get out of bed. I actually got even more sick in January time. I was just in a really bad way. Of course, that was hard financially because I was almost not able to work anymore, and it's just. My circumstances were worse than ever. I was just as single as ever. I couldn't go to any events on campus and I was so happy. I was just full of so much joy and peace, and I am so thankful that God gave me that joy and that freedom before he answered those prayers and just the answers that I'm walking in now. I'm so thankful that I didn't experience those, until I had experienced freedom in those circumstances.

Speaker 2: 1:42:45

When did you do your testimony?

Speaker 1: 1:42:46

So my testimony at Andrew's yeah that was middle of January, chris asked me to speak.

Speaker 2: 1:42:54

And you were super sick that day.

Speaker 1: 1:42:56

Well, yeah, I was crazy, crazy sick that whole time and I was just like God, you're going to have to give me the strength. And he did and, yeah, I share it it was. It was cool because it was the same building that you guys did. There's a whole LR tour in and just two months later I'm there sharing like how God set me free from lack and I'm still, physically speaking, I'm still living in lack. I still don't, I'm still struggling with money to pay my bills, I'm still sick, I still don't have money for doctors. But I wasn't living in lack because I just knew God was going to provide and the year it was.

Speaker 2: 1:43:32

And so you became a normal face on the Bible studies. We got to know you, and I don't want to go too much further because I think I want to save this for a different podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:43:43

Oh yeah, you know some of this yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:43:49

But super exciting stuff coming up. So if you see somebody else, come on here, you'll, you'll know what I'm talking about. That's what we call a teaser in the biz. But what became the truest thing about you as you were just growing and just being more and more rooted in this thing?

Speaker 1: 1:44:08

One of the biggest things I realized during this time was like God's spirit lives in me and I remember asking this question, actually when you guys were at Andrews, jonathan did like an anonymous question and answer thing, and something I was really wrestling with that week was like that verse don't grieve the Holy Spirit. And I had always understood that and been told that that verse meant if you grieve the Holy Spirit, he'll leave you, which is funny because that's not actually what the verse says, but that's what I thought and so I put in a question and you know saying like how do we know the Holy Spirit's not going to leave us? I just remember Jonathan's answer. He just he reads the question, or Chris reads him the question. He's just like, well, the Bible says I will never leave you and forsake you. So boom. And I was like what, that's all he's going to say. And like that I was thinking about I'm like maybe he's right and like I went back and like I was like reading those verses, like during the question and answer thing, and I was like it's true, he doesn't say he's going to leave us. And so I think that was one of the most powerful things to me is like I really felt the Holy Spirit living inside of me and even in the moments where I didn't feel it in the past was kind of this roller coaster of I would feel close to God and then I would angry at God and like now that was done because, yeah, I would have those feelings still sometimes, but I would be like, but he still lives in me and I would just go and I would read those verses and the word that God gave me like every year that God gives me a word to focus on and for 2023, the word was believe, which is super significant in future things. But anyway, so yeah, I just felt like God was saying believe me and I chose to believe him. And as I was starting to believe him more and more, I was just like, oh my gosh, like God is so powerful and his spirit is so powerful and I just couldn't believe that. I was just telling everybody about it and, yeah, it was so beautiful.

Speaker 2: 1:46:09

So you know how we do this. At the end of these, I like to take it back to a time, and I guess the time that is standing out the most to me is this time that you come back from me and and everything starts to get in your for you. If you were able to just talk to this sweet, sweet girl who was just wanted so much to, had all these dreams and plans and it seemed like none of it was going to happen, what would you? What would you tell that girl now?

Speaker 1: 1:46:39

Oh, wow. I think I would just tell her, like all of those things, that you felt the Holy Spirit speaking to you ever since you were a kid. That just didn't make sense in light of the way you were growing up. Like those things are true and that God has been speaking to you all the way through and he has been leading in your life. And it doesn't matter what people around you are saying or trying to get you to believe, or do stop worrying so much about what other people think and just listen to God and follow that voice and know that he loves you and you can just lean on that and you can. You can believe that and it doesn't matter how much pushback you get, how much conflict there is. You have more than enough with what he's given you. You don't live in lack, you don't live in the inability to make decisions. God's spirit lives inside of you and so you have. There's no more fear. There's, you have power, and power is literally inside of you. You just, you just get to live in it.

Speaker 2: 1:47:41

I love it. I love your testimony. There was some darkness there, there was some death and I think we're going to see much more of the life. Yeah. As we continue kind of in the in this set of stories. But you're just seeing you on the Bible studies and on internet church and just seeing the happiness and I didn't know about the Lyme disease until later, but seeing that through the circumstances has been such a blessing to me and your testimony that God is love. And this background and all that man, god, god is just, he's turning graves.

Speaker 1: 1:48:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:48:16

Gardens and it's so, so beautiful to see it. So thank you so much, hannah.

Speaker 1: 1:48:20

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:48:21

Your heart.

Speaker 1: 1:48:22

Yeah, thank you for sharing this stuff and, yeah, it's completely changed my life and I am so thankful that God led me to it.

Speaker 2: 1:48:37

Well, hannah's episode is a ride. It is a wild ride and something I wanted to offer you as I was listening to this, this episode. You know Hannah mentioned this thing about. People saw her as holier. Listen, we want to make sure we understand what holiness is. This is being set apart for good works. It's being set apart for righteousness that God has set aside for you. So, in that sense, in the sense of what the definition of the word means, you are holy. You have been set apart to walk in righteousness. Now, if you've not received that, because you're waiting for your actions to be holy, to then consider yourself holy, that's not really how it works. He makes you holy, you believe it, and the things that he has that only you can walk in, then you're finally able to walk in them as you believe that he has made you this thing Holy, set apart, blameless, and so if you want to learn more about that, hit up wave one on YouTube. You know a lot of people. They listen to the, to the episodes and they're cool, cool, cool, but they don't know why. Hit up love reality, love reality tour on YouTube and there will be more than enough options. The one at PVC, the Pleasant Valley Church is the one that has probably been downloaded the most, but there's a ton of them on there, so go and listen. And if you're struggling to believe man I am holy as he is holy I want you to repeat this prayer in your heart, in your mind, even say it out loud Father, thank you for setting me apart for good works that you have made for just me, that I walk in them. And, father, I know that word sounds holier than it is the word holy, but if you call me holy, then then I am, and you have called me holy, so I believe it and I receive it, and I'm excited to walk in these works that you have set apart for me, in Jesus' name, amen.

Death to Life podcast

#129 From Fear-Based Religion to Freedom: Hannah's Riveting Spiritual Transformation

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