Summary: Megan's journey from addiction and abuse to redemption through faith is a compelling testament to resilience and hope. An unexpected Bible at an AA meeting set her on a transformative path from darkness to Christ's light. Her story, marked by struggles with health issues and family challenges, reflects the power of God's love in breaking free from the chains of sin. Megan's evolution from legalism to freedom, her fight against negative thoughts, and the role of prayer in countering the enemy's lies all form part of her inspiring narrative. Join us as Megan shares her remarkable journey from despair to salvation, inspiring faith and renewing hope in the potential for transformation within us all.
View more resources on our website
Timestamps:
0:00 - Finding Jesus From New Age Beliefs
5:00 - Childhood Home to New Age Beliefs
16:42 - Struggles With Depression, Addiction, and Abuse
26:24 - School Struggles, Drugs, Family Addiction
33:03 - AA Meetings, Relapses, and Finding Faith
46:49 - Faith, Prayer, and Unexpected Challenges
50:47 - Struggles With Health and Relationships
1:02:25 - Journey From Legalism to Freedom
1:10:47 - Trust God, Overcome Anxiety
1:20:26 - Replace Negative Thoughts, Find Freedom
1:26:21 - Freedom From Negative Thoughts
Keywords: addiction, abuse, redemption, faith, Bible, AA meeting, resilience, hope, health issues, family challenges, God's love, sin, legalism, freedom, negative thoughts, prayer, salvation, transformation, inspiration, faith.
Summary: Megan's journey from addiction and abuse to redemption through faith is a compelling testament to resilience and hope. An unexpected Bible at an AA meeting set her on a transformative path from darkness to Christ's light. Her story, marked by struggles with health issues and family challenges, reflects the power of God's love in breaking free from the chains of sin. Megan's evolution from legalism to freedom, her fight against negative thoughts, and the role of prayer in countering the enemy's lies all form part of her inspiring narrative. Join us as Megan shares her remarkable journey from despair to salvation, inspiring faith and renewing hope in the potential for transformation within us all.
View more resources on our website
Timestamps:
0:00 - Finding Jesus From New Age Beliefs
5:00 - Childhood Home to New Age Beliefs
16:42 - Struggles With Depression, Addiction, and Abuse
26:24 - School Struggles, Drugs, Family Addiction
33:03 - AA Meetings, Relapses, and Finding Faith
46:49 - Faith, Prayer, and Unexpected Challenges
50:47 - Struggles With Health and Relationships
1:02:25 - Journey From Legalism to Freedom
1:10:47 - Trust God, Overcome Anxiety
1:20:26 - Replace Negative Thoughts, Find Freedom
1:26:21 - Freedom From Negative Thoughts
Keywords: addiction, abuse, redemption, faith, Bible, AA meeting, resilience, hope, health issues, family challenges, God's love, sin, legalism, freedom, negative thoughts, prayer, salvation, transformation, inspiration, faith.
Death to Life is brought to you by Love, Reality, a good gospel ministry. Our mission is to tell everyone willing to listen that in Christ, by faith, they are free from sin. Everything that we make is made possible because of the generosity of people like you. Thank you.
Speaker 2:The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can and that's why we want you to hear these stories, stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to Life.
Speaker 3:I grew up in a new age home where I believed, was taught that crystals can heal you from anxiety. I was dealing with an abusive best friend. I didn't know how to have healthy relationships with people. I didn't know how to stop codependent behaviors, even if they were toxic. I was at complete wits and no goal, no future. I didn't know how to feel happy anymore because at that at a young age I had learned I'm not going to get myself happy to be let down. So if I ever felt happiness, I would purposely get myself mad or upset, sad, so that I wouldn't feel happy. There's no in between, because I have no goals and no futures. And I go to another AA meeting and I'm talking about my situation and wanting like how I just relapsed again and all this stuff, and some guy comes up to me and he says that he had a feeling that he should give this to me and it was a Bible.
Speaker 2:Yo, welcome to the Death to Life podcast. My name is Richard Young. Today's episode is with my sister, megan, and Megan has a wild story. It is heartbreaking at some points and it deals with struggling with substance abuse to then dealing with thoughts of hurting herself obsessive, compulsive thoughts. But then, obviously, this is the Death to Life podcast. There is life, there is freedom, there's understanding on the way our thinking. You know how our brain works and what we get to do in light of participation in the gospel. So mindful of who's listening to this, because there are adult themes, but I think you're going to be super blessed, so let's just jump into this thing. This is Megan, buckle up, shrub in Love y'all, and I appreciate y'all. Megan, who are you? Where are you?
Speaker 3:from Hi, I'm Megan, I'm from Michigan. You live in Michigan right now. I live in Michigan, yep.
Speaker 2:What part of Michigan you live in.
Speaker 3:I live in the Metro Detroit area. You do 45 minutes out from Detroit, yep.
Speaker 2:I always thought you lived in Ohio. Have you ever lived in Ohio during this whole time?
Speaker 3:No, I just I knew Savannah Louie oh maybe that. Watching her on YouTube, yep, and found her the main new Bible study when she was on it, and so I was like, oh, I could go to Ohio and meet her.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you're from Michigan. Do you say your A's the way Michiganders say their A's? Probably.
Speaker 3:It's like so. I grew up born in Aston DC. Yeah, I do that.
Speaker 2:Can you give me an example, just like, how does it go when you say something with an A?
Speaker 3:Oh, like cat, Cat, it's just emphasized. Yeah, okay, it's pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 2:But I think it's cool, I think it's endearing, but okay, so where does your story start? Where do you feel like your spiritual life story starts?
Speaker 3:Um, I did not grow up in a Christian home, but when I was a little girl, I'd say my first time where my spiritual journey would start would be when I was little and I'd get scared. I was probably like five and six years old and my mom would say a prayer with us when we were little, in bed and I would feel comforted by Jesus, even though I didn't know I didn't go to church it didn't happen, it's just I felt this love and comfort from her saying Jesus, keep us protected over the night and help us to have good dreams and stuff like that. So I'd say it probably started then. It's where I recognized oh, every time I prayed before bed, I'd feel safe and I associated that with God and Jesus.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. So you felt like God was keeping watch over you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, definitely.
Speaker 2:So how did that progress in your life? Or who he was.
Speaker 3:To be completely honest, after that there's like a lot of blank, not really thinking about God and Jesus. Like I said, I didn't grow up in church Nobody talked about it, but so I grew up in Fort Worth, texas, from the age of four to 13. And so at one point, when I was 10 years old, my parents they were New Age believers and they're like got these manifest vision boards right. It was where they would put pictures on them and believe, if they believed hard enough and looked at it, that they could achieve it. And so they're like we're going to move to California. We packed up my childhood house, moved into an apartment like 20 minutes down the street so that they could save money to go, and during that one year of living in an apartment I remember there was a lot of trouble making going on and I this is just one specific story I tell my children to this day I was riding up to the apartment complexes office. Inside there there was a vending machine and as a kid I wasn't allowed to drink pop or anything like that not acceptable. But I had a dollar and 25 cents and I wanted to pop. And so I go up there, I get it and I'm really scared because my mom was on her way home. She had left me and my brother home alone during her work. She'd be home, whatever, and so I'm riding. I'm going as fast as I can. I'm like God, if you're real, protect me and make sure my mom doesn't get home. And if she isn't home by the time I get home, then I'll read my Bible every day and I'll serve you, jesus. And one of those things when I first became a Christian I felt a lot really bad about. So all those times I promised God.
Speaker 2:You didn't live up to those promises.
Speaker 3:Nope, I get home, open up my Coke and forget all about it.
Speaker 2:It was pretty sad, let me ask you this your parents were new age. Help me with that, are they? Is it just like you are relying on yourself and so that's why you make all these vision boards, because you're like, like you really. Is it a spiritual thing Like you? If you believe it, then it will happen. What makes it happen?
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow, it's super for my personal family anyway. So like I don't know if you guys, if you've ever seen coexist bumper stickers, I have. Okay, that is literally my. Like my family, my mom and dad mostly they believed in themselves and they believed in Buddha. They were very. We had Buddha statues all over my house. We had shocker boards. It was like genuinely a mix of every single religion except Christianity. That wasn't a part of it, except for the little things throughout my childhood. But what that meant for them was, yeah, basic, a lot of it, 100% was if I believe it hard enough, I will manifest it. I can achieve it in the sense of, if I look at the picture, my parents vision board had the Golden Gate Bridge on it. If I look at that enough, I can get there. My mom had a scion fusion. That was a vehicle at the time like super popular in the early 2000s. My mom actually did end up getting the vehicle and so she believed more and more and more that she works hard enough.
Speaker 2:Did you start believing that stuff?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I was nine years old and, yeah, I wanted my own vision board. I made my own vision board.
Speaker 2:What was on there?
Speaker 3:I think the only thing I remember when I was nine years old I wanted to be a fashion designer and I was like I'm going to be a fashionista and had like my own little building. I had that. There was a college I wanted to go to when I was that little called the AI Institute. I was super into that and I wanted to go pursue a fashion designing career there.
Speaker 2:So you had the picture of the building. It was like, yeah, a picture of this college. Okay, so from a pretty young age you're into spiritual things, but it's just like a potpourri of a bunch of spiritual things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, literally. So how'd that work out? It did, and it was terrible. To be completely honest with you, this is where my testimony really starts is when my mom got involved with this stuff. Really, I can go on about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, why was it so terrible?
Speaker 3:I would say so. Before that, like I said, I was nine years old, but before that my mom was a stay at home mother. She's a really good, loving, caring mom. I don't have a whole lot of memories before that, but things were good and I have a at the time. I have a 30 year old brother currently and I have a 21 year old younger brother, so that they matter to the story. But at the time my older brother, I, turned nine and he's having some issues with with drugs and he started skipping school. He was at the time 15. He started skipping school, started doing drugs. He had gotten in trouble with the police and has causing a lot of issues with my home. And then my mom stopped being a stay at home mom and pursuing a career in massage therapy and that for her, for her story, it opened her up to the new age beliefs because she met a lot of people that practiced it and like crystals will heal you and stuff like that, that kind of thing. And when she opened up those doors to crystal and saging my house and praying over these, she had this little wood bench that she made herself with crystals and pictures of gods and physical idols and all sorts of things and she'd pray over it. When that all started is when I had started to, just out of nowhere, never had issues before as a child like started literally having full blown panic attacks. Never had any, nothing. My childhood was normal. Up to that point I had moved 20 times. At that point, as far as my dad has told me, like when I was four years old, before that, we've moved 15 times and all that then moved to Texas and stayed there, stayed stable. But lots of moves, lots of changes and transitions, never had anxiety. And so at nine years old I had gone to public school with an ease. I was not afraid to go to school and just boom, I was afraid to go to school. Now I would run out of the school building, I would cry, I punched, hit teachers, you punched a teacher. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Why'd you bow for you when you punched a teacher?
Speaker 3:I was nine. I was nine.
Speaker 2:Would you punch her in the gut? Would you do Probably.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like, can't wait for me. Yeah, I think it. I'm strong, right, Did you get?
Speaker 2:in trouble for that.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, I did. It was bad news. And yeah, I was like locking myself in the bathroom at home before school and I'm not going, I'm not going. It was terrible. Marcy, I was like I'm not going to get in trouble. And so I know for a fact. I'll always associate it to when that kind of stuff entered into my life.
Speaker 2:Wow, as you're getting older, what were the things that you were mainly believing about yourself then?
Speaker 3:So, yeah, this is where I got to be completely raw, because the anxiety started out of complete nowhere. My mom would say things like why are you doing this to me? What stuck in my head was I'm causing problems for my mom, I'm causing problems for my dad, things like that. I'm not doing what I should be doing, I'm not being a good, I'm not being a good child. I was told, like why aren't you, like my brother, nathan, comparing? So lots of comparison, lots of feeling guilt and shame for feelings I didn't know what to do with. I didn't know how to help any of it. I was a little kid.
Speaker 2:So but you took on a lot of the guilt and the shame and I am a problem.
Speaker 3:Yep, that's where I adopted my people pleasing. That's how young it started. I was like 10. So I got a people. Please, if I put on a good mask and look like I'm having a good day, even if I'm having anxiety inside, and I don't tell my mom, she'll be proud of me. She'll be happy with me.
Speaker 2:So how did that go through high school? How did that manifest in your life as you're getting older? Terrible.
Speaker 3:When I was 13, my brother, Justin, had gotten his girlfriend pregnant and was like, hey, you know what? We're moving to Michigan, Bye. And so they like, we're moving to Michigan Him, his girlfriend and my unborn nephew. And we're like my parents were not happy with that and they wanted to be with him. We packed up my life of 11 years moving to Michigan completely different.
Speaker 2:This is girlfriend from Michigan or something.
Speaker 3:Nope, so we are from Michigan. My brother, justin, actually spent more time in Michigan and stuff like that. We have family here. So he was like I want to fresh start because he'd gone to jail multiple times, lots of issues which I had said, from drugs and alcohol. And so he said I want to fresh start, want to fresh start for my kid. And so, yeah, we moved to Michigan. In a month, my life was uprooted in one month. We were done. And so, yeah, I come up here and I'm in a whole new environment. Culture, shock up the wazoo. And what was the question again about? Yeah, like people pleasing.
Speaker 2:All this stuff happened. And then you get into high school and you said then you started telling the story about how you moved back to Michigan.
Speaker 3:Okay, it was terrible for multiple levels. I started to experience at nine years old the first time, like when stuff was going crazy. I had no idea what was happening. I had wanted to off myself. At nine years old yes, I had said that my mom. That's actually if I could back Jeff for two seconds incredibly big to the testimony too. God's amazing power is. Just at nine years old. I don't know what's going on. I'm freaking out. I'm just feeling this panic and I don't know what to do, and my mom and dad aren't helping me, and so I'm like I don't know what's happening, and so I said I wanted to off myself.
Speaker 2:I wish I could. Okay, my daughter's 10. I don't. I think just in the last year or so she's learned that like people actually take their own lives. You had learned that from earlier and you just thought this is an option I'd really.
Speaker 3:this is why I think there's spiritual principalities involved, because I had never I was nine Like, where did I learn that from? Yeah, that's crazy, I had no idea. So my parents did. They drove me to a mental hospital or psych ward, whatever you'd like to call it. So they're driving me there and I'm going there and my mom's we're taking you to a doctor's appointment. She was lying to me and I didn't know that obviously I'm taking you to doctor's appointments, okay, they're just here to make sure you're okay. And then we're there and they're checking me and it's really weird and I don't know what's happening. We get into an elevator and this doctor's we're just going to look at something. We get up to the top floor and the guy the doctor actually slips up and is like that's where you're going to be sleeping. And I was like what do you mean? So I freaked out and I'm like no, please don't leave me, mom, dad, and they pushed me away and I just felt this complete sense of abandonment. That was where that first started. I actually did I bit a nurse in there and, like you said, I punched a teacher. I bit a nurse. I was like, no, let me go. But that's where the abandonment and trust issue started. That's just that little chunk needed to be said.
Speaker 2:So was your stay there helpful.
Speaker 3:No, my dad actually. They pushed me away and the doctors took me into another room and my dad saw me actually screaming and crying and my dad actually, for once in my life, had stood up and said I'm not going to leave her here, said that to my mother. I don't want to do this to her. So I ended up going to an outpatient facility instead for three months and that was helpful.
Speaker 2:What were you learning at the outpatient facility that was helpful to you, do you think?
Speaker 3:I think just learning to cope through that feelings aren't lowered, even at a young age. We can go through this. We can breathe, we can take one second at a time, even though I was feeling anxious at the school because it was like a it was outpatient facility where I'd have to go do school for the first eight hours and such. So I'd have to learn how to cope through it there, how to deal with the being not at home, because that's separation anxiety. So I think that was really helpful learning strategies.
Speaker 2:So when you get up to Michigan, are you like 13? How old are you when you?
Speaker 3:get up. Yeah, I was 13.
Speaker 2:So how did that go?
Speaker 3:So I remember coming up here and I had felt the this just super incredible wave of depression that I'd never felt in my life. I felt utterly lonely, I didn't know where I was. I lived in Texas for so long that I come to this new place and I have no idea how to get to the nearest store and things like that that you learn when you live in a place for so long, if that makes sense, and so I go to school and at the time I was, I was very emo.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, what's the stereotype that you fit in Were you. What does that mean? Emo describe that.
Speaker 3:Like my hair. So I have really curly hair naturally always have, but at the time I had the curly hair but I hated it due to lots of things and I was straightening it down. I dyed my hair jet black and wore eyeliner. I had actually put eyeliner all the way up to my eyelids because I didn't know how to do it and all around like a raccoon eye. I wore black shirts that bands like Suicide, silence of Mice and Men and things like that all the time. Fully black pants, fully black shoes. At one point I had wore these leggings that were zombie print. There were zombie heads with guts hanging out of them. They were my zombie leggings, so that's what that looked like.
Speaker 2:So if I see a kid who's dressed like that and obviously this is the stereotype what did you want people to know about you? What did you want? Were you just get away from me? What was the message that you wanted to portray?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it was get away from me. I don't want you to hurt me. You wouldn't understand Just Stereotypically what I can laugh at sometimes to myself, what any more kid would want, but knowing my story inside, it's actually kind of sad. What did you want?
Speaker 2:from that? Yeah, just safety. You wanted people to not hurt you. Yeah, were you listening to that kind of music? Oh yeah, it was terrible actually. What was the message that the music was putting in your thought process?
Speaker 3:Literally off yourself. It was actually incredibly sad. I had never felt any emotion at that point from 9 to 13, almost 14 years old other than sadness. I didn't know how to feel happy anymore because at a young age I had learned I'm not going to get myself happy to be let down. So if I ever felt happiness, I would purposely get myself mad or upset, sad, so that I wouldn't feel happy, because I didn't want to get myself let down or hurt, and so that message in the songs would invoke and encourage that sadness. There's this one song that was like I'm scared to kick close. I hate being alone and talking about loneliness, depression, sadness, not wanting anybody around, self-harm.
Speaker 2:Do you feel like you were addicted to feeling like that If there was happiness where you push it away? No, this feels good to feel bad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely 150%. Man yeah All right.
Speaker 2:What happened after? That?
Speaker 3:I'd say we can fast forward. 13 and 14 were full of a lot of sadness, but then, 15, I found out about drugs myself. So I was like let's go, ridiculousness. So I started hanging out with the rebellious kids for lack of a better term rate. And so we're all hanging out and somebody's handed some pills. I was trying those drinking and so I learned how all those substances made me feel, so I kept to win them. That's when my addiction actually started with certain things. I have addiction in my bloodline incredibly strong, like very everybody pretty much, except for my mom and my dad.
Speaker 2:So were you doing heavy stuff or was it pretty much just marijuana? And when you say pills, what do you mean?
Speaker 3:Just taking colonopin, Xanax, Adderall, any kind of upper or down or nothing like no Vicodin or anything, but I was taking Downers mostly. I took a lot of Xanax. I took my friend's depression medication because I thought it would feel like Xanax and it was very bad, to say the least. I actually created suicidal thoughts which they're supposed to help with that.
Speaker 2:The depression medication did?
Speaker 3:No, yeah, it was some kind of depression medication. It wasn't Xanax. I took in it hoping it would treat me like Xanax. I think it was Zoloft. Yeah, it was Zoloft, which I'd taken at nine years old and it was also bad.
Speaker 2:So did you get hooked on these things? Or like yeah, 100%. So was this like a weekly thing, a daily thing or what so?
Speaker 3:most of the time it was smoking weed. That was what I did mostly and it was like three grams a day. So I had gotten a job working at BK and stuff like that so that I could be able to afford my habit, and this is like 16 or 17 that you're doing this, yeah it was 15. 15, 16, like four a whole year.
Speaker 2:How do you get a?
Speaker 3:job of Bruce King at 15? Yeah, up here in Michigan. I don't know if it's the same everywhere else, but 14 and nine months you can work. And I got my first job at McDonald's at 14 and nine months. I was grinding for I was trying to and yeah, that was what it was here and yeah, I was working to keep up my habit and yeah, mostly was that. But with the pills it was like twice, three times a week, anytime I could get my hands on it.
Speaker 2:So did marijuana call me down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:So did you enjoy that? Was that better than the pills then?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was definitely. It was better than the pills and it was better than being alone without it. It was like I could not be sober ever, ever. And if I was sober, I wasn't Megan. That's what I would say. If I wasn't sober, I wasn't Megan, but at the time actually that's important in my story too I changed my name, cut my hair, buzzed the sides, got a bunch of piercings and went by Sam Sam.
Speaker 2:Why Sam?
Speaker 3:Yep, oh, that was just the name I picked. I was like this is, this, is the one.
Speaker 2:Have you read the Lord of the Rings? No, oh, because Sam is Frodo's like best friend and he's like a great dude, I'm like maybe.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, yeah, no, it was just probably the time Nickelodeon out something off a show, I'm going to assume. But I changed my name and I went by. He, he, him changed my whole everything.
Speaker 2:Did you think you were a dude?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did. I was convinced. No wonder I've never fit in, no wonder I've had anxiety my whole life. I did fully. That was at 15, when I first thought that. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. I think that was the time I had had an online boyfriend for a year. He was really cool. My dad actually took us took me to see meet him in Ohio. He lived in nearby Toledo and he had actually broke up with me because I was like I think I'm non-binary or I think I'm transgender and he was like I can't date a boy. Bye, and just left. It was terrible. For a year I mourned over him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so now you're working. What was your plans for life? Were you thinking about life and like going forward, or were you just like day to day, week to week? We're just trying to survive here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was trying to survive. I had no future goals, absolutely none. It was pretty sad.
Speaker 2:All right. What happened after that, after you got the job? Now you're grinding and you have picked up a drug habit.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I picked up a drug habit, get the job and one day I'm sitting at work and I met this guy and he's really cool and I'm hanging out with him. I just got broken up with. When I'm like it's been a couple months, I need to move on and start dating him. Couple weeks go by and he's extremely physically, verbally and emotionally abusive in every way. It starts. We went actually went to high school together and we'd go to high school, walk hand in the hallways and stuff like that, and if I were to upset him he'd shove me into lockers, shove me into the cement walls and choke me sometimes Things like that. It was pretty messed up. So after a year I'm like I need to get out of this. This is staying really bad. I also dated him at 15 years old, so it was like I'm 16 and I'm wanting out of this. And he keeps saying he's going to go get his dad's gun out of his bedroom, which I knew his dad did have a gun in there, so he threatened himself with it. I'm going to go kill myself if you leave. He had a like a backyard with the woods in it and he's I'm going to go in the woods and do it if you leave, and that happened over and over again, and so I had learned this codependency and this try to fix.
Speaker 2:You think he was being serious?
Speaker 3:No, I know now. No, I had actually that's. I just decided at one point, after so long of dealing with it and trying to save him and protect him and love him and nothing ever changing that said blank name, I'm going to call him Tony. Tony, if you're going to do this, I really don't want you to, but I'm going to call your mom to ensure that you're safe. But I can't stay because I don't want you to do this to yourself. That's not even fair to you and ended up cutting it off. I'd gone back like four times after that, which, because I was so used to the abuse at that point used to it from my mother and then I got with this Tony and so yeah.
Speaker 2:Did you feel like you deserved it? Did you feel like this was just natural, that this is how guys treat a girl's, and that's, it is what it is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was addicted to pain. I was so addicted to pain that I just I wanted to hurt myself in any way possible, and if somebody else is doing it, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Did you. How was school going at this point? Were you doing well in school?
Speaker 3:I was actually that was like the one year of school that I actually was like doing okay. It was like sophomore year. I yeah, I was actually like an okay year outside of all that. I was having fun, I was making money, I was being able to buy my own stuff and things were good. Yeah, for that I wasn't severely depressed.
Speaker 2:So what happened then?
Speaker 3:After that, 16 years old, is actually an incredible blur, because I did a lot of drugs. But at 16 years old my brother, my little brother, had actually gotten addicted to drugs. He is two years younger than me, so he was 14 and he started. He went way crazier than I did. He was like taking 20, 30 colonna pins in a day at one point in March of that year I was 16. He's 14 and he had overdosed four times in the month of March. I had to get his heart started again Four times. It was so stressful, so overwhelming for my mother. My mother was battling breast, say tour breast cancer, which she had also blamed on me and my brother. But you guys caused this for me, you guys caused me cancer, and so that really affected my brother strongly, even more strongly than it affected me. I think I was probably a little more numb it hurt, but a little more numb to her comments at that point, whereas Nathan, my little brother, was, like always, mama's boy and so when he heard that, it was like straight up devastating to him. Yeah, and so he was doing that and my best friend at the time had lied to me. I told him not to, I told her not to give my brother any medications because he's an addict and he needs to go to rehab, and she went by my back and still gave him, clomping over and over again what? does clonopin do so? Clonopin is Xanax's little brother. It's the same thing. But as far as I've heard, a lot of people will say even clonopin can even be more addictive than Xanax. But that doesn't mean that the opinions I've heard from people are completely true.
Speaker 2:But I do know I've taken clonopin and it just makes you tired, so it calms you down or something.
Speaker 3:Yep. So it makes you really calm, it makes you drowsy, it makes you like depending on how much you take, of course, and your milligram percentage, but I would take high ones, and so it would just make me not out, fall over. I'd be sitting up in my head, be like whoa, it's pretty ridiculous. So, yeah, it'd make you tired and make your anxiety feel like absolutely gone, like I was on a cloud nine. No worries, no feelings, actually at all, just sleep sometimes, just bliss.
Speaker 2:Your brother gets addicted to that. This time are you still with dude, or had you broken up with dude?
Speaker 3:I had gone back to dude and my dad actually found out. My brother was in the hospital. I was home alone because they're with him in the hospital and I'm like, oh, I'm going to go back to dude. I had just actually a month ago, opened up to my parents about what dude had done to me and they were very my dad was very upset. He was so upset and I decided I'm going to go into the woods in my backyard. It was a little park actually back there. So I'm like I'm going to go meet him back there. Dude and my dad comes home. I had no idea he comes home, has this gut feeling that I'm back there with dude because I had gone back so many times. He knew it at this point. And he pulls up, just screams my name at the top of his lungs. I'm in the woods, he's just yelling for me. I hear him. My gut sinks. I come, I'm like I got to go. So I run and I see my dad and he just looks at me with this scary dad look that he always had. He's like just get in the car, you don't need I get in the car. He slams the door like. He like climbs over me, slams the door shut, starts speeding off the miles per hour and a 25 mile per hour zone. It drops me off, takes my phone and it was like I'm not letting you deal with this again. This is not okay. I love my dad for that. Yes, I was upset at the time because I didn't want to be yelled at whatever. I didn't know what was going on either, but I love my dad for that. Now, taking your phone, you had just told me everything that this stupid jerk had done. It's not okay and I'm protecting you. I'm doing this for your own good. And I was like mom, tell him to give it back for phone. Nope, he's probably right.
Speaker 2:So yeah, you keep going on through high school.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was, because when I was a little kid to put this part in there I was five years old and I was going to school and I was crying. I was like I don't want to go to school, whatever. And so my mom was like, okay, we'll hold you back one more year. And so I was a year older than everybody in my grade when I went in. So now fast forward to high school. So I was 18 in my sophomore year, or not sophomore, sorry junior 18 in my junior year, Right. And so I'm like, okay, I was still doing drugs, I was dealing with an abusive best friend because I apparently loved being loved. That I don't know. I was just, that's common. I didn't know how to have healthy relationships with people. I didn't know how to stop codependent behaviors, even if they were toxic. But I'd had a best friend that was, you know, just doing some crazy stuff, telling me to off myself whenever I'd, you know, try to confide in her. It was pretty, pretty bad and I was at complete wits and no goal, no future. I had gotten a stick and poke tattoo gun thing and tattooed rad 23 onto my wrist the 23,. Whenever I tattooed that into myself, I had said either I'm going to diet 23 due to partying or I'm going to off myself. There's no in between, because I have no goals and no futures. That's what I thought to myself at the time when I tattooed it in me. So I was just at rock bottom. I was like I'm only 18. I shouldn't be at this point. I have a future ahead of me, but I have no idea what I'm going to do with it and I basically just kind of dropped everybody, except for the narcissistic, abusive friend. I dropped every one of my party friends and decided I'm going to AA. I had heard about it through my little brother because my that was my parents, whatever. They sent him to rehab and he came back from rehab told me about AA. He ended up going back on the drugs. I took that information and went I'm going to find some local AA groups and some NA and see if I can get some support.
Speaker 2:Did your parents know that you were doing this?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, we got, yeah, tons of times. Yeah, my parents yeah, they took me actually went down to juvie and they were like I'm going to drop you off here because you already know what happened to your older brother. They never did, but I was terrified. They just wanted to scare me. But yeah, no, I got my glass pieces broken in front of me so many times. Yeah, they knew they hated it. They were mad at me, but the more mad they got, the more.
Speaker 2:But they knew about AA and they thought it was a good thing.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, they were at the time. They were like, yep, but this is a good idea, good for you, and so I started going and I had actually felt like people understood me. I've also always been like an old soul and never really vibed with the kids my age and it's like these people are awesome, they're down to earth, they're talking about this guy named God and I'm like what's up with this and Jesus and how he saved their life and I'm like I don't know what y'all are talking about. So I'm just hearing about their testimonies and I honestly, I kept going in the beginning for the donuts.
Speaker 2:Was it a church or was it like in a sit down?
Speaker 3:Sometimes, yeah, they were in the bottom basements of churches a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, basement of churches 99% of the time, but then there were like other times inside of libraries and stuff like that, but mostly churches. Yeah, I started going and I stayed going for a month. Then my brother my little brother had gotten home and from rehab and came home and caused a lot of crap with my family again, started cussing out. My parents threatened to hit my mother, threatened to hit my father. He's on drugs again and it was just so psychotic. I was just so done living with this. I can't deal with the up and down. I was trying to stay sober and I ended up relapsing because of all of the trouble going on and I ended up running a month after dealing with that. I had said I'm my older brother Justin had, who we moved to Michigan for, had moved back to Texas four months before this so that he could, his girlfriend could be with her family for a little while. So, anyways, I was like, okay, I had money saved for my job and didn't want to deal with all this. So I'm going to move in with my brother Justin, but at the time he was in some pretty bad affiliations down there, if you get my drift. He was doing some pretty dumb things. He's involved with people he shouldn't be, and I knew that. He told me that I thought that might be a bad idea. But I also had nowhere else to go and so I had a ticket reserved, had a backpack underneath my bed. My parents had no idea I was going to get a ride from my bus driver Literally my bus driver. I had made friends with her to the point where she's yep, I could take you, like outside of work, I'll take you, I'll drive you in my car. So, yeah, she was going to take me to the airport. But then I went to. I went to a couple of days later, went to an AA meeting and my parents had said we can't take you. Only been going for a month and a half. At this point maybe we can't take you to these anymore. This is too much on us, this is too much, even though it was 10 minutes away from my house and nothing's ever too much really to be there for your kid and stuff is what I thought. And so I was really hurt, really hurt, to hear that Don't you want me to be happy and sober and stuff. But so I'm really upset. And then, right after that, my brother, justin. I told him I don't think I'm going to be able to go to Texas and he was like I hate you, I hope you die. I can't believe you did this to me. I was relying on you to take care of his son. He wanted me to be there to take care of his son and I said I'm really sorry. So it was a boom bam all at one time in one day. So I go to this AA meeting crying about this and then I come home and I said I sat in my bedroom and I was planning an attempt and I said God, I actually was crying and staring out the window and I actually paused for one time and I said God, if you're real, I'm hearing a lot about you from people all the time lately and everybody's saying you're real and you saved them and you've helped them. If you're real, prove yourself to me, and I won't do it for three days. I'll give you three days, but I can't do this anymore. I can't live with this. I have no future, no family, no dreams, no, nothing. And I didn't do it. Obviously I was like, okay, I'm going to and I did trust. I was just like if God's real, he'll prove himself to me. I was at that rock bottom and I go to an AA meeting like my parents. I had gotten a sponsor at that point. So my sponsor came and picked me up and I told her I relapsed and which I did during that time too, of praying to God. And I go to another AA meeting and I'm talking about my situation and wanting like how I just relapsed again and all this stuff, and some guy comes up to me and he says that he had a feeling that he should give this to me and it was a Bible. And I was like I was flabbergasted because nobody had ever done that. I'd been at that point going to AA for three or four months. I had a sponsor and stuff like that taking me and so that kind of just I don't know. I felt like that was an answer from God and so I didn't do it. I didn't do it because of that moment. Somebody gave me a Bible and I'm like, okay, wow, I'm going to read this thing. So I start reading it a little bit and go into AA and talking. At the time when I first started, I said people would say like my higher power can be anything. It can be this rock in my pocket or the water bottle on the table. And I followed suit with that when I first came, because I grew up in a new age home where I believed was taught that crystals can heal you from anxiety and if you use this one it'll summon away demons and things like that, whatever. And I was still doing that and rocking with that for the first few months, but by that point it was four months and I was starting to call God, my higher power. And another day I was having a really hard time again. I think something happened with my brother, right, and I decided I was moving out and I moved in with my literally my bus driver. She was a female. I moved in with her because I was like I don't have, I had no money. She had a like 17 year old daughter and so I was like 18. And I was like, okay, we could be friends. And so I moved in with her for a couple of weeks. I go back to a talk about my situation yet again and then there's this guy comes up to me at the end of the, at the end of the meeting, and he said if you ever need a friend or a ride, just let me know. And he hands me his phone number and just said I hope you have a good day. And I went home and I felt this weird strong pole to give him a call and see if he wanted to go to an AA meeting tomorrow. Today it was like I called him the next day and I was like you want to take me to a meeting? He was like sure, so fast forward that to a month. I'd been hanging around this guy for a while. At first I had no trust in him at all. And he starts talking to me about God. He starts talking to me about Jesus, he talks to me about church, he talks to me about how God saved his life through addiction, through turmoil, through depression and all of this stuff. And it again felt like a second answer from God because I felt like I wasn't alone, genuinely Wow. I didn't know anybody could feel the way that I felt and get over this, have hope. Like in my life, my pre, everything I've ever seen is people just never got better. My family would drink to numb the pain or do drugs to numb the pain. I had never seen somebody do it sober, do it without a substance. Right. And so, yeah, and that's where my story takes a very good turn Upward for the most part there, which I can explain there too, I start, like I said, I've been hanging around this guy and he's talking about God, he's talking about Jesus, he's helping me see reading the Bible with me and stuff like that at like coffee shops and things like that. Sometimes at the AA meeting we'd stay after and do that. All that he's connecting me with other women in the program that were also Christian. So that was amazing because they helped me out in lots of ways at the time and it was just amazing Like I'd finally seen light at the end of the tunnel, and so I end up asking this guy if he wants to be in a relationship with me. Everybody in the AA program freaked out no, that's not, you can't do that At the time, my husband was 35. Yep, I was 18. And so I'm like do you want to be my boyfriend? He said no, no, no, I'm not interested. And so I was like, okay, whatever, I'll still be there for you. I want to be there for you and I'm glad you're there for me. You're being friends with me. He connected me with the young people's ministry, young people's group just a genuine hearted person. Never seen anybody like this before in my life. And he connected me with other genuine hearted people that I had never known existed in this world. And I'm going to church, I'm learning about God. I'm also going to AA meetings that were surrounded by God, in the principles of the Bible. So it's amazing. So I'm learning and growing and ready to give my life to Jesus and get baptized right. And I start to get to know, though, my husband a little bit better. At the time, obviously, he's just the dude and he's telling me about his story. At the time he was just mostly focused on AA, obviously, and church, like God, and just trying to be there for me. And so I start to get to know him a little bit and he's telling me that he has three children, or his four children and his wife passed away, I think at the time two years ago, and left behind. She herself left behind seven children in her passing. Oh mercy, she had three with her, you know, with another husband and then three with my husband, had one with somebody else. Yeah, he had his four. And how he was struggling because his wife's one year passing away anniversary. He went to the bar and got pulled over for driving 10 under the speed limit and gotten to, had to go to AA, had to Friday court and all that crap, and so he was struggling a lot mentally. He also owned his own business, he was a mover and so he's. My husband wasn't even a big drinker. That's why I'd upset him so much at the time. Was that one night his wife's anniversary? Does it stupid, gets in trouble, but he'll never change it for the world because it changed his life going there. But anyways, he's dealing with all that stress, trying to figure out with his kids how he can manage them, because his children are two, three, five and 11. So they're little he's I don't know what I'm going to do, and so his friends had to help him watch his kids his lifelong best friends during the day while he worked, would his best friends, wife, yeah, would help take care of the kids and all that stuff. So I'm hearing about his story. I'm touched. I'm like, wow, that's crazy. I'm so sorry that happened to you. I can't believe this person, who I met a month ago, is as happy, as strong as he is, even though he experienced such tragedy. At that point it had only been like a year and a half, two years ago, I think it was two years ago. I can't believe he's doing so well and still loving God after all of this. But that was his thing is. God is good, god is loving, he heals broken hearts and who was God to you at this point. Oh man, I don't even know how to describe it. God just felt good at the time. I had not known any grief or anything to do with him at that point. It was all goodness, god is good, god is love. And he's this guy. He's a man in charge, that's what I thought. He's a big dog, that's what I thought at the time. And so I hear this guy's story. I'm like I want to help you, I want to be there for you, and he's no, you don't. And for a month to fast forward that, for a month he argued with me you don't want to be there, stop, no, that's not happening. I was like I can just watch the kids for you, it's not a big deal, I have nothing else going on. I was unemployed at the time. Like it's not a big deal. And so he finally let me start helping his family out. We had been hanging out for a couple of months. All of his friends were my friends at that point, and so I'm helping him take care of his kids and loving them, being there for them, and so we ended up finally getting into a relationship. At that point. He's okay, I will Okay. And so these kids are my children. They're two. They were two, three, almost four years old and five. And then my yeah, and then the other yes, and she was 11. And this is where God really started to minister into my life 100%. I started really getting to know the gospel really well at this point as I delve into the Bible and learning about what it meant and what Jesus did. The only story I had ever known about God my entire life was two things. It was like Jesus died on the cross for our sins and Noah's Ark. God flooded the earth, and so I'm learning about really who God is. And I said to my husband at whatever, he's my boyfriend at the time, I'm like I want to get baptized and I think this was my prayer answered, because I had told God that I had no goals for my life. I, at 17 years old, was also told that I would never be able to have children. I was infertile, could not do it, my body could not produce it, and I was like, wow, it was pretty devastating news.
Speaker 2:How'd you find that out at 17? Like you just went for a checkup and yeah, so I actually had PCOS.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you know what that is. It was like it was a very insist, to say the least, and it caused a rupture on into my body and I was like scream, crying, was terrible. So I obviously go to the doctor to see what's up and they tell me all that information. There, here you go, and so I I find out that and later in life again, like I said, it felt like an answered prayer because I want, I have, I can have children through this. Wow, and these kids, they need a mom and they're two and three years old and like wanting to immediately. I mean Jeff had said, hey, no, they need to get to know me before they call me mom, but they were wanting to call me mom straight away because they had no, they had no idea any different. And I have this little two year old and little three year old following me around everywhere I go and showing me love that I had never felt before in my life Like, and obviously my five year old son too, but he was a little more independent. It was these two little toddlers just all the time, showing me so much love and God communicating with me all of the time, and it was just like the first year of 2017. I actually got engaged to my husband a couple months after that and got married to him in the same year. Yeah, it was just boom. This is how it was, and anyways, yeah, we got married. And that's when some things did start to suck for me. I think at the time, what I had thought was God was testing me and I don't know. Okay, I had been baptized in that month, in that year, 2017. I had fully given myself to this family. I'm gonna be there for them. I'm gonna be there, these kids' mom. I'm gonna be there for this guy who needs love and care. And this is what my life is going to be. And at the time, in 2018, at the end of the, that whole year had actually been an incredible struggle. I missed an important part to the story a little bit ago. So my husband had actually, on accident, at completely my fault, missed. He had to go blow in a breath liser during sobriety court in the morning. And this is 2017, in August, three months before we got married, and he missed it because I was up late at night keeping him up. He had to be up at 6 am to be at this place and I kept him up late on accident hanging out with a friend and he slept through his alarm. I slept through. He goes to blow, pays extra money to prove that he wasn't drinking, and all that such. He went to jail. They put him away 90 days. Nope, doesn't matter. Even though he blew clean, he had never missed anything else. They were not messing around because he missed that appointment. They didn't want to whatever. So he went to jail for 73 days, and so I was taking care of those kids for three months. I don't know what I'm doing, but I know for a fact God had his hand in all of that situation so many times. People in AA were like they knew Jeff very well. Like I said, we were all friends and people were giving me $20 bills. Here you go, take this Just in case we want to make sure that you're good, because I'm unemployed, trying to make sure I keep this house from going under Pay my rent. So anyways, yeah, 2018 is when things changed, and when that I at the time whatever call it honeymoon phase with God ended, I was like whoa, this is actually serious stuff and it's not just all about sunshine and rainbows. At the time, that's what I thought. So I started to experience vertigo Just never had in my entire life. Just chilling one day on the couch watching TV, and the room started spinning and I was like what the heck is going on and it scared me. And the room starts spinning everywhere. I'm freaking out and I let the anxiety monster control me and I believed everything that that enemy told me You're going to die, You're sick. You don't even know it. All these lies and I believed them for a year, a whole year. And so by believing those lies, it also causes the vertigo to come back more, because when your blood pressure is high and you're nervous, you're going to naturally get more sweaty, maybe dizzy. I got dizzy I would physically make myself dizzy and I stopped driving completely because I was so afraid to be behind the wheel. I ain't doing this. What if I pass out at the wheel and die? So I stopped. And then 2019, I had started a relationship with God during that year and everything it was just it was harder to do everything that I was doing in that year. The first year of motherhood was like a breeze and I was like not a breeze, but it was easier, and I felt like so loved and cared for by God. But then I started getting vertigo and all these symptoms and anxiety. So I felt like God had abandoned me. He never did, but I thought that at the time for a long time. And then 2019 comes around and one day I was just chilling and my face, my gums, had started really hurting and I'm like I don't know what's going on. And I started I didn't know this, but I was getting a gum infection. I had no idea what was going on, I just knew I had pain up in my upper lip and all that, and accidentally put like popped a pot into my face. I was putting away dishes and I went knock myself in the face with it and I was like, oh, it hurt, it was throbbing, it was terrible. I went to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to my face a huge volleyball swollen and I'm sweating and I felt like out of fever. So I wake up in my husband and he's whoa and he took me to the hospital. The hospital said either you're having an allergic reaction or this is a gum infection that exploded. And I'm like Whoa, they don't know what's going on. And then they treated me for an allergic reaction.
Speaker 2:It was a gum infection.
Speaker 3:It was a gum infection. Yeah, it was pretty. They treated me for an allergic reaction On that point in my life. I believed that it was an allergic reaction and I go oh my goodness, what did I eat? The doctors are asking me what did you eat? Did you try something new? And I'm like no. It started manifesting again. The enemy telling me lies What'd you eat? You could have died. What do you want this to happen again? Lotta da, all this stupid stuff. And I started becoming a hypochondriac, like next level, next level. I stopped leaving the house. I would not eat anything except chicken nuggets, french fries, spaghetti and cheeseburgers and honey, bunches of votes with strawberries. That's it, this is not a well balanced diet it wasn't, and it sounds like a toddler diet I'm saying it online, but that was it. That was it. I wouldn't even enjoy watermelon anymore because I was so afraid and I lived in fear. I lived in fear to that for three years. So, like I said, in 2019, I was 190 pounds, trigger warning to the point where it got so bad in 2020 that I was 118. I lost so much weight because I was when I ate, I barely ate, but in general, malnutrition malnutrition, listening to the lies of this butt face enemy and dizzy because I'm listening to his lies and life was just crap, ola, I was not trusting the father at that point anymore. I totally just tuned out his voice completely. I didn't trust them. It was bad and so fast forward 2020. I, like I said, I lost all that weight and I was like let's go and was feeling very self confident and prideful, completely prideful, selfish.
Speaker 2:You lost all the weight because you were a hypochondriac and we're only eating chicken nuggets.
Speaker 3:Yep, so ridiculous, okay, so ridiculous, so yep, I oh my gosh, you're like man.
Speaker 2:I knew you knew me. That is not the diet for success. Everybody, honestly, no, it's not great for you.
Speaker 3:I do, please don't ever. Yeah, no, okay, yep, I get prideful, very prideful. Start trading my husband like crap. Completely started just saying, ah, this life came for me, whatever, pretty much right. Start doing my own thing. Started doing drugs again a little bit. I was 21. Had my first drink since I had been sober, right, had my first drink again, pina Colada living it up and because for so long I had listened to the enemy, I was also told by the enemy that if I told my husband any of this stuff, that my husband would do something bad to me. Because I'm going to assume because he, the enemy, tried to lie to me from my past experiences, right, and so my husband had no idea any of the stuff was going on within me for three years. He just I'm like, oh, I'm just losing weight because I've been exercising. It lied to him for three years he had no idea what was going on, and so I got mad at him in 2021. I turned 21 because I'm like, yeah, it was just crazy, I would get mad at him because I wanted help but never told him I needed help. Made no sense. But I decided my parents had actually moved to Colorado four days before my wedding they said peace out, they did not want me to get married. They hated my husband. I get it, I understand now. But they were like, nope, I'm out and they left and I love them very much, not angry about it anymore. It was very upset at the time but they left to Colorado and, like I said, I'm in this party phase again. I am completely rebellious to God. I felt God hated me and I kind of hated God At the time. I kind of hated God. To be honest with you. I was like I love you and still want to serve you, but why have you forsaken me? Yeah, I like would model my thoughts after Jesus, I'm like whenever he was about to do that and I'm like and double minded.
Speaker 2:Like yep, you love him, but why did you do this thing? So you don't really trust what he's saying, or what?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and like the father didn't do any of that to me, like he never did any of that to me. So I'm believing those lies. But anyways, I call my dad up one night in October of 2020, after a year of lots of crap, and I said, hey, dad, I need to get out of this house. I need to go on a vacation. Can I come and visit you? And he's like, sure, you know, we've whatever. So I fly to Colorado next day. Like my dad had the savings account, so he dropped me a ticket next day and I just told, walked in, told my husband I'm leaving tomorrow Five o'clock in the morning, I'm going. He's what, like, what the heck is happening? And I leave my kids for three days. Just buy peace out, go to Colorado, come home, fight with my husband. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with me when I delete. You know, what the problem was is that I just left right off, but I'm not that. I've been talking him, but anyways, it was just a complete rebellious depression, listening to the enemy, not understanding God's love for me. Yeah, that was bad. 2021 comes around and before I end that, my husband was incredibly. He mir Jesus to me in that whole year I will. I got a can never miss out on my testimony. My husband through, no matter what I did. I think this is what actually changed my life, with reason why I stuck with truth, because of, honestly, what my husband did for me. I treated him like crap. We fought, we argued, I'd leave, I'd come back. I played games with this heart. He was I, just he loved me. I had left and went to my mom's friend's house intending to go it was like an hour away from our house intending to go on a plane to Colorado, like back after that, like I'm moving, I'm leaving. I'd sent my kids to go stay with their aunt for a month until I figured out what I was doing and, no matter what, my husband came fighting back for me. I love you and I know that this is sucks and I know that this is going on, but I love you. He prodigal, sonned me kind of moment. I don't care, I love you, come home. He always forgave me, he always loved me and we yes, we argued and stuff like that, but it was just he still loved me and I can't, no matter what was said and done, ever not mention that forgiveness that he had for me in that time. And so 2020 comes or 2021 comes around and I got some trust earned back with my hubby, right, I got to show him that Code dependent again, right, and people pleasing, but still good to earn your new spouse's trust back. And but I had went next level and I'm trying really hard to read my Bible and do all these things to obtain spirituality again. I'd done that so many times throughout my walk with God and the end. So my I told you that his wife, his wife, left behind three other children at the beginning of this. One of those, or two of those children actually lived two houses down from us. Their adoptive mother and her father didn't want us to be really hanging around them. They didn't like my husband and whatever. Long story short, awhile goes on and they let us meet the children and everything. Her older stodder turns of age to leave house. She's 17 in the state of Michigan and she wants to come be with her siblings. She misses her siblings and everything. So she asks if she can move in with us after a few months and we talked to her mom and she moved in with us for a while and yeah, so that was another big part of my testimony. Anyways, 2021, she lives with us for a little bit and then the end of the year comes around and it's, I think, november of 2021. And then I came across the Bible study. I don't remember which one it was. I think it was litter, I think it was the death to life. Bible study on Tuesdays.
Speaker 2:Is it because of Savannah?
Speaker 3:Louie, she, yeah, she's the reason why that I found out.
Speaker 2:Why did you start watching Savannah?
Speaker 3:Savannah's a YouTuber, so she was young and I had no other young friends or YouTubers. I was a big YouTube kid so I was like, oh, okay, I grew up with that adulthood lot on. So I find this younger girl that's also young and married, and so I related to her story a lot. I was like, wow, at least I'm not the only one I'd been made fun of. I've lost all of my friends, all of my family due to marrying young, and marrying an older guy for that matter Lost it all. And her being young she was freshly 18, as far as I know from her story that she got married and I liked that about her. I was like, wow, I don't feel so alone. And then she's talking about God. I had also not known any young people my age that also loved God and so it felt good to have somebody I could watch that also loved God and stuff like that. And then one day she stopped posting. It was really sad. But then one day she comes on with this video saying I'm pretty sure she said in the video my old videos were trash, I've got some good stuff now and I was like, okay, what's up? And I'd realized all her videos were taken down. I was so surprised. I was like what the heck? And she's talking with Misha and she's joined this Bible study. It's called Maine New and we do it every Wednesday morning at 10.30 AM, Eastern Standard Time Stuff like that. And I was like whoa, that'd be really cool as well to meet Savannah. I've been watching at her at that point for four years, so I'm like that's really cool.
Speaker 2:So I join up. I just joined the Bible study.
Speaker 3:Yep. So I joined up and I liked that one. And then that's what led me to one of the later night studies, because that's when I met a bunch of people. Who was it? Oh man, I met so many people that were like no, I'm going to love you and show you the love of Christ. I know Amé was one of them.
Speaker 2:So when you come into these Bible studies, what are you thinking? Because you told me you were hearing some weird stuff at first.
Speaker 3:I thought this was like. No, it was bad. I was a very religious, pharisaical minded person and I felt God was very uptight, very proper, and y'all were like God is love and I'm like God also swallows people up.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting, that you've had this crazy experience where you come and you first know God is love and then you feel like God has abandoned you. But then you joined these Bible studies because you like Savannah. But God has got this weird kind of. You have a religious mindset, even though it hadn't really been working out for you, yep, and you're hearing us say that what was this stuff that you God is love? What else were you learning that? You're like I don't know about these people.
Speaker 3:The freedom from sin. I did not understand at all. I was like what? Like I was the Roman seven. You know how. We learned a lot about that in the studies. I was under the Roman seven mindset. I beat my flesh into submission daily, so severe and it's funny when I think about it because I was just. I had to be depressed, I had to be mad If that makes sense, I had to have something to argue with you about. Yeah, I don't know if that makes sense. I didn't want to believe these truths because I was a very religious, whitewash tomb Pharisee for five years. The first year was God's love, and the rest of those time, the rest of that time, I was a whitewash tomb, judgmental, hypocritical Pharisee period and so you started asking a lot of questions.
Speaker 2:But you would be, you were like a little roller coaster. Yeah, some days you'd be like I get it, I'm all in. And then other days I remember getting like a message from you and you sounded really low and you were really depressed. And we talk on the phone a couple of times and I'm just like what is it that you're not believing? Tell me the thing. And I don't even know if you knew at that time. What you were believing you were just like. This sounds like to describe that.
Speaker 3:So I wasn't believing for one. I think that our father could be, could actually love me with everything, all of the mess, all of the sins I had ever committed and everything that I ever. The way that I am like I didn't think he could love me the way that I am, with the anxieties, with the hypochondrias, with the fears, with the things that I thought about people, things like that. I didn't know he could love me and cleanse me. What he's done now. When I finally accepted that a couple of months ago and I can't really pinpoint when it finally hit me, but it felt like my body had been genuinely fully cleansed, when I said okay, because I think what I did was go, father, you can't love this mess, this is evil. You can't be in the presence of evil and I fought him. You can't be in the presence of sin Because the Torah I'm very familiar with the Torah as I was a Torah observant for a while covered my head, wore long clothes, skirts down on my ankles, believed I had to follow the Torah. That's why I'm very familiar with this concept of following the law and how it leads to nothing, because I know it led to death. For me, it was very stressful time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're following the law to get good with God, that's legalism.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I did. I followed the law to earn salvation. That's what I thought I was doing. I thought I was earning salvation, so anyways, yeah, I thought God, no, you can't be in the presence of this evil.
Speaker 2:So when you disappeared for a while, was that on purpose or I'm not interested in this and it wasn't a purposeful thing Because you disappeared and then came back. Oh yeah, 2021. You disappeared and then come back a little bit, tell me about that.
Speaker 3:I know for a fact in 2021, when I first heard it, it was like I liked what I was hearing, but I didn't believe it and I thought it was trash. I was like, nope, this is not true, that's not nope. I just didn't believe it at all. No way, no, how, not happening. And so I did not come back until May of 2022.
Speaker 2:What made you come back?
Speaker 3:Desperate. I wanted. I do know. Now it was like the Holy Spirit, like the Holy Spirit's, come on, let's go. I had stopped going because of those reasons and then kept falling into a rut of religion, trying to earn salvation la-da-da, right. And so I'm like I need people, support and love and I want to know about the Bible, and maybe this truth is what's good. So I came back. Maybe it's true, megan, you've been in this dead end rut for five and a half years and maybe this is the gospel. Maybe the gospel you were hearing wasn't the good news. I came back.
Speaker 2:All right, we're going to take a quick break and I'm going to bring my brother, eddie Cornejo, on. Eddie, what's good, my man? What's going on, bro? Bro, I'm going to give these people a secret, which I don't think is a secret. I've listened to every single episode of the Death of Life podcast, but I know you have, and probably you've heard them closer than I have, because you are the editor of this thing. What kind of blessing has this podcast been in your life, man?
Speaker 1:Oh man, listening to the podcast. I'm looking forward every single Wednesday morning that I sit down to edit the podcast, and sometimes I can't wait. I just listen ahead of time, like right now, we have nine episodes. By the time of you listening to this episode, we have nine episodes waiting to be released, nine stories that I cannot wait to get to. And, man, every single time is such a blessing. There is something that someone says that is like oh wow, that's how I used to look at things also, and it just unlocks, and it's just so much life giving insights that are just transformative to my life and I can't get enough.
Speaker 2:Man, when you really think about it, that's nine episodes, that's nine lives that are changed. Amen, that's wild. When you think about it. You've decided not only to edit all the episodes. I don't know how much you guys hear when I say Eddie, cut that out, or if Eddie ever leaves that in.
Speaker 1:No, you're very clean. We're very professional over here. We're pros.
Speaker 2:Hey guys, shut up. You've decided not only to just listen to every episode, but to donate of your hard-earned income to keep this podcast and the other things that we have going with Love Reality moving forward. Why have you done that?
Speaker 1:One of my pastor mentors used to say we usually try to downplay the numbers and we say, oh, it's not about the numbers. But this pastor friend of mine switched it on me. He's like it's absolutely about the numbers. Yeah, the more people we can get into the understanding of who they are in Christ, the better. Yeah, right. So this is why we give over our money, this is why we give over our time, because people got to know, people have to know, because the numbers they're actually not numbers, they're human beings and we want them to see who they are in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:If you've been blessed by this podcast, you could do a couple of things. You can send it to a friend, but also go to loverealityorg. Give and partner with us. Every single dollar counts because we're trying to move this thing forward and we'd love you to be a part of it. So go to loverealityorg. Slash, give and man, you would be a blessing to us. Thank you so much, eddie. Appreciate you, doc, appreciate you, bro. What? Do you feel like you started to learn after you came back in 2022?.
Speaker 3:Sabrina ministered to me. I was talking to her about a bunch of stuff and she was just. She said she understood where I was at, she'd been there, she could relate to me and all this stuff, and had me pray out loud with her while sitting. I was sitting by a lake outside. It was like perfect setting too. I was sitting out there praying and she asked me to listen for God's responses and I told her them, and at the time I didn't fully. I didn't believe them at first. That was another thing that also changed. It was belief. I had to believe At the. In the beginning I didn't believe, and that's where I would argue with you a lot and be like what's up, richard, tell me this. I came at you a lot. I was like tell me this, what about this in the Bible? And you're like turn to this. And I'm like, oh, my bad, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like you ever came at me.
Speaker 3:That's funny I wasn't angry, but I felt angry on the inside.
Speaker 2:I was like no, this isn't true. And the point you were trying to make is that that we have to earn it or that we have to?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, there's some kind of catch here. That's what it was. I felt there was a catch. Yep, there's nothing for free in this world. That's what I thought. There's a free gift, but I didn't know it. I was just like no, I've got to earn it, because that's how I earned the love of my mother, that's how I earned the love of my father, that's how I earned the love of my husband, my friends, my children, everybody. It had to be earned. It wasn't just received, it was all an exchange, some kind of exchange, if that makes sense. I didn't have a right view on what love could look like.
Speaker 2:So in these last few months, Manning, hearing your whole story I've never heard this before, All of this. I always say this people come by their stuff honestly. Okay, All of this stuff was leading up to you being a hypochondriac. All this stuff was leading up to anxiety. Anxiety is like being afraid for your body and then, because you don't feel safe, then all of these thoughts and things start manifesting. So it's not like I said, you came by it honestly. But then hearing the truth and coming back and I hear how you minister to people now, I hear how you encourage people now because you can see yourself in their story. When we were just on a Bible study on Monday night with a lady who was dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder when it comes to sin, like just obsessing about it if she was right in God's eyes all the time I heard you ministering to her and that's because I know that's what you've experienced. Tell me about that. Tell me about how you can minister to people that have that experience.
Speaker 3:So this is probably one of my favorite parts of God's love. Honestly talking about this, because I suffered for three years with the obsessive, compulsive thoughts of I thought my water bottles were poisoned, I thought everything. I had literally nine boxes of hundred bunches of votes in my pantry at one point because I would only open it once and pour one bowl of cereal in it. Oh no, and then something bad happened to it after the fact. That's what I would think, that's what I would think, and it was just so terrible. It was so terrible, but what God did in that time it was like, literally, it came to a point where I had said I'd been coming to these studies last year and hearing about God's love and things like that, everything. And like Megan, you can trust him. You know, told over and over again, he's someone you can trust. And so I said to him, probably in June of something of last year, I was like all right, father, if this it had to work like this actually for me anyways, where I said, father, if this bottle of water is poisoned, I trust you. I also know that in the Bible it says he will even protect those. If they've been poisoned. He'll make them stay alive, the red shack may check, and a bend to go. So I went okay, I'm just going to trust you. If something bad is going to happen, it'll happen right. Or you'll protect me, or I'll go be with you in heaven, or whatever. I'll rest until you come back again and I'll see you next time I wake up. And nothing ever happened. So every day that I kept pushing myself, megan, trust God, trust God. The more that happened, the more that I realized my fight or flight census started to wind down because I kept putting myself in a very vulnerable at the time. I know it can sound small to certain people and that's okay, but to me that was so incredibly serious I thought I was going to die. It was so bad. I was very afraid of death because I thought I could go to hell at any moment. But anyways, yeah, because it was dependent on my duty how well I did today if I was going to heaven or hell.
Speaker 2:So you said the thought started to die down because you were just being vulnerable, and it was, but have they completely disappeared? Is there ever a thought that comes into your mind? That's not true.
Speaker 3:Yes, yep, they still come back, and a lot of times I have learned from you which praises the Lord, I not just you, but you were a big part of it where it was just let do not. You said a long time ago, do not control the thought. But first you said feel the feel, all the feelings. Feel the feels. They are not Lord, though. You can have feelings. They are valid. We understand that. We all have feelings as human beings, but they are not our Lord, and so that stuck to that like thing into my head. But then you also said when you try to fight and combat a thought and you go, hey, come here and you wrestle with it, what are you focusing on? You're focusing on yourself, you're focusing on the thought. You're still giving it power, and so when we give that power, it becomes stronger. And what am I doing? I'm now feeding this evil, disgusting demon. Really, because that's what it felt like, was this demon attacking me, and I'm making this beast big. But if I decide to let the thought flow by, try not to control it. You taught me that multiple times. I heard you teaching other people that multiple times as well, when I started to believe it and put it into practice, if I try my best to let these thoughts flow by and pray instead and choose thankfulness, choose grateful attitude of just thank you, lord, that I don't have to deal with these things anymore, even if I might be struggling in that moment, even if there are times I had car anxiety for a long time that I'm working through currently with the father. I'd get scared behind the wheel and stuff like that, but I've been able to drive again. But if I have anxiety I can pray and go. Lord, thank you that I don't have to deal with this anxiety because you freed me in peace, be still. And my favorite verse of all time that you have ever quoted to me was the one about where he keeps somebody's minds in peace for when you see the Father come to him Isaiah 26, 3.
Speaker 2:Yes, he will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is said on thee because he trusts in thee.
Speaker 3:That is literally the best. So amazing that verse is so encouraging to me. When you first said that I just about dropped Wow, that was the key that unlocked the door for me.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about resistance here for a second, because James chapter 4 says that if you resist the devil, he will flee from you. But then it says draw night to God and he will draw night to you. So when we think about resisting some thought In some sense resisting in James chapter four is actually the drawing close to God. It's actually replacing this thought that's from the enemy with actually God loves me and I'm safe. Because if you resist every single thought that comes into your mind, no, I've always described it like Gandalf running through. and now this is the second time I brought up the Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings, where he puts a staff down and says you shall not pass, it doesn't work. He ends up getting taken out by the, the Balrock, in any way. Yeah, he gets taken out. The way that we resist is not by fighting against the thought, but it is by replacing it with truth. So we take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. So if a thought comes in and it's not from God, we say, oh no, that's not me, let me consider this. And so think about how you're thinking, think about what you're thinking, and then when you realize, oh, that thought is not truth, then you could just watch it float by and say, oh okay, let me just grab onto this truth. I've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even before the foundation in the world. He chose me and him to be holy and righteous before him, holy and blameless before him, and he's predestined me. And yet thoughts of weird stuff still come in my mind. You can't control what just pops into your mind. You can't control if you will continue to consider it.
Speaker 3:Yep, that's where I realized the freedom from sin concept was pretty much engulfed in how we think. That made freedom from sin completely makes sense to me. If that I don't know. They cross together so clearly to me in my brain. I was like, oh wow, I get it. Okay, I can choose to think these things, I can choose to sin, but I'm free from the bondage of my thoughts. In the same way I'm free from the bondage of sin. I don't have to be under its oppression. I don't have to let it dictate me. I was also freed from myself. That is a big part of my testimony is like I had told you, huh.
Speaker 2:Freed from Old Megan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was free from my old me. So when I was little I told you way earlier about how my parents were going to abandon me. At the time I thought anyways at the mental hospital and a lot of times they had actually left me in certain places and just whatever, and so I had felt so abandoned. So I thought to myself I can remember the exact moment when I thought I had to protect myself no longer my mom and dad. I was a little girl, I don't trust them anymore, I have to take care of myself now and I'm the only one that I trust. I was like 10 or 11, thinking that thought. Like they ain't trust no one you know, or me, friends and I exactly. And I lived by that for so long, until last year, literally. That's when it like just crack changed. I was very selfish and very self focused in a lot of ways, lots of areas. It was how, like I said about the exchange, if I love my husband enough, he'll love me back. And it's very self focused really, in my opinion. Like how can I, you know, if I love him, he'll give me something back instead of I'm a love this guy because I love him and naturally getting that love in return, because you've been loved and that's how you can love. I'm already loved, right yeah, and being free from self is incredibly self.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you this as we wrap this thing up Praise the Lord for a loving husband, loving family, and I've just seen you grow. And if you call me tomorrow and you're like, oh, there's something that I'm not believing, I'm going to be okay with it. I'll just be like, okay, megan, let's talk about it, because I think we're. I think what you now have is a foundation of what God has actually done. Yes, so with that foundation in mind, let's go back. Let's go back to what? Age 14.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When you're just looking for loving all the wrong places and you're medicating You're an emo kid to protect yourself from being hurt. If you were able to put your arm around that girl and just say, hey, babe, what would you tell her?
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness, that she is not alone, that Jesus loves her with an everlasting love, that this verse that I love is like John 1024, I believe it's I will. He says that he's not going to love her. He says that he's not going to leave us as orphans. Like he, he is going to a son. He's going to adopt us in and love us and care for us. You don't have to be alone or afraid anymore. You don't have to be afraid of the enemy. He tries to act big and scary, but your father in heaven is a lot bigger than that. He is so much bigger, so much stronger, and let's trust this and know you don't have to hurt yourself anymore. We can get through this with Christ. All things are Christ's strength and, yeah, he can strengthen us. Get us through this, get us through the valley of the shadow of death. It may look like we're going through an evil, dark, scary path. That's just darkness and I know that. I would tell her. I know you miss home, but this isn't your permanent home. I really missed my home in Texas, but this earth isn't your permanent home. You have a place reserved for you with your heavenly father. That's what I would say to her. And you have a future ahead of you. That's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You're a testimony to us. You've been one of those that has been on the Bible studies a lot through the last year and thank you so much for your witness and your testimony that God is love, because I think it's changing the world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, he's the best father that I could have ever asked for.
Speaker 2:Amen. Thanks a lot, Megan. Yeah thank you. Cool, but. I really love Megan's story and I love Megan's heart because God has, just like she, her, her, her spirit has been sensitive to truth and while she started believing lies, her, her heart was sensitive enough to be able to come back and and receive the truth of who she is. Even while her mistakes said otherwise, she chose to believe in Christ and crucified. But if you're having trouble and you're having thoughts that you believe are your own but they're negative towards you, or that you believe that they're from God and they're negative towards you, there is no condemnation for you, and Christ Jesus, For the love and spirit of life, has set you free from the love, sin and death. So this prayer is for you, Father. While I believe you, I'm still struggling because thoughts are popping into my head and, Father, thank you that you have shown me that those thoughts are not from you, but they're either from an old pattern or from, or a fiery dart from the enemy. But they do not speak the loudest word over my life you do. They do not speak the truest word over my life, you do. And so thank you that I can take every thought captive to your obedience, that, if it doesn't align with what you have said. If it doesn't align with what you have done, then I rebuke it and I forsake it and I stand on a solid rock of truth from what Jesus has done in my life. I believe you, I believe you and I receive this truth in Jesus' name, Amen. If you are struggling with lies of the enemy that are positioning you as less than like in Megan's story, what we would love to do is encourage you as a community, and you can do that on our Love Reality Facebook group. There's so much encouragement there. So if you're resonating with their story and going back and forth between lies, I just want to recommend that. It's been such a huge, huge, huge blessing to me and I hope to see you there.