Ep 65 | Kelly's Story: How Surrender Transformed Shame Into Purpose

Kelly's story begins with a sixteen-year-old girl wearing baggy clothes to hide her pregnancy, setting the stage for a decades-long journey through trauma, addiction, and ultimately profound spiritual healing. 

What makes Kelly's testimony so powerful is her raw honesty about the darkest moments and the lasting power of recovery rooted in faith.

What will you find in your own life when you stop numbing your pain and cast your cares on the Lord? Kelly's story offers hope that freedom awaits on the other side of surrender. 

-

Kelly Miller is a grateful believer in Jesus Christ. She has victory over prescription narcotics, alcohol, nicotine and love relationship addiction, and disordered eating. She is still working on areas of co-dependency, people pleasing, control, self doubt/guilt, and procrastination. She is a mother and grand mother! I blessed to live near most of my family in a small town in East Michigan. 

About the She Surrenders Podcast:

On the She Surrenders podcast we are talking about women, faith and addiction all on the same platform. There are many podcasts for women and sobriety, but very few for women seeking information and stories from others about faith-based recovery.   

Help us reach more listeners: like, subscribe, review, and share. 

Find us on Instagram @shesurrenders_sherry, on Facebook @shesurrenderssherry, and online at www.shesurrenders.com. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome back to the she Surrenders podcast. I'm Sheri, and my heart behind this podcast is to bring you the excellent news that faith-based recovery is where you'll discover the joy in life you never thought possible while you were in the bondage of addiction. The stories you'll hear from women, and sometimes men, who have walked in your shoes or alongside someone who has will inspire you to pursue the same freedom they've found. This freedom comes from surrendering not only our addictions but also our guilt and shame to God. Matthew 19, verse 26, tells us with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. I pray that today's episode brings you to a new understanding that this is true for you too, because it is Now on to our guest. Welcome back. I'm so glad you're here with me because I have a great guest today.

Speaker 1 1:08

My guest today is Kelly. She's kind of a new friend of mine. I met her through another friend from Celebrate Recovery and Kelly came into my life as a house mom for Sela House Recovery, our rehab center, and we've all fallen in love with her. We had her briefly before she moved away, but Kelly has such a compelling story and it's a hard story and there's some trigger warnings in here. So I do want to ask that you read the show notes. There's an unplanned pregnancy, it's an adoption story and it's a hard story, like I said. So I encourage you to read the show notes first, just to make sure that there isn't anything here that you're not ready to hear. So with that, I want to say welcome, kelly.

Speaker 2 2:00

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I really am. I've been looking forward to it.

Speaker 1 2:13

Well, I met Kelly through our mutual friend at Celebrate Recovery and then Kelly later on became one of our house moms at Selah House and I really got to know her then and she shared her story here, of course, but I did not get to hear the whole story, so you, my listeners, are going to hear it pretty much the same time that I am. So I am really excited to hear from Kelly today and I just again I really appreciate you being vulnerable and being willing to share your story and turning your pain into purpose. So I am just going to let you get started, kelly, and I am known for interrupting as you go, so I'm sorry, but hopefully.

Speaker 1 2:48

I won't do that too much, but I always have questions.

Speaker 2 2:50

So that's okay, That'll keep me on track too.

Speaker 2 2:53

So all right well go ahead, thank you. So I like again, I'm so excited to be here, I just appreciate this opportunity and I spent some time in prayer just to see kind of where the Lord wanted me to go with this, and I kind of went back to being a youth, where we're going to start. I was in the church as a child but I really didn't understand. I memorized the Bible verses and I brought my friends to church and I kind of went through the motions of you know what you do when you're in a youth group or you know when you're in a Sunday school or go to church camps or things. But I never had what everybody else had. I always compared myself. I felt like how can they have this relationship with Jesus and I do all this stuff and I just don't? I don't, I don't have this relationship with Jesus that I wanted. And I went through kind of you know, going through the motions, I'm not good enough, I've done too many bad things. You know, going through the motions, I'm not good enough, I've done too many bad things, and it is.

Speaker 2 4:13

I was growing up. I was told that well, that's what happens when you lie you go to hell, you know, or that's what happens to bad girls. Bad girls go to hell. And it kind of put an ultimatum in my head, you know, like no, I'm just bad, that's just. You know, I'll never be able to earn my way back into God's good graces, I'm not going to be able to earn my way into heaven. I was always anxious about it. I was always had in the pit of my stomach like guilt, um, thinking I'm not good enough, I'm just not going to be able to be with the Lord in heaven. And why bother, you know? So I for a lot of years felt like that, especially as a youth.

Speaker 2 4:54

And then as a teen, when I was 15, I became involved with a guy from school, became my first love. I just loved and adored him and looking back on that time, it was a very mentally verbally abusive relationship. It was manipulative and it was just not healthy. My parents were going through a divorce at that time and so I really clung to this relationship and thought that this was love and this is marriage and I'm going to be with him forever. And it wasn't long before I was pregnant and it wasn't long before I was pregnant and I was 16.

Speaker 2 5:49

And I was in high school in marching band and very active with friends and friend groups and things, and just was ashamed and didn't want anybody to know. So I didn't tell anybody, including my parents. I went through school, you know, people at school knew and I was bullied and called names and physically abused at school because of the guy I was with. I was with and um things that he, uh, you know he would tell lies about me or, you know, do things that would make me act crazy. You know, at 16 and you're pregnant, this is the guy that you love, you know.

Speaker 2 6:33

So I struggled a lot as a, as a youth, um, as, and being pregnant in school, um, and was just where, where do I even go? I told nobody. His mom knew, um, I had one friend in school who was going through the same thing as me, um, but she was in a different state and um placing her baby there. So I didn't tell my parents, my, my mom, my son was born in July of 20, I'm sorry, 1995. And my mom didn't know until June of 95, um, like a month before. And my dad didn't know until after my grandparents, until after my grandparents, my sisters, um, it was the nineties. So I wore baggy clothes and I, just, I just kept it like I, I, I kept it a secret. I made an adoption plan right away, um, within probably the first four months, made an adoption plan and and, just with my boyfriend at the time, that my, my son's dad and um, that was the plan. I'm not going to tell anybody, I'm going to just wear baggy clothes, I'm going to go through with this and, um, leave it behind.

Speaker 2 7:56

And so we went through and he was in and out of my life during this time lots of breakups, lots of other girls, just lots of things on top of, you know, being a pregnant teenager. And so it got close to you know, being time to you know, for him to be born, and we had picked, we chose a family together. We looked through pictures and bios and all this stuff and picked this family and baby was healthy and everything you know was on pace to be. You know, I was going to have him and he was going to be taken right to his family and I was not going to see him. I wanted to just move on. I thought that that would be easier. So that's not how things played out.

Speaker 2 8:43

So, and up to this point, um, I had not done. I had really been a good kid in the aspect of drugs and alcohol. Um, you know, I wasn't really struggling with any substance abuse things. It was more love relationships, um, codependency, the things, um, the other things, the layers, um, so I was just I hadn't been numbing yet with drugs and alcohol, was pretending like things were you know, not that were not happening. Um, so it gets to. Uh, his birth, and it was very traumatic. It was very long. The doctor did not have my best interest at heart and thought that I needed to stay in labor, that it would teach me a lesson if I struggled and went through a longer labor. And I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 9:42

I'm just thinking of you as a. Where was your um? Did you have any support person? You said your mom knew.

Speaker 2 9:50

At this point, Yep, my mom was there and, uh, my aunt, or my mom's sister, but my mom and my aunt were still so stunned, I think, that this was happening and I hadn't had any prenatal care. I mean, I'm sorry I'd had prenatal care, but I did not have any. Lamaze classes is what they used to call it. You know, I didn't take those, because this wasn't happening, you know what I mean Like.

Speaker 2 10:16

I'm not going to be prepared in that way. I'm going to make sure the baby is safe and all that stuff, but I didn't prepare, like, like, I like it wasn't going to happen. You know, like, like, it just wasn't going to happen. So I think they were just so stunned still that this was happening and, you know, maybe weren't the very best advocates for me, um, in what was going on. And um, I will say, you know, my mom was, you know, she was trying to teach me how to breathe through contractions and stuff, and I was not having it. You know, like, I can't stand you right now, you know what I mean. Like she was saying all the wrong things and that wasn't her fault, but she just wasn't. She couldn't be there in the way that she needed to be because I had walls up. I didn't even want her to know, let alone be there, you know, and the only reason she knew is because, you know, we lived together and eventually she was like we need to talk about this, you know. So, um, I wasn't going to see him be born, I didn't want to see him after he was born and, um, I thought that would be best and, um, my boyfriend was not there. Um, he was there in and out, like he didn't come in the room, um, but he was at the hospital here and there, but he was into his friends and he already had another girlfriend and it was just. It was a lot.

Speaker 2 11:44

So my son Brian was born and there was a lot of complications. He didn't breathe right away. They were doing CPR on him and it was at the foot of the bed. So I'm just kind of like, well, I'm looking, you know, like he, something's not right, it's not going how I wanted it to. I wanted him to be born and just whisked away to his new beautiful family that was waiting for him in the next room and it just didn't happen. They started doing CPR and oxygen and then you know they're doing everything they do after a baby's born to me and then they just took him and so I'm like you know, is everything okay, um, why isn't he crying yet? And then you took him, and so I'm like you know, is everything okay? Why isn't he crying yet? And then you know we're going to have to take him to another hospital, is what they said. And so they were going to transport him to another hospital.

Speaker 2 12:35

You know, I'm in my hospital room at night Like everything is done, and I'm in the hospital room by myself at night and there was a nurse that was with me a lot of the delivery like taught me everything. Like breathe, like this Nope, stop screaming, it's not going to help, it's going to. You're using your energy to scream, you're not using it to push your baby out Very important things that I remember. And she came to my room and I remember her being in in the corner with the doctor and but I blocked it out until truly about a year ago, um and I was in a wellsprings of freedom session and it came up, um, and I could hear her saying to him you need to do a C-section. A C-section should have happened hours ago. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's, that's, that's what she said. I remembered her saying that and so the Lord kind of put that on my heart, like you need to think back on what was going on in that room and there's some forgiveness that you need to to. You need to forgive. So she had come to my room in the night at like two in the morning, and she was like, gave me this card with her phone number on it and she was like, if I don't hear from you, I'm going to assume that everything's okay, you know. And I was like, okay, everything's fine, you know, like I'm so grateful that I had a baby, I'm done with it, like I can move on. But she knew he was sick and she knew that it was.

Speaker 2 14:00

You know, there was things that happened during that delivery that shouldn't have and I just, you know, I was 16. I didn't remember everything that was going on around me and I don't think my mom realized it either, and if she did, she didn't know what she was doing either. I didn't understand why until later on, and I replayed all these conversations and everything that was going on during that time, during the birth, and he was doing it on purpose, like he was like she's not going to get pregnant again If we let her go through this, you know, let's let it sit, let's let her sit in this for a bit, you know. And I was just like, wow, you know, cause I immediately thought, oh, it's because I didn't take Lamaze classes, it's because I covered him up all the time and wore these clothes and I was always sucking in and just all these things I thought I did wrong. So he was born and went right to the NICU of another hospital.

Speaker 2 14:53

The family that he, that we, chose for him, they decided that they couldn't parent a special needs child. So I was mad, like I, I didn't understand and I was just like a baby's a baby, you know, like you, this is a gift. And so I just felt like, oh my gosh, well he can't go into foster care. You know like they're making him seem like a burden. You know he's got sorry, let me scale it back. He has cerebral palsy. He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy due to the birth and the family decided that they couldn't care for him. And so I was, you know, 16 and I'm going to take him home instead. You know, I, I'm going to figure it out and I remember, um, my grandma, just saying, like you know, we're going to support you, but he's going to get hungry and you don't have a job and right now he can't. He can't even eat or or, um, be on his own, like he's in an incubator, like what are you going to do when you have to go to work? And you know just things like that. And it was literally day by day. Today he's coming home, tomorrow he's not. You know, I don't want him going into foster care. He's going to be in the system because nobody's going to want a sick baby, um. So we ended up living with a family, um, not far from my grandparents in Detroit and I became very close with them and got to see him quite a bit, um, but then so he was born in July and then we moved to like October ish. But then so he was born in July and then we moved to like October-ish Start, my senior year of high school.

Speaker 2 16:32

I cannot function with the loss. I was in therapy, but it was almost like everybody that was trying to give me counsel. Like all my therapists, I had two, all of them. One was through the adoption agency and one was through um, an at-risk youth adolescent program. They were both pregnant and I couldn't. I just wasn't okay with it. You know, it was like you're going to get to keep your baby. I don't really want to talk to you.

Speaker 1 17:01

Right.

Speaker 2 17:03

Yeah, and, and it was just like giving them what, what they needed to hear, to check off this box, to move me through the next to the next phase of my life. So I started drinking. The first time I drank I was blackout drunk, I don't remember it. And then it was on. And then so 17 until I was 34, um, drinking, um, using drugs, uh, pills mainly, but anything that would make it stop.

Speaker 1 17:36

And um, when you say it, callie, what's it?

Speaker 2 17:40

the pain, the pain, the guilt, like I felt, like I wore a scarlet letter when I had my son, my, my, my last, my. I had. I had my son Brian, and then my daughter Sadie was born a year later. And then I got married and had my son Nicholas. By the time I was like 23 ish and he was my youngest, that's my last child that I gave birth to. And when I was in the hospital having him, the nurse was like so your third pregnancy? I said nope, nope, just second. You know, and she's like you know, we can see in the computer. And I was like, yep, I don't know what you're talking about. I was so proud to be that baby's mom and hold him and love him.

Speaker 2 18:25

And then I got pregnant again and life just was too fast and I felt like I can progressed in his mind past, I don't know, maybe a 10-month-old. So I just didn't want to feel. I felt like all these things were just the guilt and shame. I had my stomach hurt all the time. Just pretending like things didn't happen was so exhausting. Nobody in school really knew what happened, except for the ones that thought they knew and bullied me about it and, you know, shamed me and I was never taught that it was a gift, that he was a gift. You know, it was like I burdened somebody else with this special needs baby and that was hard to deal with.

Speaker 2 19:30

And then I go through all of this. You know, just prescription meds, every kind of depression med. I had a hysterectomy in 2005. So I've had massive shifts in chemistry in my body, you know. Then you know, being pregnant so early and then a hysterectomy and just not healthy and so many chemicals, you know, and no wonder I felt so unhinged and I really did. Um, I did go through a lot of phases of six months or so I go without pills and I could go without drinking for forever, but then I go to a work party and I'm blackout. You know, I'm that girl, you know, like it's so many stories, I'm sure people remember me as being that girl that you know I'm okay with it now, I'll talk about it now. But it was pain and brokenness and and once I realized that, like that, wow, the drinking started. Three months after I placed my son for adoption. Um, that family that fostered him adopted him too.

Speaker 1 20:41

Oh, okay, yeah, that was going to be my question. Yep, yep, they adopted him, um, and you stayed in touch.

Speaker 2 20:49

You said he came to your wedding and he did Um, and I stayed in touch with them on and off Um. I think it was easier for me to be kind of in the shadows with this, because he didn't know me. You know, he didn't ask for me. It was a one-sided relationship because they just did what I wanted. They loved me through it and if I didn't want it then they didn't do it. I didn't know how to handle having a special needs baby, even though he wasn't mine. I wasn't his mother, you know I was, but I wasn't. I wasn't prepared for what that would look like, and so I numbed a lot of it and pretended like it wasn't real Um, and then, when I got sober, I handled it. You know like there's nothing to mask that and nothing to make it go away other than hard work, and so I got out of rehab what?

Speaker 2 22:01

made you go to rehab. I, um, the summer of 2012 was, um, my worst addiction of summer. I hurt my kids a ton that summer, I told a lot of lies, I manipulated and I stole. And it caught to where my daughter was 15 and I had been up all night cleaning, bleaching floorboards and you know all the things I thought I needed to do to be a good mom. And, um, she said I don't know what you're doing, but if you can't get it together, I'm going to live with Nana and pop. And that made me stop, like right in my tracks. Um, I stopped using pills, but I didn't stop drinking. Uh, because I didn't think the drinking was an issue. I thought I can control that.

Speaker 2 22:58

So, I stopped using pills that day. Um, narcotics, uh, any pill, any pill I could get my hands on, but mostly, um the pain pills I had a good, I had. I had a very, um, unimaginable cocktail of prescription meds that I was taking. Um, they all have my name on it. So I wasn't an addict. You know, these pills bottles have my name on it, you know Right.

Speaker 2 23:22

So that stopped me from taking pills and I started getting it together. I really did, but didn't think I needed meetings and I was drank until that was August and I was drinking on and off until December and had a blackout and was like, okay, that's it, that's it. Drinking is too much for you too. You are an addict. You can't do either. And I was in NA and AA.

Speaker 2 23:48

And then, um, I was prepping to move to Tennessee, to Nashville, and it was April and I owned a business, I owned a restaurant at this time and, um, it was just like everything I had done that summer had caught up to me and my family did an intervention and although I was done using, I was not living right, I was still white knuckling it. You know, I wasn't. Um, I wasn't a good person at that time in my life, I was still manipulating people to get what I wanted, and so I had been clean and sober since December and it's April, and I was still living as though I was in active addiction because I didn't know how to get out of the cycle of how do you act now without this? You know, I still wasn't manipulating men to pay my bills, you know, like I was still living in a way as if I was a dry drunk and I was doing everything I normally did, except for having the substance. I was so hard to be around, and that's why they finally did an intervention and I went to rehab the next day.

Speaker 2 25:05

It was 12 years, april 7th, that I'm clean and sober, and I talked to my dad about it, you know, and he was like I did not want to do that intervention. I did not, and I was like but I'm so glad you did, and here's the proof. The proof is it worked. Like he's, like I felt so bad about it. I said well, if you hadn't done it, if you hadn't done that, you and my in, my mom, my step-mom Debbie, and my sisters, and I think even one of my brother-in-law, my brother-in-law Dan, might've been there too, and they just laid it all out for me and told me we know this is not who you are. And I was like, oh my gosh, thank, thank goodness, like this isn't me, I don't have to be like this, Like I don't want to be here.

Speaker 2 25:49

Yeah, and I still didn't have the Lord yet, though, like I did, but I didn't, you know, like I didn't talk with him, but I didn't, you know, like I didn't talk with him. I prayed here and there, but I didn't have a relationship with him. And so I moved to Tennessee with my two kids and my parents were just beside themselves you know, I'm not that sober yet, and but I moved to Tennessee and I start going to celebrate recovery there in Nashville, and that's where things changed.

Speaker 1 26:18

Going to celebrate recovery there in Nashville and that's where things changed. That's where I started handling the pain. I just have to say, when you just said and that's where things change, your whole face just lit up. You're a smiley, bubbly person and I'm trying to imagine mean Kelly right now and I can't. And there's so many times that we have these conversations with each other other women and we're like I can't even imagine you's. So many times that we have these conversations with you, know each other other women and we're like I can't even imagine you in this life that you're telling me about and you're, you're definitely one of them, but it's really hard to see.

Speaker 2 26:49

But when you just said that, I was like wow Cause your face just went like a light bulb went off and it was so hope, the mustard seed of like, remembering what it was like to walk in there, to walk in there and be like my people these are my people, you know, like it it. It made me want to tell them how broken I was, instead of I'm not broken, I don't have a third baby, you know like. No, this didn't happen. My husband was in the room and he knew about my son and I and I still said no, no, I don't, it's so sick, and it was just like my people and they just brought it out of me. They just tell me more. I love you so much. I love you.

Speaker 2 27:41

And that's where I I saw the Lord's face again. I saw him finally was there and I was worshiping and I hadn't seen his face since I was like five or six and I was real little. And I, since I was like five or six and I was real little, and I and I saw it and I was like, oh my gosh, that took me back to being so young and actually seeing and knowing that that was Christ and or God, or the Lord, or the Holy spirit. I had this vision that I hadn't had since I was so little and it just was like there it is that. How do I hold on to that? I don't want that to go away. I don't ever want to not be able to see that face, and that was 2013. And I've just been seeking it ever since, like nope, nope, that's not true. Let me see your face. Nope, that's a lie. I see your face. His face tells me everything that I need to know. Um, but it was like NAA. They were awesome. They still are. They got me to stop drinking and using drugs, using pills, but celebrate recovery is where the rubber met the road with the Lord. Like nope, you took the drugs and alcohol out and you didn't know how to live. And that's proof. December through April, there were no drugs and alcohol. There's proof there. You know, I need you to. I need to teach you how to live. So we're going to start uncovering this. We're going to start with childhood and move on.

Speaker 2 29:13

And I've just handled so much since then. I wouldn't say yeah, I've handled it, but processed it and forgiven. I forgave that doctor, I forgave everybody involved. I forgave the parents that didn't adopt my beautiful miracle son and his dad. I had him baptized in the hospital before he went home with his foster parents and he was just, he was not happy about it. He made me feel horribly about it and why wouldn't you tell me? And I'm like, well, because I knew you wouldn't be okay with it, but I was 16, you know, like I just don't know how I could have handled it in another way. You know, like I just don't know how I could have handled it in another way. It was trying to do everything I could do for this baby before I handed him off.

Speaker 1 30:03

Right right.

Speaker 2 30:18

To be loved by somebody else, you know, to be a gift for somebody else. And when I moved to Tennessee, I felt very called to Bethany Christian Adoption Agency and I got to meet other birth moms and that was something I didn't get to do before. I had one friend who had placed her son as well, but I got to go and mentor them and I was a part of this amazing ministry called Three Strands and we used to go to the hospital and leave with that birth mom so they didn't have to leave alone. And you know, like walking out of the hospital without a baby is not something you're prepared for.

Speaker 2 30:44

After having my, my, my other two, you know you feel like, oh, I've got aches and pains, but that's okay because I've got my beautiful baby, and I'm like, oh my gosh, like I'm just a shell, a shell of a person. I'm so broken. Oh my gosh, like I'm just a shell of a person. I'm so broken, I'm in pain. And it was amazing for me to be at that ground level with women that just needed somebody there that could say like, yes, I've done this and I'm going to do it with you today, and I just received so much healing from that.

Speaker 1 31:17

And there's no healing involved when you're numbing. There's no, because as soon as you start to feel something, that's when we numb Right, and I think that's one of the scariest things about facing sobriety is that you know you're going to have to face that, Like you know it's going to be painful but it's not going to last, because you're going to get through it and finding God and finding Celebrate Recovery, like you did in the community that you have, Because I know. And then when you moved here to West Michigan, you found another very strong recovery group- and there's a couple of very strong Celebrate Recoveries around here and, yes, that was your path.

Speaker 1 31:58

that um led to meeting me as well, so yeah, yeah, it's such a blessing yeah, I love how recovery it brings you so many opportunities to meet. I think I said it in our prayer together before we started it's just unique how many people you meet and um you just it takes off this layer of um. I'm not ashamed of anything and I'm like eager to see what is God going to put in front of me today.

Speaker 2 32:31

Yeah, yeah. What is it what? What am I? What do I? What do I get to handle today?

Speaker 1 32:36

Yeah, I get, today I get to.

Speaker 2 32:40

I just I'm so grateful for me for getting sober, I'm grateful for my family for doing what they did, but I'm also just, I'm just so grateful that the Lord was there and, um, my son that I placed. He actually passed away um a few years back and, um, he had complications from pneumonia. I was grateful to be sober for that. It was just five, six years ago and it was six years ago and I was sober. I didn't numb it, I felt it.

Speaker 2 33:10

It was the weirdest pain to mourn a loss like that twice. It was very I don't even know surreal. But also to know that, wow, god's got him and he's running and playing and he's in heaven, and he never got to do that stuff. And for a lot of time of my life I thought that was my fault. I thought it was because I was too young and I didn't do things wrong and I wore too tight of clothes and just no, no, I didn't. I I took very good care of him while I was pregnant and it was the doctor. You know, it was not my fault and I don't carry that anymore and I forgave him for what he thought he was doing to help me, gave him or what he thought he was doing to help me.

Speaker 1 33:58

And you would have never found freedom in this life from your own pain If you hadn't had the heart to forgive him. And you would have never found that heart If you hadn't forgiven yourself too.

Speaker 2 34:10

So true.

Speaker 1 34:11

Yeah Well, thank you.

Speaker 2 34:13

Thank you so much for sharing.

Speaker 1 34:15

Yeah, You're welcome. I mean you can overcome incredible hurts and still do life sober you really?

Speaker 2 34:23

really can so that's.

Speaker 1 34:24

You know, whatever your, whatever your pain is that you're struggling with, freedom is possible and it is especially with god, and I think you have a verse to share with us before we.

Speaker 2 34:35

Yes, yes, I was praying about what it could be, and so at Psalms 55, 22, cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you. And I just cling to that now and then. But I just feel like if I have to read it over and over again, I will and tape it up somewhere. But just cast your cares like, just just cast them to him. He'll take them in such a beautiful, graceful, sensitive way. He's such a gentleman and he just takes them away and you just trust with, like the childlike faith and you can just feel his presence and I'm just so grateful for it.

Speaker 1 35:16

Oh, that's beautiful, and thank you, thank you, give it to God. I mean, yeah, he can handle it when, especially when we can't, he's there. Well, thank you so much. Your story is going to be heard, appreciated, valued and I feel like it's it's going to reach just the right ears that need to hear it every single time. It's going to reach just the right ears that need to hear it every single time it does. Yep, thank you for turning your story of surrender into purpose.

Speaker 2 35:45

Yeah, thank you just for reaching out and for trusting and just for involving me. I'm just so humbled and grateful for this experience. I really am.

Speaker 1 35:53

Well, thank you. Your story is beautiful and God's redeeming love shines through it. Thank you for being here absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you found encouragement and inspiration from what you heard here. If you know someone who could benefit from the she surrenders podcast, please share it with them. Let's spread the word about the miracle of faith-based recovery. Don't forget like, share, subscribe and leave a review, Because when you do these things, it helps get the message to those who are seeking answers that can only be found when we put down our addictions and pick up the promises of a whole new life, when we walk in recovery with the Lord. Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.