Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#184 Brandon's Journey: From Turbulent Childhood to Spiritual Redemption
Join us as we explore Brandon's incredible story, beginning from his early days in rural northwest Missouri. We uncover the duality of his childhood, marked by both outdoor adventures and the dark shadow of his father's anger and substance use. Despite these challenges, Brandon held a deep commitment to his family and strived to be a better man for his wife, Malia, and their children, showcasing the transformative power of faith and resilience.
Brandon's adolescence is a rollercoaster of rebellion, love, and the search for identity. Transitioning to public school opened up new worlds of freedom and street racing, while a father-son car project brought unexpected bonding. We follow his journey through high school friendships, and personal struggles, and delve into his spiritual encounters that shaped his path.
From battling substance abuse to experiencing a profound spiritual awakening, and facing the chaos of relationships and parenting challenges, Brandon’s journey is nothing short of inspiring. Listen in as we explore his path to reconciliation with his wife, his transformative encounters with faith, and the profound realizations that led to a life marked by spiritual freedom and grace. Through Brandon’s heartfelt testimony, discover the profound impact of understanding God’s unconditional love and its power to heal and transform lives.
Chapters:
14:32 - Journey Through Adolescence and Love
29:21 - Search for Purpose and Healing
37:33 - Faith, Addiction, and Redemption
49:37 - Struggles, Loss, and New Beginnings
1:02:21 - Chaos and Struggle in Relationships
1:12:09 - The Path to Reconciliation
1:21:40 - Finding Freedom and Facing Challenges
1:35:48 - Parenting Through Challenges and Listening
1:46:16 - Living in Freedom and Grace
1:50:52 - Discovering the Power of Love
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Speaker 2:I was not going to give up on my family. I wanted my family. I was willing to do therapy whatever it took, but I was not going to give up. I wasn't going to be that guy that just leaves his woman with two kids and no man.
Speaker 2:I knew that Malia deserved better than that, and I definitely knew that my daughter deserved better than that, and I wanted to be in their lives. I didn't want to be this guy that got to see his kids every other weekend and paid all the money that he made on child support. I wanted to be in their lives. I wanted to you know, do stuff with them, and so I was like I'm just going to keep going.
Speaker 1:All right, man Brandon, I met you, I think in the fall of 2020, I think your wife and I discussed this on the last episode of Death to Life and she told a wild story. I have never heard anything like the story she told me last week when we were recording, and now I want to hear about you, man. Where are we starting with you? Where does your spiritual journey begin in life? Where would you take us back to for the beginning of, like, what you thought about God and who he was in your life?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I guess I'll just start. You know, young, when I was a little kid and kind of how things were when I was a young warthog you know things were when I was a young warthog. You know, I was raised in the country, in this little town in northwest Missouri and I had about 30 acres to roam around on and there was, you know, I hung out in the outside all the time and there was two or three ponds and so I was the type of kid that was always in the woods and fishing and climbing trees and stuff like that. When I was real little I went to public school and kindergarten and half of first grade and then I went to church school from first grade all the way through eighth grade and you know, during this time my parents were kind of my mom was raised Baptist and she had met my dad and got introduced into Adventism and my dad was raised Adventist but then he kind of wandered away from the church for a while and my mom actually drew him back in and when I was young he would drink and smoke and he'd get angry and yell and scream, you know, and stuff. And he just he loved us but he had a lot of fear and anxiety, you know, and he ruled with fear and anxiety and I know now that you know that's what it was when I was a kid. I didn't understand that because we would. You know, growing up, mom would get us involved in lots of different things at church and Pathfinders, and it was really. You know, it was two-sided, so at home it was one way and then we would put on face and go to church. You know, we might fight all the way to church, but then we walked in the door. You had to, you had to show you were, you were civilized. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I grew up with all the fishing and riding bikes and I was free to roam around the whole town of Savannah. A lot of times I'd ride to my Aunt Janice's house there in Savannah and hang out with her and I could talk to her and she would always listen and stuff. And there was a swimming pool right down the street from her and Mom would buy us summer passes to go there. And I mean, at this point in my life I'm going to church, school and I'm doing all this stuff and I'm pretty little Well seeing dad drinking and partying, and then he drove race cars. Okay, that's what he did for fun. He had a best friend and they got together and they started building dirt track race cars, okay. So this is where I saw my dad, where he was pretty happy, he was having fun. He would go out to the races and then they'd come home and after the races and they'd sit around the fire and tell stories and talk about racing, and so I kind of got that in my blood pretty young and so I learned, and I was always mechanical. You know, I'd take apart the toaster when I was a little kid and and put it back together and it worked better, you know, because it was clean. I guess I don't know, that's what mom always said.
Speaker 2:Anyway, so, learning how to be a Pathfinder, I had a lot of good times in Pathfinders, went to church school, but my lie at that point, I think, was that I was weird, I was an outsider, I was a church kid and I didn't know about the world. I was sheltered and so I felt like an outsider a lot, but I was always trying to please everybody. I there was a lot of strong women in my family. I was raised around a lot of strong women and I, and they would encourage me a lot, and so I I liked being around them more than the men.
Speaker 2:Well, because my dad was always so angry all the time and he fought with mom a lot and he would try to discipline us kids with anger a lot, and then mom would try to stand up to him and she'd tell him to stop it. Well, that would just empower him and he would get even bigger and meaner, you know, and he would get even bigger and meaner, you know. And Jadra tells stories of you know times when she would go to her room and cry and I'd be in my room just and he wouldn't quit until I broke, you know, and that was pretty hard and it was hard for her to hear that. But you know, as a boy being raised like that, you know, if you cry you're a, you're a sissy, right, you know, and so you try to take it as long as you can and not cry, and then finally you give up and cry. Well, you know, I'm going through life and we get a little further down the road. I think I'm like eight years old and I'm over it.
Speaker 2:One of my dad's friend's house and this little boy that was there, took me in the closet and he said look at these. And there was porno magazines in there, you know. And so here we are hiding in the closet looking at these pictures that we shouldn't be looking at, giggling. We didn't know what we were doing at this point, but that's when I first got introduced to. You know that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you know, time goes on and I don't know what happens. But my dad, you know, he kind of, he's worked lots of jobs at this point but he becomes an officer, deputy sheriff, and uh, and he's working all the time and uh, he stops racing because of, you know, religion, you know, and he doesn't want to quit but he quits. And then a few years later, after quitting, his best friend that he raced with and stuff gets cancer and dies. And it's almost like at this point my dad had quit drinking and smoking and racing and doing anything fun, and so all now all he does is work and come home and yell and scream, and very rarely do we have any fun together.
Speaker 2:Now there are times whenever he takes me out raccoon hunting and we used to go raccoon hunting in the fall and he would take all the pelts that we got from getting the raccoons and sell them for money for Christmas, for Christmas presents, and so we'd go through the woods and catch these. We had dogs and everything and we'd catch these raccoons and stuff and sell them for Christmas presents and stuff. So that was good, that was quality time that I got to spend with him. He always teach me to work hard.
Speaker 2:I think when I was, you know, about eight years old too, he, you know, he taught me how to mow the yard and stuff like this, and by 10, you know, he had me mowing yards for people in the town. And so I started saving my money from mowing the grass and, uh, by the time I was 12, I bought my first car, bought an old chevy nova, and uh, by the time you were 12 years old when I was 12, I bought a car for 200 old chevy, and we started fixing it up and learning how to work on it.
Speaker 2:And you know, he'd tell me, you know, on one side, here's the brakes. You take both wheels off, you take the brakes apart on this side and, if you have any questions, go to the other side and look at it and put it back together that way and then, once you get it all together right, do the other side and look at it and put it back together that way and then, once you get it all together right, do the other side and go around and look at the other side and make sure you're right and get the brakes put on it. And it might take me all day to do that, but I learned and we, you know, back then we didn't have YouTube. And we, you know, back then we didn't have YouTube. If you wanted to reference anything, you had to get out the old Chilton's manuals, you know, and look it up, and we didn't always have all those and you didn't always have the right ones. If you went to the library, you know. Anyway, I was going to church school too at this point, as I went to church school I was involved in plays and skits and stuff, and the teacher we had towards the end there just thought I was fantastic at acting and so we did some really good plays there. He still talks about them to this day. I don't know if he ever listens to this. His name is Dale Eddy. He was a Seventh Day Adventist teacher, Mr Eddy.
Speaker 2:I graduated, I started listening to rock and roll music and stuff like that. I had a cousin that I really looked up to. I won't say his name, but he was not a Christian and he was kind of my ticket to the outside, and so, you know, he'd tell me things like well, you just need to get laid here. I am 13 years old and so I'm like, okay, if you think that's what I need to do, well, I want to be normal like all you guys. I don't want to be this sheltered boy, so let's try this.
Speaker 2:And so he hooked me up with a girl and at 13 years old I tried that. 13 years old I tried that. That same year I tried smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things. We used to go to the swimming pool all the time and so all summer long I'd make friends at the swimming pool. We'd go outside of the swimming pool and smoke cigarettes and hang out with the girls and I'd go in there and all the things that the other guys did off the diving board the gainers and the double flips and all these things. I had to prove that I was just as good as they were. So I'd do all those things and I'd go off the diving board all day, every day, just getting better and better and better at doing all these things, Always trying to prove that I was worthy to be cool like they were. You know, I'd try to cut my hair like him and everything.
Speaker 1:Who is God at this point? Like who was he to you?
Speaker 2:I think at this point, um, god had a whole lot of things that he wanted me to do. Um, he was in a far off galaxy somewhere else, um, and he was mad at me all the time cause I wasn't doing what everybody was telling me I should be doing, if that makes sense, hmm, um, yeah, it was all about the Sabbath and the law and you can't do this and you can't do that all the time. And if you do, you may not make it and you got to beg and plead for forgiveness. But anyway, god was just a kind of a far off in the distance and he was. He was angry at me. A lot is what I thought. I've been told that he loved me, but I didn't feel like he loved me and I guess it was like you know, yeah, he died for me, but the reality is that that's all great and everything, but you know, whatever, I didn't think about it too much.
Speaker 2:So, 13, I start doing all this stuff, right? Well, then my parents send me to Sunnydale and so, all of a sudden, I'm free and I'm trying all this stuff and I'm hanging out with all the normal kids, and then that's all ripped away from me and I'm thrown into this boarding school where I can't move and I'm not a sports guy. I mean, I'm 5'6" and at this point I weighed maybe 115, 120 pounds. I'm not very big short. If I try to play basketball, I just get ran over, you know. And I did get into gymnastics a little bit and I kind of had fun with that, but the rest of it because I was free to roam the woods and go around the town and visit who I wanted to.
Speaker 2:Now I'm in a cage and I hate it. I hated it and all I could see was the cage and I wanted out and mom and dad were like well, you know, we paid all this money, we got all these people to help us pay for this. You got to stay, you got to stay. So I'd call home almost every night crying I hated it, I want to leave, I want to leave, and they wouldn't let me Well, finally, I think I made it through half a year and I got sick and I got a kidney stone, probably from stressing myself out, and I told myself I said I'm not going to get out of this bed until they come and get me. I'm not going to do nothing. And that's what happened? They gave in and they come and got me and then I got to go to public school. Then it was on you know then it was on me.
Speaker 2:Then I, you know, I learned how to play guitar. Um, this was in the 90s, so, you know, we learned how to play Metallica and Skid Row and Guns N' Roses and Nirvana, and you know All them guys. We ended up putting together a little band, you know. We had a little garage band With the drums and the bass guitar and the microphones and we probably sounded horrible. But we had a little garage band with the drums and the bass guitar and the microphones and we probably sounded horrible, but we had a good time, you know, and we were going to go to the top is what we thought, but we never did, obviously.
Speaker 2:But we had fun for a while and, of course, doing all that, you know, you start trying drugs and drinking and it was mostly just marijuana and beer and whiskey, you know, and stuff. Of course, you know more sex with girls, lots of that going on, and it was, I think it was like an addiction. Man, I couldn't get enough of the girls. I felt like I always wanted to be every one of them. I wanted them to be the one. I wanted them to be the one that loved me the way I needed to be loved. I was always looking for that love and every time either I would fail and they would leave me or they would fail me and I'd be like well, that's it, you're done, I can't. You know, you don't love me the way I need to be loved. I'm done, I'm moving on. But I wanted them all to be the one almost. You know, some of them was in a state of fuzz because you're messed up on drugs or alcohol, but it was wild.
Speaker 2:In high school I went to, I went to Hilliards, this vo-tech school for auto mechanics, and I started learning how to better work on cars and stuff, cause you know, me and my dad were still building my old Nova and we'd taken this thing and stripped it all the way down and repainted it and put new brakes and wheels and tires and we took the motor out of it and we got a little 305 Chevy motor and we rebuilt the whole motor top to bottom. And you know my dad, he had paid to get the exhaust, brand-new exhaust put on it and everything and we got it all put together, put in the car, got it all running good so that when I turned 16, I'd have a nice car to drive. And his theory, which is still good, was that if I did all this work to build the car, I would appreciate the car and I wouldn't just go out and tear it up. You know, and it was, it was good father-son time, uh, through all the other yuck, um, and so in high school, after I got my license and I started driving, I got this buddy named Brandon to his last name's church, so he I'd call him church and he'd call me Oliver. And uh, he was into Fords and I was into Chevys and so we were always going back and forth about that and we'd drag race each other. He had an old Maverick, an old Ford Maverick with the 302 in it, and we were hanging out working on cars together and I taught him how to play guitar and we'd go out and street race each other and we'd race some other kids and, of course, going to Hilliards you meet other motorheads that they want to go race to. So we we'd go out and line them up on the back highways where nobody was at and race.
Speaker 2:And uh, there was a few times when we we'd involved with cops, you know, and run and we'd get away, and one time we passed a cop. We were both running probably 120, 130 miles an hour side by side down this back highway and we passed this cop and we're like, oh no, so we split and go two different directions, you know, and hope that he doesn't chase us. And I never even saw the officer put on his brake lights. I think he figured if we were going that fast by the time he turned around and caught up to us we'd be gone. So but we were pretty scared. We used to cruise the back roads all the time, all the county roads, and we would drink and talk and we'd cruise around about 25, 30 miles an hour. We might take a corner sideways, you know, hit the brake and hammer down and go through the turn sideways just because it was fun. But that's the kind of stuff we did. There wasn't a whole lot of city out there, it was mostly country. So that's the kind of stuff you know we did in the country. So so that's the kind of stuff you know we did in the country.
Speaker 2:So I'm going through high school, I meet this girl I think it was my sophomore or junior year and we'll just call her V, and we'll just call her V and she was this Hispanic girl and she moved here from California and she got in this accident and I met her in the hospital through some other friends. And anyway, one thing led to another and we got together and we were together for two years and it was the first time I really, really felt loved by a girl. I mean, she, she knew me so well that if we were, if we went to visit somewhere and if I was thirsty she knew it, if, if I was ready to go, she knew it, like she could read me. And so I was crazy about her and I asked her to marry me. You know, towards the end of high school, um, trying to give you the short version, but anyway she said yes and I was like all right, we're getting married. Well, then, a couple months later, she comes back and tells me she cheated on me and so of course that ripped my heart out and I didn't handle it very well and, uh, we split up and we tried to get back together a few times, but I just couldn't trust her anymore. And so she, she ran, she ran back to California and got with some guy and had five kids and anyway, it took me a long time to get over that. Anyway, it took me a long time to get over that, but finally I, you know, I had lots of girls in between.
Speaker 2:And then I met another girl I think I don't know a few years later, and I thought she was the one, but she was a little younger than me. She was two or three years younger than me and so I think she was only 16 or 17, something like that. She would sneak out at night because her parents didn't want us to hang out. She'd sneak out at night, we'd hang out half the night and then she'd sneak back in. And this went on for a little over a year and then I decided to go away to college because I thought, well, if I'm going to be with this girl, I need to do something and make a life for us. So I'm going to go ahead and go to college.
Speaker 2:Well, I decided I was going to go to Hot Rod University down in Houston, texas, uti. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's a school where you go to school for auto mechanics, obviously, and they also have a hot rod section where you build motors and transmissions and you put them in a t-bucket and you run them on the dyno and you might go the drag strip and and then they also had a nascar section where you get to build a nascar or at least you I thought I was getting when I was leaving and, uh, learn how to work on NASCARs, and so I think that was when I left to go down there. It was 2011. So it was when the Twin Towers fell and Dale Earnhardt died 2001., yeah, 2001.
Speaker 2:2001. Yeah, 2001. Sorry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I turned 21. I was a senior in high school. I was a senior in high school.
Speaker 2:Okay, I turned 21 that year. While I was down there I had a pretty good experience, made some good buddies. I was still trying to go to church. I didn't go as often as you know every week, but I remember that church down there in Houston that I went to was just so cold. I could walk in the door, go sit in Sabbath school and the greeters would greet me, but I sit inside of school, go to church, sit through the whole thing and then walk out after it was over and not not one person would even say boo, nobody would even talk to me and of course you know I didn't talk to anybody either, but that it it just felt just super cold, you know, and so I'd go once in a while, um, but I didn't go all the time.
Speaker 2:I worked at walmart down there as a tire lube tech and then my cousin I had a cousin live down there and he was an officer and he at about halfway through he said come move in with me and then you won't have to pay rent and you'll have a little better. I'll just pay for the rent and you can help me with some utilities and some food or something. And then he ended up buying a truck, an old Chevy truck, and he wanted me to rebuild the motor on it for him. So I pulled it out and rebuilt it for him. That was kind of cool. I studied while I was there in college.
Speaker 2:These two Mormon girls show up at my house and they're like hey, you want to have some Bible studies? And I mean, I was pretty lonely, you know, when I was down there because I didn't know anybody. And if you know anything about the automotive industry, there's not a whole lot of women, or there wasn't then, and I think there was two girls in the whole school. And so you know, I didn't have too many girls to hang out with. And so you know, I didn't have too many girls to hang out with. The girl that I had left to go to school for that I wanted to be with her family had decided to move away to North Carolina. And so I'm like, well, now she's out of reach and she ended up moving on to another guy.
Speaker 2:And so I was heartbroken, felt alone, and these Mormon girls came over and said want to have a Bible study? I'm like, yeah, let's do it. So I started studying and we're going through everything and they're showing me this prophet that they have. And I went to church with them a few times and then we started talking about the Sabbath and, you know, my legalistic training came in and I was like, well, what about this? And we got into that whole debate about, well, the Sabbath was never changed, and where in the Bible was it changed from Saturday to Sunday? And we're starting to read I'm trying to show them all the texts and I call up some of my old, you know like what's her name? She lives in Hawaii, jayla. I called Jayla's dad and I'm like, hey, where's these verses at man?
Speaker 1:Tell us Uncle.
Speaker 2:Mike. Yeah, he's happy to share all that stuff with me, which was real cool. I'm laying it on. They come a few more times and then they stop coming, and then these two guys show up and I'm like I don't want to study with you guys, and then they're gone, you know, so it was over. Anyway, I'm real lonely and then I have this experience right. Anyway, I'm real lonely and then I have this experience right Because I kind of cry out to God and I'm like man, I'm lonely, I just need somebody to hug me, I need somebody to touch me, something. And I'm taking a shower and I'm not making this up. It felt like an angel or something hugged me and I'm standing there with my arms around myself in the shower and I'm just bawling because I can feel like this, like my whole body just goes tingly and it felt like God was giving me a hug.
Speaker 1:Body just goes tingly and it felt like god was giving me a hug and that was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:But then you know, later on you're like maybe my mind was just playing tricks on me, I don't know, but maybe it was god, I wasn't real sure. And so I get through school, come back home, I'm working as a mechanic and I get into a big fight with wealth. I go to the first job I got. I worked there two weeks and I realized it was real crooked. They tell you one thing was wrong with your car, but it might be three things and they'd just fix all three. So I worked there two weeks and then I left. And then I went to another mechanic's shop and I worked there about a month and I didn't like it and it didn't pay very good. So I moved on. Anyway, after the third time I was getting frustrated and so at some point I started working on the golf course, mowing and taking care of things, and my cousin ended up working with me there.
Speaker 2:And and then our grandpa died Trying to get, get, get through here. I was going to church this whole time. Once I got back home, I was going to church every week because you know, that's the thing to do. You got to do the right thing. I don't want to make my grandma cry, I don't want to upset my mom and I don't want to hear them say, well, we missed you at church today. So I just go. I go, even if I got a hangover.
Speaker 2:I go and let's see, and I start falling back into doing a few drugs and stuff and hanging out with the wrong crowd, and so I decide you know what I need to get out of here? I need to go out and stand on my own two feet, not in college, not living with mom and dad. And so we go on this road trip and we go and I'm like I'm going to go, I'm going to go to the mountains, I'm going to the mountains, maybe I'll like that. So we go out through Denver and Colorado and it's freaking expensive and I'm like I can't afford to live here. So we go up through Wyoming and we get to Casper. Well, we stop at Church in Casper and we go to church there and I meet a couple of girls, go figure, right. And so they, we trade phone numbers and stuff and and then we continue our road trip up through Montana and then we cut back across the Dakotas and then back down to Missouri and and of course we told those girls out there what we were doing and they said, well, you need to move to casper. And so I thought, well, why not? So I, I picked casper, wyoming, and we came back home loaded up a little U-Haul trailer with what I owned and got a couch from an aunt and uncle and some pots and pans and whatever I needed in the bed, and took off for Wyoming in my truck and I got there, moved in, got a job as a mechanic and I think I worked as a mechanic the whole time I was there. A lot of breaks, people come down the mountain and melt their brakes a lot.
Speaker 2:But while I was there I had another experience. This guy that I had met at church comes over and he wants that we're hanging out and he's like, hey, you want to, you want to do a line. And I'm like, yeah, why not, let's do it. So he goes, we go in the kitchen and chop up a wine and I think at the time I had got at one of those game cubes I think that was. This was in like 2003. I believe it was 2003. Anyway, I think GameCube was pretty on it at that point and I'm not a big gamer, but anyway. So we were going to play this GameCube, play some boxing and some different things and football and stuff on there. And so we go in the kitchen and he gets these lines ready and we get a dollar and roll it up and we snort that up, woo-wee, that's good. And I come in.
Speaker 2:I remember real clear. I came in the living room and I sat down on the couch and looked at the TV Well, the TV wasn't on and I felt something sit down next to me and my blood ran cold. And I'm telling you, it just sat there and laughed and laughed and I mean I had goosebumps. I thought I was was gonna throw up. It was so real. And it just sat there and laughed like I got you right where I want you, buddy. And so after a few minutes, you know, you shake it off and you're like, well, maybe it's just the drugs, you know. And uh, and so we played video games all night long, you know.
Speaker 2:And then he went home and I think that next morning was saturday, because this happened on a friday night and I went to church. I've been up all night playing video games, but I wasn't tired because I was wired, you know. So I went to church and I thought he might be there and I might be able to get some more. Well, he wasn't there and I tried calling him. Well, he was passed out, I'm sure by this point. Anyway, I decided I wasn't ever going to do that again. After that, I had done this stuff in the past, before I mean, I left that part out, but I, you know, I worked as a landscaping guy for a company, and these guys, would you know, they'd be like we're going to build this wall today. Do you want to get it done really, really fast? Let's go over here and get some of this in us and we can really get it done, you know. So that's what we do, but it wears you out. You know, I never went on vendors for weeks or anything, like some of those guys.
Speaker 1:I just do it. So I'm thinking you're talking cocaine, but then it sounds like it's meth. Which one was it Cocaine?
Speaker 2:Most of the time for me it was crystal meth. There was a few times it was cocaine. But I'd just do a line, maybe two days as much as I'd stay up, and then I'd crash and be sick for a day or two and then I was fine up, and then I'd crash and be sick for a day or two and then I was, I was fine. I never really got hooked hooked on it, I just did it from oh, every so often. Uh, I wasn't trying to really ease any pain or anything, I just did it because everybody else was doing it and I wanted to be normal and I wanted them to accept me.
Speaker 1:So and it was a little bit bit. They say that. They say that with with meth, that if you get addicted to it like you really get into it the only thing like rehab won't work. The only thing that can change you is to have an experience with jesus. Like the rehab people will like they. They like meth people. They need to have an experience with j. Like the rehab people will like they. Like meth people. They need to have an experience with Jesus because the traditional rehab like that you would do for cocaine or heroin or something like that Meth is such a powerful drug that the only time that they've seen success is through an experience with Jesus, which is which is wild with.
Speaker 2:Jesus, which is wild. Yeah, yeah, I believe that, I believe it. I think it was God that probably kept me from getting really sucked into that.
Speaker 2:No, praise the Lord. I know all the times I drank alcohol, which was a lot. I never really liked it. I smoked a lot of marijuana Never really liked it. I smoked a lot of marijuana Never really liked it. I would do it and it would put me down like a dog, like I'd be over in the corner sweating and sick and I couldn't do it, I couldn't function and I'd have friends that'd be up, you know, having a good time, and I'd just be like, oh you know, I'm stoned, I can't even move, I can't think my brain's melted. It just doesn't work for me, you know. But I did it a lot just because I wanted them to accept me and you know I want to be cool when they're passing that thing around, which is horrible, but that's what I did, that's what it is.
Speaker 1:What was it about church? You just knew that you needed to be there.
Speaker 2:I had to go to church if I wanted to make it to heaven, you know, and I didn't want my mom and dad or my mom to be sad and I didn't want my grandma to be sad, and so I knew I had to go, like it or not, and half the time I'd sleep through the service and I hated going. But I went anyway and I thought maybe I'll get something out of it this week. Maybe I'll get something out of it. And I mean, I'm sure I learned a lot over the years, a lot over the years, but I wasn't really ever into it. I think I hated it for most of the time.
Speaker 1:But you check the books. He was there. Brandon was there in 2005. He was at church.
Speaker 2:I was there, I was there, they'll let you into heaven?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I always had this question in the back of my mind, you know, like, well, if I forget to ask for forgiveness and I die, I'm not going to make it. How's that work? But I never did get an answer until later on, you know. But I thought that a lot and I'd pray and I'd say, well, please forgive me for this, this and this and uh, and all the other stuff that I can't think of, but you know about it, and I'd beg and plead on my knees, cause I was a filthy old rag, you know, and I wasn't worthy. I was never worthy, and I didn't feel loved by him, for sure, and I was always looking I still was looking for love in the wrong places. Okay, so I'm working three jobs. I decide I'm going to go buy a brand new four-wheeler, which was dumb. But I go over to the Yamaha dealership and I got three jobs and all this money and everything's paid for what the heck? So I buy a brand new four. It was a 2005 Yamaha Raptor 660. And so I get this thing and I'm working three jobs and then, pretty soon, I'm traveling back to Savannah, where I'm from, to ride it, because there's all kinds of places to ride it and I know people that have land and hills and places to ride and so it's more fun to ride with your, with other people. So you know, after, after a while, I decide, you know what? I'm just going to move back to savannah, because traveling back and forth every weekend so I can ride this four-wheeler is getting old. It's like a two-hour drive from Lincoln to Savannah and now we're at 2005.
Speaker 2:I start working for this. Oh, what's it called? It's a big apartment complex in St Joe. I think I worked there a year or two and around 2006, there was one of those what do you call them? Daniel Revelation seminars at the church. You know we have those all the time as Adventists. And this woman comes in and she's got a young girl with her my age, you know, and she's got a young girl with her my age, you know, I think I was. This was when I was 25. Right around 25. And anyway, she comes in and she's like you know, they act like they're interested in the Daniel revelation stuff and she's like this girl needs a good Christian man. You know, and she doesn't even know I'm not a very good Christian man, but I'm going to these things because it's the right thing to do right, and my parents and my family all want me to go, so I go anyway.
Speaker 2:So I get with this girl and and she's a mess her, her parents are, are drug addicts, and she's I. I didn't know it at the time, but I figured it out not too long after she's. Uh, she was into drugs a little bit too, and I wasn't anymore. I don't think at this point I was trying to steer away from all that. Um, I might have drank a little, but I didn't. I don't think I did too many drugs anyway.
Speaker 2:Uh, I get with this girl. She's a, she's trying to get on housing. She's got a little girl I don't know, I think she was two or something like that A little blonde-haired girl. And so I thought, well, I can save her and I work at this apartment complex, I'll just get us an apartment complex, I'll just get us apartment together. And so I go to the landlord you know, because I'm working there and I say, well, I need to get an apartment. This girl, I'm going to help her out and save her. Anyway, I thought, well, if she keeps coming to church, maybe it'll work out.
Speaker 2:We got together and we started being an instant family. I was daddy all of a sudden. Well, I'd been trained in raising your kids with a spanking and fear and yelling, that's all I knew how to do. But I wanted to love her and so I would yell at this little girl and she was only two and it was horrible and I'd catch myself and I'd feel bad and I'd be like, oh, that's dumb, she doesn't deserve that. So I, you know, I'd try to love on her and cuddle up with her and different things, and I mean, it wasn't very long. She was calling me daddy and I felt pretty big because I was daddy and Nick, this. Well, this girl, uh, you know, uh she was. She was a little bitty mouthy thing. She was real mouthy while she was going to school for cosmetology and anyway, we we were.
Speaker 2:We lived together for quite a while and then I decided you know what I need to? I need to get us out of this apartment, I think it was. We were living together for, I don't know, not quite a year, and then I bought this double-wide trailer in the country with a couple acres and I moved us in there. And right before we well, right while we were moving in there. It was a three-bedroom, two-bath trailer. It was a three-bedroom, two-bath trailer.
Speaker 2:Her parents got in trouble with drugs and they decided they were going to run and they were going to take off and go to either Arizona or Oregon or somewhere over in that direction, I don't know for sure. And they had made up a lie at this point. Well, let me back up, let's see. Well, let me back up. Before we had moved, there was a point when we were trying to potty train this little girl. And there was a point when we were trying to potty train this little girl and she took off her diaper and peed on the floor and so I gave her a spanking for it and then I put her on the pot and that's the worst thing I ever did to her. Anyway, back to where we were. They made up a lie Because they wanted this girl to go with them, their daughter. They wanted her to go and their granddaughter to go with them, and she said no, I'm staying with Brandon, I'm going to marry Brandon, I'm pregnant.
Speaker 2:She was pregnant with my baby, at least I hope, I think it was my baby we had went to the hospital and got to hear the heartbeat and everything, and so that was kind of part of the reason I said let's get married, let's get a house and let's do this Right. Let's get married. You know I need to. Let's get a house and let's do this right, you know. And anyway, they made this lie up that I had molested this little girl and they called the DFS and they told them this lie and I was destroyed. And they came and they got this girl I was with and her daughter and they shipped the daughter off to wherever and then they told the girl I was with that she had to go to get her. And when they created this whole lie and accused me of these horrible things, of course I was at the DFS office. Like this is not me, this is not what happened. I mean, I can show you all the things and all the people around us and character witnesses, and you know even the daycare and you know even the daycare. Anyway, nothing ever happened with the DFS. They dropped the case because there was no proof or truth or anything to it. But when this girl left she said I'll come back, I'll come back. And so I said, okay, I'll come back, I'll come back. And so I said, okay, I'll be waiting.
Speaker 2:And during this time I set up a baby room with a changing table and a crib. The whole thing Got clothes Didn't know what sex it was going to be. So I mean, I was excited to be a dad, even though I knew it was wrong and we weren't married. I wanted to make it work. I wanted my family and I started getting phone calls every night. It was always at like two in the morning, so I'd work all day, I'd go to bed and then they'd wake me up in the middle of the night and it was like demons on the other end. I mean, there was nothing but lies coming out of their mouths. They were going to kill me, they were coming to hunt me down and they were going to chop me up. I was no good, disgusting. Who's calling you saying this?
Speaker 1:stuff who's calling? Saying this stuff, who is calling?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know if it was her family or who it was, but they would tell me that she had an abortion, that she died. They told me she lost the baby. So many lies, it was just and I was just sick because I couldn't sleep at night because they'd call me. So finally, after like three or four months of this abuse, I changed my phone number and I still hadn't heard from this girl. And I didn't want to change my phone number because I wanted her to be able to reach out to me if she, you know, was going to try to come back. And so, or maybe, I kept that phone for a while. I might have kept that phone for a while and I got another phone with a new number and I would just leave it off. That way she could leave me a message. But she never did. She just disappeared.
Speaker 2:And at this point I knew that God was the answer. But I didn't know how to have a relationship with him. And so I started having Bible studies at my house and we got this Bible study book about prayer and we went this Bible study book about prayer and we went through this, that study. I had got all the books about what's it. I think there's a guy more. No, you know who I'm talking about. He's into. He was, he was, uh, he, he was a Satan worshiper and he writes all these books about how he was a Satan worshiper and he came out of it and God saved him, and he talks a lot about the spiritual realm.
Speaker 1:I think his last name is Morneau I haven't heard of him.
Speaker 2:Anyway, he's got a bunch of books out and they're really good and they really kind of brought some reality to me. If you will, I don't know, because it just brings that spiritual realm into context. But I still wasn't getting it and I kind of started to understand that these people that were calling me were under. They were either possessed or oppressed really hard because they were just speaking lots of evil lies over me, or maybe they were just demons calling me. Heck, I don't know. I think I waited on her for two years and I had a few girlfriends there towards the end, but nothing ever worked. And then I ended up giving up and I put all the baby stuff away and, man, my heart was ripped out. I mean, I was, I wanted my baby and even to this day I don't know if she exists, if she's alive and what her name is. I don't know alive and what her name is. I don't know. I pray for her all the time. You know that God will protect her. If she's out there somewhere and if I'm ever going to have a relationship with her, she'll find me. I don't know how to find her and even if I did, I don't know what I'd do. I don't know how to handle that. It's kind of a. It's pretty sad, um, yeah, okay, so so I, I end up, I'm I'm working as a plumber.
Speaker 2:I worked at that, that complex. I put that job. I got sick of being on call because we were on call for a week every three weeks and I got sick of being on call all the time because it was one of those. It was like 80% housing and so you know you're guaranteed to get called out almost every night when you're on call. And it'd be like some kid up in the middle of the night flushed his toy down the toilet and it flooded the bathroom and went through the apartment down below and we'd have to go clean all that up at 2 am. You know it was. It was not fun, so I quit that.
Speaker 2:Then I started working for this plumber for a while and that was pretty good, but my back wasn't taking the abuse from digging and doing all these things. I liked the service side of it, but I didn't like the digging and all that. So I quit doing that, tried to start my own little handyman thing and that didn't work. And then the stress from everything. I got kidney stones again. This time it was so bad I had to have surgery. So I went and had the surgery and that's the worst pain I've ever been in in my whole life. It was complete horror, the only thing that helped was hot and cold.
Speaker 2:hot and cold, hot and cold. My mom and my grandma would come put ice and then they'd put a hot towel out and that actually took the pain away while they were doing it, but then they would leave and go home because they had to rest. It was a horrible for at least three days. It was miserable, anyway, because I was out of work, I wasn't able to pay the bills and I didn't want to get behind. So I told God. At this point I said all right, lord, I don't know if you can hear me or not, but like, if you want me to sell this house, I'm just going to put a sign in the front yard and it'll sell. If not, then I'll just keep trying to catch up and go get a job after I get better. So I put a sign in the front yard and two weeks later somebody came and paid me cash, what I was asking, if I'd throw in the lawnmower. And I was like done.
Speaker 2:And so when the lawnmower I live because I lived there for two years and did a bunch of work cleaning the place up. I made enough money to pay off the rest of my school loans and my four-wheeler, nice, and so I was completely debt-free. And then I moved back to mom and dad's at 27 years old, just as a place to land until I could get another place. Well, I think I was working as a janitor at the school up there at this point and I got online and I'm shopping around for girls and long story short. I meet Jennifer Okay, and long story short. I meet Jennifer okay, and it's funny because we were not a match at all. I'm sure she probably told you that.
Speaker 2:So she comes up and I test people sometimes. So I get her on a four-wheeler because you know I'm all about riding four-wheelers and having fun and I get her on a four-wheeler and I take her out through the cow pasture and I drive through the cow crap and I splatter her legs with cow crap and I'm like she's either going to run for the hills or she'll be fine. And she brought this little baby girl with her and she was about 12 months old and it's Malia First time she brings her baby and she's in between us like a little like peanut butter, two pieces of bread, you know, on the four-wheeler she rides all over with us and we get done and I make her scream because that's what I like to do. And and she gets off and she's got this cow crap all over and she's kind of horrified. She's like how am I supposed to get this off? And I point over to the garden spigot and I'm like, well, there's a spigot, wash it off. You know what's the big deal? It's just ground up grass.
Speaker 1:Ground up grass.
Speaker 2:It's just chewed up grass. So, anyway, she, she lives about an hour south of me, so we go back and forth for maybe two weeks, man, two weeks and I I had found an apartment to live in. And she decides, well, I want out of the situation I'm in because it ain't good and I'm like, well, I guess you can move in with me. And by this point in my life I'm ready to, you know, I'm ready to settle down and just be done. I'm tired of the heartbreak and the loss and nothing ever working. And so we do it, we get together, we move in together. Like what? Two weeks after we met, you know, when I met her, she couldn't fry an egg. She didn't know how to do none of that. So I had to teach her how to cook and everything. I mean, her mom didn't teach her how to do anything, and so it was kind of fun. I had a lot of expectations, you know, and stuff, because of the way my grandmas and aunts and stuff were. They were all strong women and they took care of their men, men, and here I got a woman that doesn't even know how to cook. Um, but uh, soon after we, you know, she got pregnant. She probably told you that wasn't three or four months in in, was it two months in? She's giving me fingers. Two months in, she gets pregnant, and so she has this little baby. Nine months later, obviously, or 10. And Shiloh comes into the world Fast forward that was beautiful, by the way Finally got my baby.
Speaker 2:She gets postpartum real bad. And at one point she chased me around the apartment with knives stuck, the knives in the door. I'm on the other side of the bedroom door in the bedroom, like what the heck? This woman is nuts. She's chasing me with knives, accusing me of things that aren't even true, because she's jealous and she's insecure and she doesn't know who she is. And I'm terrified and I'm like what kind of man is terrified of his woman? And I was on the other side of the door freaking out, you know, like I didn't know what to do out, you know, like I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2:And uh, anyway, we got through that night and it wasn't much longer, a few weeks maybe, I can't remember and uh, I come home and she's hanging in the closet. She'd taken extension cord wrapped around her neck, hung herself, and uh, I I was tore up. I was like what. So I cut her down. She's still breathing. Her face was real red. I was scared.
Speaker 2:I got a little baby and Malia. You know, malia's like one or maybe two by now. And so I call my relatives, I'm like what do I do? And they're like you gotta get her to the hospital, man. So I take her down and get her admitted into the hospital and then, of course, driven by fear and anxiety, I'm like if she's gonna kill herself, what's she gonna do to these babies? So I try to hide the babies from her. Well, I have no rights to Malia because I'm not officially her dad. I mean, I have no power. We're not married, we're nothing.
Speaker 2:And so I can't remember if Jennifer's mom came and got Malia because they were going to hold her for like seven days, and then I tried to. I took Shiloh and I tried to hide her from her when she got out and I was like I can't do this anymore. And so, anyway, things kind of blew over and calmed down and I think we lived together for a little longer and then we got it. We decided to separate again and we got into a custody battle. There was lots of fights. I know she shared some of them with you. And then we moved around and the cops and everything got involved. And we moved around and the cops and everything got involved. And I know she shared a lot of that that because of all the craziness the cops knew us real well and I was not going to give up on my family. I wanted my family, I was willing to do therapy whatever it took, but I was not going to give up.
Speaker 2:I wasn't going to be that guy that just leaves his woman with two kids and no man. And I knew that Malia deserved better than that, and I definitely knew that my daughter deserved better than that, and I wanted to be in their lives. I didn't want to be this guy that got to see his kids every other weekend and paid all the money that he made on child support. I wanted to be in their lives. I wanted to, you know, do stuff with them. And so I was like I'm just going to keep going. And so I was like I'm just going to keep going. So we, anyway, we split up and got back together and split up and got back together a bunch of times. We moved down to Springfield, got away from Savannah, because, you know, she was like it's your family, it's your family. And part of the issue was I'd go vent to my family and then they knew all the horrible stuff about her, but they didn't know hardly any good stuff about her because I'd just tell them the bad stuff, which is not a good thing to do. Anyway, we got down here to Springfield and we kind of got a fresh start, got away from everybody and we did good for three or four years and then things started going back, getting bad again. I'm trying to skip forward to the good stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that night she shared about we were coming back from a therapy session and she had wanted the debit card out of my pocket. Before she did that she was going to jump out of the van. She had two debit card out of my pocket. Well, she got she. Before she did that she was going to jump out of the van. She had two feet hanging out of the van. We're going down the highway at 70 mile an hour. She's got two feet and one arm hanging out of the van. She's going to jump out of the van because she's so mad and uh no, don't do it, slowing, trying to swerve over the side.
Speaker 2:She gets back in the van so we speed up. Well then she turns on me and she's on top of my chest. We're still going 70 miles an hour down the highway and she's on my chest and so it's everything I can do to get pulled over, man. And I'm like I got to get away from this girl. So I tried to get out of the car and she practically ripped my coat off and I had one of those Carhartts. It's hard to rip one of those. She ripped the front of it and she wraps a seat belt around me so I can't get out.
Speaker 2:So here I am with every bit of strength in me, trying to get away from her man and finally, finally, I get free. But I'm so out of breath that I can't hardly even run and I go around the back of the car and I get over the guardrail and I head up the bank and she's coming after me and I'm like, oh crap, you know. And I get up the bank a little bit and I'm huffing and puffing and she's yelling and screaming at me and I'm like, oh no, what's she going to do now? Because you know, several times over the years she's, you know, been suicidal and just done crazy things. You can try to try to control the situation, make it what she thinks it should be. And uh. So I'm like, oh no, she's gonna. She's gonna go get the kids and run. So I call my cousin, because my cousin was babysitting the kids anyway. I tell him, like she's on her way, you know, just just so you're aware. So she gets there. I had called the police, the police pull in behind her and then let her go Because they were like, well, there's nothing we can do. That's her mom. And so she comes home and heads to Kansas City. I don't know if she shared some of this with you or not, I don't know, she didn't tell me what she shared. But she comes home, malia calls me and the police, because I called the police on her, they want to report from me. So here I am in a parking lot filling out a report on what happened, which was terrible. And uh, and Malia calls me from the house and she's like Dad, mom's got us hiding in the house, the lights are all out, we're in the basement, we're scared, what do we do? And it's heartbreaking and I'm like, look, you know, just run to the neighbors or something you know, I don't know, and then she's like I got to go. So Jennifer gets him in the car car and she tears out of here and goes to Kansas City and and of course I'm just, I'm done, I'm done.
Speaker 2:At this point I'm like I can't keep living like this. I can't do it. Like I've been suffering through all of this, like, and I've been suffering through all of this and I've been trying to bear my cross, if you will, I'm like if Jesus died for me, I can live through this for my kids. But my kids were suffering from all the fighting and the horribleness. I know, you know, I was always stable. I always went to work, I was provided, but I was not leading my family towards God at all. I took them to church, but that was about it. That's what I was trained to do. That's what my dad did. He took us to church and he was one way at church and one way at home. It wasn't the same.
Speaker 2:I remember going to work after all this had happened and I was processing and I was like look God, this was in 2018. I said I can't keep living like this. I want my family. I miss my family. But I can't live with this woman. She's nuts. I can't live with her. I can't deal with it and she gets wild. And then I get wild. It just ain't good. I can't keep doing this.
Speaker 2:He spoke to me real loud and clear and I got goosebumps and he said don't worry, I got this. And he told me that all day. He said don't worry, I got this. And I don't know. I didn't really believe him. I mean, I didn't eat for days. I couldn't eat, I was just a mess and she wouldn't talk to me. So I went and filed for divorce and my lawyer, you know, did all this fancy stuff that lawyers do and I don't really understand all of it. I just sold all my sheep because I left that part out of it. I've always been into raising sheep and goats and cows and chickens and all kinds of critters my whole life. I didn't talk about that, but anyway, we had about 40 sheep out here. I think I had about 15 or 20 beehives and I sold all of it and gave the money to the lawyer to fight for my kids and to get divorced.
Speaker 2:And then, long story short, we didn't get divorced. We reconciled. Short, we didn't get divorced, we reconciled and when she asked for what she wanted, I said just give her whatever she wants. And she wanted, I think, $1,000 or $2,000 because she wanted some money to take care of the kids. I said, just give it to her. And I was praying that something would happen, that God would do something. I was so ripped apart but I knew that I couldn't live with her the way that she was.
Speaker 2:And so we started at some point through this whole thing. We started talking on the phone and we started praying together, and I can't remember what led us to that, but we started praying together every night and we would pray for each other. And it started opening the door to things. And we reconciled and the judge told her you need to get your butt back down here to Springfield, get yourself an apartment and start going to marriage therapy or something. And so she came back down here, we got her an apartment, we got the kids back in school, where they're down here with both of us, and they were kind of going between the two of us, between home and her apartment, and, uh, we started doing little bible studies together and we we started going to uh, what's the name of that, uh marriage thing we went to. We read how we love too. Oh, we, we read a book called how we love. Um, but what's the name of that? Oh, a week in, to remember, it's a marriage conference. We went to one of those. Anyway, how we love helped a lot.
Speaker 2:The marriage conference helped a lot. It kind of started opening the door to this relationship with the Holy Spirit, how I was supposed to be leading my family towards Christ. The position of a man being vulnerable is the most powerful thing a man can do, especially with his wife, stuff like that. So it started cracking that door open and I was digging it. I was digging it and it was helping and Jennifer had told me stuff that she hadn't told me in 10 years we've been together.
Speaker 2:She started opening things up, telling me about her past and why she was the way she was and how she had all these you know, anxieties and disorders.
Speaker 2:You know like separation, anxiety and different things. Because anytime I'd try to go out and get away from the fight, she'd freak out, she'd block me with the car, she'd get on the car and hang off of it because she was terrified. I was going to leave her alone and I didn't understand that. I was like what the heck's wrong with you, girl, you know, and we'd fight. I didn't understand. Well, I started to get an understanding of why she did these things, and so that helped a bunch. So our marriage started getting better and we were praying together all the time. Every night, we'd pray, pray, pray, and we started praying prayers like we want our marriage to be the way you want, lord. But god was still at a distance. I still didn't really grasp the relationship, not yet we're getting close. Anyway, jennifer left on a trip with one of her childhood friends and they went to Florida and then that's when Jadra came over.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay, we're going to take a really quick break in this episode and I'm going to bring on my friend and Marine and Marine. How long has it been since you've been walking in freedom? How long has it been? Three years today. Three years today that's amazing. I love that you know the exact date. I wish I knew my exact date. Mine is like spring 2019. But three years today, what has that done in changing the way you live?
Speaker 3:Freedom, freedom, it's just having the Holy Spirit like right here all the time and Jesus is here and I can just talk to him and and not have worries. Not quite so much, you know. If I do, I talk to him.
Speaker 1:Sounds like kind of like life and peace. There you go Life and peace. That's good. So you've helped out in the background. You've dedicated time, money, energy to getting this message of freedom out. Why is that important to you?
Speaker 3:Oh, because I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't have freedom if I didn't have the people that brought it to me. You know that, sharing their testimony with me, and it's just so important to get it to other people too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we want them to walk in that freedom. Yeah, exactly, we want it for everybody. Yeah, exactly, we want it for everybody. If you're listening and you want to partner with us, we count on you to get this message out there. Every dollar that you donate goes to either the podcast Internet Church, it goes directly to getting this message out there. So you can go to loverealityorg slash give and partner with us so that we can get this message out there. So that's loverealityorg slash give. Thanks, anne-marie, for coming on, appreciate you and your heart. Thanks, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Let's get back into the episode. So my sister Deidre you guys all know her she comes to my house and she's fired up, I mean, and she comes out to the shop and we sit down in lawn chairs and she gets right in front of me, she puts her chair right in front of me and she looks at me right in the face and she says Brandon, we've been lied to. And I'm like what are you talking about? You know, she's like we don't have to do all these things, we're free from sin. And I'm like okay, what's that mean, you know?
Speaker 2:And so she starts telling me about this camp out she went on with all you guys. And she starts telling me about read Galatians 5 and 6 and Ephesians 5 and 6 and Hebrews 10 and Romans 5, 6, 7 and 8. And she starts just telling me you know, like we're free from sin, we don't have to do anything, all we have to do is believe and you are forgiven and you are worthy and all these things. And I mean I kind of get a little bit of it and I remember, like you mean I was, like you mean I don't have to do all these things. If I break the Sabbath, I'm not going to burn in hell, and she's like no, that's crazy. And she's explaining it all to me, man, in the best way that she could at the time, because she was pretty new to it too, but she was super excited about it and I get enough of it that it sets me on fire and I'm like I got to know more. So she had told me about it. What was the thing?
Speaker 1:that set me on fire, and I'm like I got to know more, so she had told me about it. What was the thing that set you on fire? What was the main thing that you had grabbed onto?
Speaker 2:I think it was because the guilt and the shame that I had from the life that I lived was tremendous, and I share some stories on her podcast about God showing me, showing me that he was keeping me safe and secure. And so what was it? What was it that really hit me right off the bat? I think that there's no guilt and shame and we're free from all this. It doesn't matter what you do. And I still hadn't got well. I got to back up after Jennifer got pregnant with Shiloh I think she was like five or six months pregnant. I took my tax return and bought a race car. I bought a dirt track car. She hated it and I raced it for for a while, but it was miserable because she did not like it anyway. But I hadn't really got to race a lot yet. And so back to where we are now.
Speaker 2:Once I got my freedom and I started understanding it, I think I cried for three days. Man, I just started really feeling like God does love me, like this is real, like the Holy Spirit's living in me, like he's not on some far off planet. He's not this big, mean guy in the sky judging me all the time and he wants me to fry because I haven't done all the right things. Like, are you kidding me? He just wants a relationship with me? How? Because I haven't done all the right things? Like, are you kidding me? He just wants a relationship with me. How do I do that? I got to get to know him and so I started reading all this stuff that Jader sent me and I got on the on YouTube and I started watching Jonathan Leonardo stuff, started watching Jonathan Leonardo's stuff. He was talking about the Israelites and how they put the blood on the mantle and then they walked through the sea and how they were free whenever they left, and they didn't even know it. They didn't act like it because they didn't, you know. And we do the same thing, like we're free. We were free when Jesus died, which was long before we were born.
Speaker 2:But we don't understand it, we don't know it, and so we live this whole life thinking we're less than and we're not good enough, and we're always trying to find a way to get what we actually want and desire the most out of anything is a relationship with our Father. But we don't know that. We don't know that we have all these things. And then, when you start to understand it. You're like my whole world just got changed. I mean my family, my dad's family, everything was the opposite. My grandpa would tell my grandma you're ugly when she'd get all prettied up. He'd be like my grandpa would tell my grandma you're ugly when she'd get all prettied up. He'd be like well, you're looking ugly tonight. Well, that came down the line, you know. And so my dad would do that to my mom and it was just like a funny joke and they did that to everybody.
Speaker 2:You know, you say the opposite of the truth and it's funny. So if somebody cooks a beautiful meal, puts it all on the table it's delicious, you're like. And they're like how is it? You're like this is freaking disgusting, tastes like it came out of the septic tank. And then everybody laughs because it's not disgusting, it's delicious. But that's kind of part of the way I was raised. You know. It was opposite. Say the opposite. It's funny, you know, and sometimes it's hurtful, and I'm still trying to get some of that out of me because I still tend to do that. You know I, uh, I can call Jennifer names. Sometimes we get in a fight and she could bring up every detail of why we were fighting and all the things I had done, to the all the details, and I couldn't remember anything to get on her, even though there was a bunch of stuff. But I so I'd just say like well, you're a p, you know, you're fat, just childish not gonna work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I couldn't come up with anything, so I'd just say something mean, you know? Um? So this all happened in 2020. And then, at the end of 2020, covid and all this stuff happened. It was right after Jadra came.
Speaker 2:My job had told me you need to take the shot or get out, and I said, look, I trust God, I am not taking that shot. I'm not taking it. If I die of this COVID stuff, then so be it, but I'm not taking the shot. And so they said, well, you might as well move on, because you got to take it if you want to work here. And so I thought, well, it's now or never. I'm going to start my own business. And I told God, I said, well, lord, I'm going to need your help with this, because I do not have any idea how to run a business. I just know how to fix stuff. My mother-in-law was living with us and, because of her past and because of how I was in the past, she believed that I was pretty bad. And so she made a plan with our oldest and did Jennifer tell you some of this?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I think I remember meeting with you guys. We were down there and you guys were telling us all about it and because of it seemed like freedom was you were walking in some peace through this crazy storm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, our oldest called, you know, called the cops and told the DFS a whole bunch of lies. And the funny thing is it's the same lies from that girl in my past that I molested her, did all these horrible things and you adopted her before that. Well, was it in January? Before this happened? I finally adopted Malia. Well, we went through the whole process. They ask her all the questions Do you feel safe at home? Is your dad a good dad? And of course, all of it's good and everything's wonderful. I adopted her. Now she's mine and she's always kind of been under my authority, but now she's officially, as far as the law is concerned, my child. And then that fall, jennifer and I get into a little fight over a stinking table and she takes the opportunity to call 911, tell them she's scared and all these things, and she just fills them full of lies about all these horrible things that I did. And so they come in and they rip our family apart and we go into the system. And we were young enough in the gospel message that we didn't realize yet that we didn't have to stand up for ourselves, that God would, and so we went to court and pleaded our case. Well, it didn't realize yet that we didn't have to stand up for ourselves, that God would. And so we went to court and pleaded our case. Well, it didn't work. The DFS had already decided what they were going to do, and that was what they were going to do, and the judge just went with that. And so when they took our family apart, they had sent the girls all to Kansas City, to Jennifer's family, instead of keeping them down here with my family, and of course we thought that was the worst thing they could have done. But that's what they did and it didn't work for very long. You know, horrible things happened up there that should have never happened. Anyway, through the whole storm, we did have a peace that was beyond understanding. Our hearts were broken because our family was ripped apart yet again and we had, you know, just got our marriage back on track. And one of the prayers we did I say it already we had prayed that he would heal our marriage and we had prayed really strongly that he would make us, help us to be the parents that he wanted us to be.
Speaker 2:And then we went into this storm. Well, we went through. They told us we had to go through all these parenting classes and we had just got done doing all these marriage classes and all these seminars on marriage and we were fired up about the gospel. That was new to us and so we were just like, okay, we're going to go for it. So we not only did the parenting programs they wanted us to do, we did a bunch of extra and we did some at home and we could show proof that we did twice as much as what they asked us to do. We did twice as much as what they asked us to do. They did two investigations on me and Jennifer and our history and they really had nothing besides our fights that we had in Savannah. They had no evidence or anything because there wasn't any that I had done any of these things that she said. And the other two kids were like, yeah, none of that happened.
Speaker 2:During this whole time we had went to this little church over here and we put on a marriage seminar. It was like six weeks or something, six weeks in a row, little marriage thing. And because we had that in us and we had all this joy and this peace, and all the people that came were like we just can't understand how you guys can even keep it together and stand to be here, let alone lead something like this. And before all this, I'm telling you the truth I couldn't even get up on stage in that little church over there. You've been to it and read the scripture without vibrating off the stage because I was so nervous I'm not kidding Like I could not get up front at all. I was terrified. I don't know why. I just not kidding Like I could not get up front at all. I was terrified, I don't know why, I just nervous. And so here we are, leading this thing with all this peace and joy. Nobody can understand it. It's beautiful. We couldn't even understand it when we were doing it. You know we're like, well, whatever the spirit wants us to do, we're going to do it, we're doing it. You know we're like, well, whatever the spirit wants us to do, we're going to do it.
Speaker 2:And we prayed a lot that God would help us to learn what we needed to learn so we could get through the storm. But we learned to trust him, I think more than anything, and we're still learning that. But we learned that he's got this and he worked it all out. And our other two kids, the younger two, shallow and Tallulah, got to come home pretty quick. What was it? Six months in they got to come home, while Malia was more resistant and so because she had done lots of things in the system and ran from different places and got herself in situations that I know my wife shared, but I'm not going to say it on here yeah, yeah, yeah. Things happened that never should have and it really rips my heart out, but we finally got her back home and we've had some experiences since then. I got to tell you this story when she was in the system. She was at what was that place called? No, the one that's.
Speaker 2:It's like a juvenile detention center. There's a juvenile detention center, I can't think of the name of it, it doesn't really matter. Anyway, we went to visit Malia in this place and we'd been studying the spiritual realm and different things and we were really impressed when we got out of the car to bind the demons that were in this place. And it was kind of new language to us and we were still kind of learning and so we just stood in front of the place and we just prayed and we said you know, lord, we pray that you bind the demons that are in this place, bind them to the walls so that they can't speak their lies, so that we can have a good visit with our daughter and actually talk to her. And we go in and we sit down and she comes in and we we start visiting and it's going good and we'd taken her some food and she's happy to see us and everything's going really good.
Speaker 2:And we're hearing this bang, boom, boom. I mean it was loud. It sounded like somebody was trying to slam through the walls. Well, we were in this hallway with all these rooms for visitation and there was nobody in these rooms. We were the only ones there visiting with our dog and we're hearing doors slamming. It sounds like somebody's trying to bang through the wall and we're like gee, are you hearing this? What is going on? And Malia is not really perceiving any of it, and the only thing we can figure is if those demons were bound to the walls. They were banging on the walls and I think God was allowing us to hear that so that he could show us. Look, you guys have power, you just don't know it. When you're in Christ, we have this kind of power, but we don't always believe it, and so we don't ask, we don't say anything, we just go about like it's normal. But it's not. Uh, there's a man. That's a cool story that makes your hair stand on end.
Speaker 2:We left there feeling pretty good and they got her out of there pretty quick after that and got her in a better place. Um and uh, when she got into the new place, we went there and we started sharing the message with her and we put hands on her. We even anointed her head with oil and prayed over her and, uh, she got. She got into it at this point Like. She started reading it and I'm telling you she had hundreds of notes and bookmarks in her Bible was marked up front to back.
Speaker 2:She was teaching the other girls in her cabin the gospel and we were just like, oh, we were bawling because it was so beautiful and so of course she was doing awesome, you know, and she got out of there and she came home and they of course, send their people over to the house to make sure everything's good here. Everything's going good, and it did go good for a while and then she got to working, you know, in in a job and got to hanging out with the wrong people and yeah, it's a roller coaster ride, but uh, it all let you said earlier he said that he's teaching you how to be a parent.
Speaker 2:Talk to me about that okay, so uh, let me give you a situation that just happened. Yesterday was it yesterday, yeah, yesterday.
Speaker 2:Um, malia calls me and she's up at Sunnydale right now and somebody had put her name in the boat for a chaplain because they saw her. They said you know, I see you. I see that you have been through your Bible like nobody else our age and that you have some life experience that nobody else here has. And we think this would be. You would be perfect for this position. And so they put her name in the hat. Well, when they said her name, there was several kids she said several. Who knows if it was just one that said, oh heck, no, she's the worst person for the job. Look at her. I mean, they just hammered her. Of course, she got all in her feelings and she was crying.
Speaker 1:That's because she shared testimony.
Speaker 2:She had shared some of her testimony and some of the stuff she'd been through and, of course, instead of understanding, they just judged her and condemned her for it and said she doesn't deserve to even be here type of stuff which is rough right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:And so she had called us and kind of caught us off guard. And so we were listening to your Bible study when this all was? Was this last night? Yeah, monday night then. Yeah, yeah. And you said something about listening and not freaking out. So I went outside and I called her back. I think I heard like two minutes of what you were talking about last night and that's what I heard. Listen, you don't need to respond when people are emotional. Well, that's exactly right. So I went out and I listened to her.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was telling the story of a girl who had called me and was really, really upset and I just listened and I told her that I believed her. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I went out and I listened to her and I listened to her and I listened to her and she carried on and on and on. And then she was telling me uh, all this stuff, and how you know she had asked this kid that accused her. She said she said you think you deserve to be the chaplain. Tell me one verse in the Bible that's not one that everybody knows, like John 3.16 or one of the big ones, and he couldn't do it and he was stumbling all over himself and she said that. He said well, not everybody has everything memorized.
Speaker 2:And anyway, she said what makes you think you're better than me? And he didn't have a good answer for that either. But she was just really upset. She hated the school, she wanted to come home, and so I just, you know, I kind of encouraged her a little bit, I told her I was proud of her, instead of, you know, being like, well, you're just being overdramatic, you know, you're just calm down, it's OK.
Speaker 2:Or maybe my old self would have said, well, go whip his butt, that'll put him in his place, you know, then she'd get kicked out of school, right yeah yeah, well, she called me today and she was in a lot better spirits and, uh, so just listening and and being empathetic, and not, you know, telling her what to do and how to do it, and giving her a little encouragement, goes a long ways. That's some of it, you know. I mean, that's a lot of parenting, I think, you know, just listening and hearing what their thoughts are and where they're at, and coming down to their level, instead of just being like, well, you're wrong, you're going to do it my way, you know. And instead of commanding them to do the dishes, it's more like, hey, you come help me, I'm doing the dishes, you come help me, won't you, you know? And then they're more apt to do it if you love them into it, rather than be like you're doing the dishes or else you're going to get your butt whooped, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I kind of want to finish it this way the problems. You know the story that Jennifer told last week and the story you're telling this week. I think you guys come by your stuff honestly. Right, it's not like you're in a vacuum when you describe how you grew up. Hey, how you grew up influences how you act big time.
Speaker 1:So if your pop speaks this way and he spoke this way to you, well, that's got that. You know that's what comes out. But then when you realize your lineage doesn't just go back to your pop but it goes to Jesus Christ and that, yeah, you don't have to actually keep on and keep that going on, that You're a slave to righteousness and it's fruit to holiness, you're actually able to move in that righteousness and the past well, it still exists, but you don't have to live by it. Talk to me a little bit about that perspective and how, like, while this story has happened and you and Jennifer had all this stuff and you and the kids had all this stuff that actually it doesn't have anything to say about what tomorrow is going to be from how you're going to behave and how you're going to live. How do you look at your past. In the light of this truth, moving forward.
Speaker 2:You know, my past is dead.
Speaker 1:It's dead.
Speaker 2:I don't have to carry it. I give it to Jesus and the guilt and the shame that used to eat me alive it's gone. Everything that I failed to do is gone and I get to do everything now with the Holy Spirit and he tells me you know, as soon as I start to do something, it feels disgusting and I stop Because I know he's telling me like, oh, you better not do that. You know, I'm still learning and growing. I'm still listening.
Speaker 2:I'm not always real vocal on all the Bible studies, but I'm on a lot of them In the background, listening. I might be mowing and stuff and working, but I'm listening and I'm trying to learn and I want to be a man of God. I want to stand firm in that truth and I want to lead my family towards a relationship with Christ. I don't care about any religion, but I want them to have a good relationship with their father, their creator, and I want to have a good relationship with him and I want to become everything that he created me to be. You know what I'm saying and I know he created me. He gave me a new heart. My old heart's dead. I got a new one. It's a a lot softer.
Speaker 2:I cry all the time. Now I can't stop crying since I got this. I cry all the time. I see him working in my life, I see him using me to help other people and it's so overwhelming. It's man outside of Christ. I don't deserve nothing. So overwhelming. It's man outside of Christ. I don't deserve nothing. But in Him I deserve it all and I get it all and I'm still learning. But, man, I love Him now. I really love Him and I know he loves me.
Speaker 1:Let's say you run into a kid who's trying to just doesn't want to make grandma sad, doesn't want to make mom sad, and he's just going through the motions just warming a pew but is living with this guilt and shame and you get to take this kid out to McDonald's and put your arm around him. What are you going to tell this kid that's just going through the motions, don't want to make grandma mad? What would you tell him?
Speaker 2:I'd tell him. I guess I'd tell him don't worry about all the do's and the don'ts. Jesus is real and he just wants a relationship with you and everything else will come from that. All you got to do is believe.
Speaker 1:Man, I hear your heart. I know you love your kids. I know you love your wife. I know it's real. I think you wanted to before, but you weren't able. You didn't have the capacity because you didn't understand God's love for you. But now you're built to love them. Now you're built to love and I see it through your life, man. And it's a yeah, and it's a blessing.
Speaker 2:And I know what love is, man, I didn't even know what it was.
Speaker 1:Let's go. Thank you so much, brandon. You're a blessing and a testimony to us man.
Speaker 2:Thanks brother.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, thank you.