In this episode, my brother Nicholas Morrison and I delve into his transformative journey from internal strife to a place of healing and purpose through faith and authenticity. We discuss the challenges of growing up in a faith-based community, confronting issues of identity, sexuality, and spiritual growth. Nicholas shares his struggle with shame and the quest for self-acceptance, highlighting the role of community and vulnerability in personal healing. We culminate in exploring the freedom and peace found in embracing one's true identity in Christ, transcending worldly labels. This conversation is a testament to the power of faith in navigating life's complexities and an invitation to those seeking hope and belonging in their journey towards light and liberty.
0:00 - Stories of Transformation and Love
13:09 - Childhood Love, Connection, and Faith
18:23 - Answered Prayers and Hearing God's Voice
22:32 - Innocence Lost, Childhood Shift
38:21 - Navigating Sexual Identity and Self-Acceptance
43:33 - Navigating Same-Sex Attraction and Shame
48:42 - Navigating Relationships and Self-Discovery
1:03:58 - Finding Rest Among Struggles and Transitions
1:15:44 - Dealing With Emotions and Loss
1:24:12 - Navigating Sexual Identity and Relationships
1:39:26 - Struggling With Faith and Connection
1:47:21 - Journey of Faith and Personal Transformation
1:59:42 - Struggling With Faith and Identity
2:07:52 - Journey Through Grief and Depression
2:20:12 - Journey of Friendship and Healing
2:28:04 - Discovering True Identity in Christ
2:34:38 - Identity, Sex, Faith, and Freedom
2:48:35 - Journey Towards Authenticity and Healing
3:03:52 - Struggles With Identity and Sin
3:13:21 - Journey to Light and Freedom
In this episode, my brother Nicholas Morrison and I delve into his transformative journey from internal strife to a place of healing and purpose through faith and authenticity. We discuss the challenges of growing up in a faith-based community, confronting issues of identity, sexuality, and spiritual growth. Nicholas shares his struggle with shame and the quest for self-acceptance, highlighting the role of community and vulnerability in personal healing. We culminate in exploring the freedom and peace found in embracing one's true identity in Christ, transcending worldly labels. This conversation is a testament to the power of faith in navigating life's complexities and an invitation to those seeking hope and belonging in their journey towards light and liberty.
0:00 - Stories of Transformation and Love
13:09 - Childhood Love, Connection, and Faith
18:23 - Answered Prayers and Hearing God's Voice
22:32 - Innocence Lost, Childhood Shift
38:21 - Navigating Sexual Identity and Self-Acceptance
43:33 - Navigating Same-Sex Attraction and Shame
48:42 - Navigating Relationships and Self-Discovery
1:03:58 - Finding Rest Among Struggles and Transitions
1:15:44 - Dealing With Emotions and Loss
1:24:12 - Navigating Sexual Identity and Relationships
1:39:26 - Struggling With Faith and Connection
1:47:21 - Journey of Faith and Personal Transformation
1:59:42 - Struggling With Faith and Identity
2:07:52 - Journey Through Grief and Depression
2:20:12 - Journey of Friendship and Healing
2:28:04 - Discovering True Identity in Christ
2:34:38 - Identity, Sex, Faith, and Freedom
2:48:35 - Journey Towards Authenticity and Healing
3:03:52 - Struggles With Identity and Sin
3:13:21 - Journey to Light and Freedom
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 2:What if you don't have to change? And I was like that's stupid, that's not an option. I obviously have to change. I have this idea of like a Venn diagram of who I am and who God like wants me to be, and it's mostly overlapped, like I am a good person and I am trying to love people and I am trying to be genuine and there's just a little sliver that isn't in line. And if I can just fix this like that's what I've been aware of and focused on this whole time to bring myself into full alignment, awesome. But I obviously need to get rid of this. I need to change this.
Speaker 1:Yo, welcome to the death to life podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is with my brother, nicholas. You may have heard Nicholas's story I think it might have been episode three. Like way back in the beginning we talk about how it all started, but this is a much deeper and more in depth look at his life and his story and it is a wild ride. And, man, what a blessing it is going to be for you to hear it. It is not for kids at all. There is some deception, but, man alive, is there some truth and it is beautiful. So let's jump into this episode. This is Nicholas Morrison. Bugle up, shrap in love y'all, appreciate y'all. So where does it start, my man? Where does the whole shebang and bang start when it comes to your spiritual life, your death to life story?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I think it literally starts at the beginning. But I want to. I want to preface because I've thought about this a lot. Like you said, there's been a three year buildup where we've wanted to kind of tell the full story. Well, you've wanted to hear the full story. I've kind of been putting it off and now I'm all about it and God's all about it and we got this. But I've thought a lot of thought about it and for a long time I just thought so much about the death portion of it and sharing like all of that. And then I realized like there's just so much exponentially more growth in life that I just feel like I don't even know it all obviously. And so it's been so much easier because I feel like I knew my death right. I was in it for so long, I was so deep in there that I was ready to share that part. And in the life part I'm even more excited to share just the little bits that I've been able to understand and that I'm growing in. But I want to specify that this is not my story. I think part of that three year journey is realizing that this is not about me, it's not my story, and the fact that I'm able to tell what I'm going to tell with boldness and without fear is just testament to the fact that, like I'm not talking about myself and who I am right now, I'm talking about someone that's dead and gone, and it's still not about me. This story is all about God's unending, unfailing, redeeming love that has sought me out every single day of my life, and so this is my love story. It's God's love story with me. That's what I'm sharing right now.
Speaker 1:I love that man. So in other podcasts, where we go like maybe 77% death and then 23% life at the end and the life's awesome, you're thinking we need to go like 58% death and then 42% life because there was so much growth. Is that what you're trying to tell me?
Speaker 2:I think it's going to be a mystery, I think I have no, and I think God's going to go wherever he wants, so we'll see what comes out.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, I guess when I start you know how I start every single podcast nowadays I'm like where does it start for you? You are, there's only one more sibling in the Morrison clan to have a podcast and I'm sure that's going to be happening in probably 2024. So true, we've heard a lot from the Morsens. If you haven't this is your first episode go back in the backlog. There's plenty of. We've had the parents. We need to get the uncle, the aunties and uncles on here, but we've had your family. So we know a little bit of your background, but we haven't seen it through your perspective. So, yeah, start me on that journey.
Speaker 2:What a blessing though Am I right Having all of them, having all of them on there rocking with it.
Speaker 1:Oh, every single one of them is a banger Every single one. Like I rarely listen to podcasts over again, I caught myself the other week listening to Lawrence, like I was waiting for my guard to get fixed and I was like man, this is amazing, God loves us so much. Just sitting there listening to it and listening to your dads and your moms and Katie's and Alyssa's Alyssa's, I think, was the first one I did live. I can talk about that for years, but you, where does it start?
Speaker 2:Yeah, where does it start? So I want to start by saying I'm telling a little story. I was sitting with my buddy, zach, when you guys were doing Love Reality Church on Saturday mornings Not sure if that's as much of a thing now if it is, it's more the Friday night studies but we were doing Saturday morning church. I came over to his apartment, we were sitting on the couch and we had probably been silent for five, six minutes. We were just like listening to the conversation, whatever it was. We had not been talking to each other and I don't know what the topic was or who was talking, but at the exact same time, out of nowhere, both of us were sitting out of nowhere, both of us said I love love. At the same time and we looked at each other. I walked out of the room, because that happens to us way too often, but it was such a genuine sentiment that both of us had for some reason, at the exact same moment, and it is. I think that's where I'm going to start is just with the fact that, like, I love love and it has probably motivated every aspect of my life in one way or another, and we'll get into the different aspects of that. But ever since I was a really little kid I have been a romantic and I love love in all the facets. So movies and books and whatever it is, it's not just romantic love, it is like friendships. I think Bridget Herbethy is like a beautiful movie that just kills me because their friendship is so sweet. Or like Fox and the Hound, I love like father, daughter, like family relationships. I love sibling relationship. I just love like the dog, like Marley and me, and just love like it gets me. Dude, it gets me. But I've been a romantic and so one of my first, first memories and I already confirmed this with Jenny, I'm allowed to tell when I was like four or five years old, I was living in Minnesota and we were at a wedding. I was at a wedding with one of my friends and we weren't part of it. So we were like in the back lobby, in the mother's room, like by ourselves, trying to stay out of the way, and our thought process was one day we will get married and might not be to each other, but at some point we're going to have to get married and like kiss somebody and that's going to be weird. So we should just do it now, so that's not weird on the day.
Speaker 1:No, like we ought to make out in the mother's room, because who knows what's going to happen in life.
Speaker 2:Like how awkward would it be if your first kiss was in front of everybody?
Speaker 1:at your wedding.
Speaker 2:So we got to practice. So we it was literally like basically headbutting in the corner of this mother's room and we're like, all right, I think we're ready. But the thought process was there, like I was looking ahead. I was like, yeah, marriage, that's like a goal that I have. This, this is going to happen at some point. And it's on my mind that like made its way into how I interacted with my siblings friends. They were in high school at that point, so all of their friends were 10, 12, 14 years old of me. But any girl with long hair for some reason, I would take a hair band, get down on one knee and propose to them and every single one said yes. It's crazy. I was like 100%, I'm not going to lie. And I was engaged to all these girls. They all said yes, like I was all. I was a loving, a loving little kid.
Speaker 1:You were like the cutest guy, like like the cutest little brother that everybody loved, right, because he had all these older siblings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%, and my voice was like six octaves higher than this. I think that really helped me out with the cuteness factor because I sounded like a chipmunk. It was great. I'm going to use that to my advantage. But yeah, ever since I was really little, like that was kind of where my mindset was. So if you don't, if you haven't heard any of the stories of the Morsens or whatever, I am the youngest of six kids. My dad, the older three and the younger three were kind of split up by six years in between the groups. But the younger three kind of lived completely different like lives growing up than the older three. My dad used to work construction and real estate in Iowa and they had like farmland and animals and like out in the country. And then the younger three more grew up in like small town Minnesota no pets allowed, like going to I think we went to public school. I don't know what we're doing. I went to a public kindergarten, at least for a little bit, and then my dad became a pastor. So he was still doing real estate a little bit but he became a pastor in Minnesota and when I was six he got called to pastor a little bit of a larger church or a growing church in Indiana and I say growing like I knew, but I was six, I don't actually know what was going on. It was really small when we got there. So we moved to Indiana and we moved into this like log house that's on the field next to the parking lot of the church and the church like had students going to school in one of the like fellowship halls and there were maybe like eight students, I think, of varying grades, with one teacher kind of teaching everybody Not me though, because I was in kindergarten, obviously still, but just really small things and over we were there for fives, five and a half years and over that course like my dad was instrumental in growing the church and building a school and a daycare and playground and a gym, like on that it was wild the growth that God did through my dad and the ministry and the church there. But moved there when I was six and obviously my my siblings were in school. But because I'm all about love and connection, like that's my thing I just crave connection with everything and everybody. While they were at school I was trying to entertain myself and I would go sit on the end of the driveway and just wait for cars to go by. And I'd like do a semi honk thing and get cars to like honk at me for hours. And that was not a busy yeah, that was not a busy street. Or I'd like lay in the grass next to a gopher hole and just like wait for a gopher to to pop up, or I don't know. I would go in the woods and sing Christian songs because in my head, animals love to worship God and if they knew that I love Jesus and they love Jesus, they would like come out like a Disney princess, this isn't the sweetest thing I've ever heard in my life, oh my. God, here's the thing. I love that you say it's sweet, because I've told these stories to people and they're like this sounds sad. You were lonely and I was like no, I was happy. This was like no, the little critters in the in the birds. They were singing with cars, like praising your friends. Yeah, that didn't really work, but yeah, that's so. That's like my young, young little brain. I did start going to school. Actually, my older sister, lauren, taught me in second grade. She was my teacher and that is where I started my first relationship. If you want to count second grade, there was a girl yeah, exactly, why don't I start early? There was a girl in the grade below me. We were in line washing our hands for lunch and I turned around and said I like you. She said I like you. I was like right, so we should be boyfriend and girlfriend. And she said yeah, we should. And then we held hands while we were running laps for recess and Lauren came out and said hey, there's no holding hands at recess. And she got really protective of me, but we still held hands. And I thought. I thought I was going to marry this girl. But yeah, I would go to her house on grandparents day, like when her grandparents came to school. My grandparents were there and they like claimed me as their grandkid. Her mom was a scrapbooker. At one point we took engagement photos where, like we pretend kissed and I put my thumbs over her lips.
Speaker 1:How old are you in this?
Speaker 2:Second grade, so like seven or eight. That's wild Crazy. But I think her mom was convinced we're going to get married. Like my siblings got married, the older three siblings got married and the two of us sang at every single one of their weddings, like because we're cute and little and they thought it was adorable. So at all three receptions we sang a song you and this girl, me and this girl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the third one I remember you singing at Lauren's wedding. Yeah, and I remember how excited you were.
Speaker 2:We were really excited, but we had not seen each other at that point for like five years, so it was actually kind of awkward because I don't think we officially broke up from the second grade.
Speaker 1:Like are we still? You haven't been seeing anybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she is currently not singles. That's not. She never told me, but it's fine.
Speaker 1:I think it's officially over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to count it, but yeah, that was just like. That was my mindset at the time and I wanted to be liked. Whether it's by her in that way or just like anyone, I just wanted to be liked. I wanted to be popular. I was very conflict averse. I tried to like, make everyone happy, include everybody, but also be cool, so I didn't want anyone to be left out. But I also wanted to be with the cool kids, so I didn't want to. I don't know, I was just trying to be everywhere at once, which actually I did forever. That kind of was a pattern that continued, but I do want to dive in. You usually ask, like, who is God at the time?
Speaker 1:But I was just thinking like how am I going to get that question in there, Because it just sounds so sweet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really sweet. So at that point he was literally just simplistically sweet, like God was just a sweet guy who loved me, like my parents made it really clear that she just loves you. And I'm like, yeah, he loves me, he loves my animal friends, like we're all pals, but I actually so my parents taught me to pray when I was really young and so one one story of like, where I knew God, like listened to me and like I knew he cared I saw this gopher on the road and it wasn't dead, but it was not getting up and it like what its back leg was kind of scraping on the road and I was like it's going to die, like something's going to hit it. I can't go out and save it because we're about to leave and it's in the middle of the road. I can't get out there. So I kneeled down and I prayed and I was like God, save this gopher. Like please just get it out of the road, do what you can. And I got up and like ran inside to grab my stuff and when we drove by, the gopher was gone and I was like he either made it off the road or something smushed him so thoroughly that he got stuck to the tire and like peeled off, but I believe it was the first one and God saved that gopher, which is such a small thing. but was huge to me at the time, sure, and so just knowing that he listened was important. But then my parents actually taught me something that I think saved my life Like it is probably the most instrumental gift that I've ever been given is to hear God's voice. They taught me to pray and listen and like converse with God, and there was a summer where I started going to summer camp. There was a camp called Timberidge that I used to go to up there I don't actually know if it was in Indiana or somewhere nearby.
Speaker 1:It's in Indiana? I think it's in Indiana.
Speaker 2:Great, I never had to drive there myself so I didn't pay attention. But I love going to summer camp because I love making friends, I love making connection, like it's my favorite thing, I love being outside, I love banana boats and rope swings, like the whole thing. But there was a summer where I had to decide between going to camp and a family reunion with my cousins and stuff out at the lake and I couldn't decide and I don't know why my parents actually let me decide, but they did, they like given us some autonomy, I guess, and I was wrought with indecision and they sat me down and they're like do you want to? Like ask God? And he was like he doesn't know. And they're like well, we can ask him. And they had me pray and like repeat after them and basically just say, like God, I know you want to talk to me, I want to hear you, like Samuel, whereas like speak, lord, I'm listening. And then ask a question and what they said was sit in the silence after your question and whatever you hear, say it out loud right away, because there's power in speaking something out loud, but also it removes the time to doubt if you heard it or if it came from yourself or something else, because you asked him to speak. He's not going to let something speak louder than him. And I don't remember exactly what he said, but I remember hearing it and being like that's crazy. And we asked follow up questions and what actually ended up happening was I got to go to camp three weeks in a row and a family reunion at the end, because I was in the age group where I could go to camp junior one and junior two and then the family like reunion was right on the end. It was the best summer of my life. It was incredible.
Speaker 1:Answer prayers man Answer prayers. Answer prayers.
Speaker 2:So it was better than I ever could have imagined and I came out of it with the skill that I thought was pretty common. I'm just like listening to God and conversing with Him and knowing His voice from others Turns out it's not a common thing initially, but that's been a huge blessing since then.
Speaker 1:Wow, so you're growing up. How long did you live in Indiana?
Speaker 2:We lived there till I was 11, I think. So I got baptized when I was 10, right before my sister's wedding. I did it one because everyone was doing it, but also because my whole family was going to be there. So I was excited to be baptized. I love Jesus, like the simple, sweet mindset of a 10 year old possibly too young, maybe I knew what I was doing and I'm all about it. But I remember someone saying I don't know if it was before or after I got baptized but somebody told me it's really great you're making this decision. But you need to know life doesn't get easier when you get baptized. The devil tries harder because you made this choice, so your life is going to get harder. And I remembered that, just like it didn't scare me but it had still the mindset of like all right, life's not going to be easy. Because it was just a little bit of fear just underlying everything. I was like that's not a secret, great message to tell a 10 year old, but it's fine.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. Yay, you gave your heart to God. Watch out, keep your head on a swear word. Carry yourself, you better they're coming for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was the message. But a year later we're going to move to. We're moving back to Minnesota, the exact same town where we left, the same town where all my siblings went to high school. But I didn't want to go.
Speaker 1:It's one of the greatest places on earth. It's one of the greatest places on earth Minnesota. I do have a soft spot in my heart for good old Hutchinson, Minnesota. I lived there for three years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I literally will always claim to be Minnesota, like one of my pride and joys, because we're between Canada and America. I feel like we're like the niceness of Canada with just like the worldliness of America, I don't know With the convenience of, I don't know what it is, but we're nice, it is what it is and we can survive almost any condition.
Speaker 1:And they fish during the wintertime on Lake Malax.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just have a good time. But I remember not wanting to go. My dad actually told me a story where I was having a hard time with this move and I guess I had prayed about it and God told me to tell my parents don't worry, it's going to be as easy as possible. And so I was fine, and they were fine and they're like that's interesting. And then we moved and it was, it was as easy as possible. Went back to Minnesota and it was weird because you know who still lived there, jenny Vigil, my first kiss from six years ago, and we met at like a camp meeting or something. She had other friends, obviously, and we did not talk to each other right off the bat just because we were like I guess it's weird Because that's all I know. You ask Do you think she thought? that. Yeah, I think that's all we remember. We were just like, yeah, we used to be friends, we did daycare together and we kissed, and now it's been six years. I don't know this person. We're not tight. There's a little strangeness.
Speaker 1:We're going to have to hear from Jenny on this one. We'll get to her. I'm pumped for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did become best friends Again. I started going to Northwoods Elementary School Tiny kind of little Christian school, my sister also. She was two grades ahead of me, but we were all in this school together and it was just a great time.
Speaker 1:I'm picking up on a lot of innocence in this growing. It seems like you had a beautiful childhood. Yeah, since your parents have been on the podcast, there was quite a bit of a difference between the older three and the younger three. If you want to hear why, you can go check out those episodes. Check them out.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it seems like innocence. Worst thing I did, up to that point that I felt guilty about, was one day my mom like I just didn't want to go to church and I was throwing a huge fit. It was a Saturday. We lived across the street from the church, so mom was like fine, stay home. And she went to church and I stayed home and watched Power Rangers the whole time and I felt so guilty because power Rangers, while it's a cool show, I'm not supposed to watch it on a normal day, let alone the Sabbath. And I just they wrecked me. I think I apologized at some point because I was like mom, I watched. I watched Power Rangers, while you were at church, mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the. White Ranger it was, it was Dino Thunder, it was legit though. But yeah, innocence, and that actually you, you came in with that thought at the perfect time because innocence like right in the Northwoods era. I don't remember what the shift was, but at some point I just started like you have access to the internet and to whatever, and it just gets a lot easier. Somehow pictures are popping up and then you start looking for the pictures and then you're you're just figuring stuff out and that's. I think it was right around 11 or 12. So I just started sixth grade, I think sixth or seventh grade and that's kind of where, like, porn entered the chat and it wasn't invited. I will tell you that much. I do remember it was on accident, but everything that followed was not?
Speaker 1:Did you know anything about it at that point? Or did you even like?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Or were you? Were you the kind of guy to ask questions like where do babies come from?
Speaker 2:Or were you just like so I don't, I don't think so. Again, I was like it was all romanticized, so nothing was sexualized. I knew about relationships on a romantic level and I feel like I was wise as a little kid. I remember being at camp in Indiana, like telling the staff I was like, instead of hanging out with the campers, I would just like chill with the lifeguards on the dock, like chat it up with them. And I remember telling them like hey, if you like are interested in a girl, or you want to be in a relationship, this is where you put your hands. Like if you have your arms around their shoulders, you guys are just friends. But if you have your hand too low, that's not good either. Like that's, that's not respectful. You want it just on, like the middle or like the small of their back, Like that's where they know you're interested. But and I was how did you know this stuff? Like nine or 10, I don't know, but I was watching movies. I don't know what the butt thing was, though, Like I said, too low was bad, but I don't. I didn't know why. I was just like that's not where you put your hand. You want it in the middle. Given these guys advice, I think they're like 17 years old.
Speaker 1:Oh, thanks.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna drop that, but take a note, I'm a little lifeguard pet, but yeah, I was just innocent. I didn't really ask questions. That I know of my sister, lauren, actually did have a masturbation talk with me, probably about five years too late, with her boyfriend at the time, and they were like all right, we need to have this talk because it's important. And I was like all right and I sat through it being like what? This is crazy, that's gross, like we shouldn't obviously I'm on board with you Like avoid that at all costs Five years too late though. But no, I had no context.
Speaker 1:So you, as many stories go, the internet is there images. Yeah, Were you afraid? Were you like afraid that you wanted to keep looking at it? Walk me through that.
Speaker 2:I was guilty, I just felt like I just knew it was bad. But I think the curiosity got me and just like the exploration of like I don't know what's out there and what I'm looking at, but it got like it makes you make poor decisions Because my dad I think he went to work early one time so he dropped me off at the school early at Northwood's and I hopped on one of the computers in the school and was looking at stuff before anyone got to school and then the computer froze and it got stuck on an image. I think it was like a lot of images Like oh no, it just got stuck and I was like I don't know, you're like, am I going to have to pick?
Speaker 1:up this computer and destroy it. Am I going to have to smash this? Is this when I go to jail? Yeah, like for breaking this computer, that's what I would. I wouldn't let the school on fire.
Speaker 2:No, that's actually super smart. I didn't. I frayed so fast. I heard keys coming and I pushed the power button like to the actual computer at the bottom, not the monitor. I was just restarting the thing, which sometimes works. Other times, when you turn it on, whatever's up there is still up there, and I didn't have time to see if it worked, so I turned it off and I just sat at my desk and I prayed and I was like God, I will never, ever, ever, ever do anything bad again. I will never look at anything, I'll never even use the internet, like just please. And I sat there just like sick to my stomach and I don't even know at what point in the day people like went over to use the computers. But for however long I was just torture and it was fine. God pulled through Whoever turned on the computer is just normal.
Speaker 1:I don't know, dude, I was great God's like I got you, Nicholas, I'll fix this computer.
Speaker 2:Anything for you. I'm keeping my promise. And I was, I had like made enough promises that even at that point, I think my parents somehow instilled like that verse of let your EAs be nays or your EAs be A's and your Nays be Nays, which basically says like keep your promises. And I was like I will never say the word promise if I'm not going to do it. Like I made that decision and I had promised God like I will not look at porn again. I broke that one, unfortunately, but in the moment I was so convicted and so grateful that nobody saw that. Because, rough, yeah, rough, but yeah, gil for sure was there from the beginning. Shame, shame, hiding all that jazz.
Speaker 1:Can't really talk to anybody about it, uh-uh yeah. I don't know why you just sit with that why it's just, it's isolating, because it's shame, dude, it's shame. Shame isolates you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It does. And there's going to be a lot of that. There's going to be a lot of that Because perception and I had a hard time. For some reason I try and differentiate myself from Tyler, I don't know why, probably because, like, for a long time I wanted to be just like him and then other times I'm like on my own individual person. So stop comparing us. But Tyler's whole story is about affirmation and for some reason I was like yeah, who doesn't like being affirmed? But that's not a problem I have. And just recently I was like no, it was all, it's all affirmation in different aspects.
Speaker 1:But I think if you do like a steady on the last born child of a big family, you'll find that there's a lot of stuff that those kids wrestle with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and here's the thing. I've broken it down into three categories for what has kind of like affected my decisions and how I have been in my life and is to be known, to be loved and to be chosen. But the thing was I don't feel like I was ever really lacking any of those, so I don't know why there were such driving factors, because I feel like I always had them, like I never lacked attention, I guess, besides all those school days where I was out on the driveway by myself, but besides that, like I didn't lack attention because of the bluebirds and the cardinals and the blue jays, the squirrels and the deer. But no, I always felt like I was loved. I always felt like I don't know. I never felt like the left out youngest child. So maybe that's the spoiled part of it. I don't know, that's a stereotype as well. But yeah, just needing to be liked, needing to be loved and people choosing to be my friend and wanting to be my friend and that drove everything that I did. And so I got really. I think one of my gifts is intuition and I got really good at reading people and knowing what I needed to do to get someone to like me or to go out of my way to see somebody that's sort of off by themselves. And I want to be friends with the people that are alone just as much as I want to be friends with the groups of friends. And I could. I was never fake, but I could pull out aspects of myself, like I could be goofier or I could be more athletic or I could be whatever it is. I could just pull out those things to relate to those people in order for them to see me as a friend. And that was always my issue, because multiple times in my life people had called me like oh well, you're popular and I'm like, don't say that. I hate that word Because of my mind. Popular was it meant that everybody wanted to be my friend, when, the way I saw it, my mindset was I wanted to be everybody's friend, and that's different, and one is like sweet and genuine and like intentional, and the other one is very like self centered and conceited, and so I hated, hated, being called popular.
Speaker 1:Man, let me just point this out from what I've seen from you and I've known you, probably I think the first time you came over to our house in Nebraska was like 2010. So we're going on 15 years. You're 14, 15 years. And since the moment I met you, what comes out of you and I think this is who you are is sincerity, like you don't want to fake it, you want to be the realest you can be, but you also want that real person to be a great person, like you're going after it and what anything kind of compromises that, even if it feels good, you're like no, I only want the real thing and I want to be the real thing? Am I on my off on that? That's what I've seen from you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that that checks out For sure, 100%, and I think we're going to get into that a little bit in high school. But I think that was something that I struggled with because I was sincere and sincere and I was trying to be real and having like the porn and like just having a separate sort of secret dark side that I was hiding but trying to get rid of because I didn't want that thing. It just wore me out Because I was being me all the time and I was like why can't I be me when I'm alone? Like why can't I be the same me that I am with everyone else, just with me? Why do I revert to this thing that I don't even like? I was just listening to a Jackie Hill Perry sermon and she was like, and I was like walking in the sin and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed my sin. If you're not enjoying yourself, I think you're doing it wrong, because that's the whole point, like yeah, sin is made to be enjoyable, like that's how it gets you, and I was like, no, that checks out. Yeah, it is enjoyable. You think you want it.
Speaker 1:You think you like it, but in the is death. That's the problem. It has no answers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not fulfilling whatsoever. So, yeah, just trying to put like, be the best that I can be in everything. I was involved in everything through high school. I was on ASB, I was on campus ministries, I was a class officer, I was on the basketball team. I was a captain on the basketball team for a couple years, I was on the gymnastics team, I was in band choir, core leaders, nhs, like anything you could be in. I was in, and most of those things I was in a leadership position. And then I was working at McDonald's, which was awesome and to this day, mcdonald's is probably top three favorite jobs I've ever had. But I was just like on the go all the time and it was great. For some reason being that busy but like having it all together, it just felt awesome. And it wasn't all awesome Because in high school, as I said, I love love and I've always been very like mature but romantic minded, and high school is usually where you explore that. And I did not. If anyone knows me, they know that I have not. I did not date through high school at all. Based on principle, I had made a decision that I was not going to date in high school because dating means you're looking to get married babies Exactly and I wasn't ready to get married. So why would I date? That's done. I don't even know who I am I'm trying to figure myself out and so I had made a rule that I wasn't going to date. But that was not the only reason that I wasn't going to date. The biggest reason and this is where a lot of shame came in it wasn't just porn rich. This porn was worse than all the other porn in my head. I had been aware of same sex attraction probably since I was six. From what I at that point I didn't know what that was. I didn't know it was attraction. I think it manifested itself more in admiration, in a way, like I thought certain people were just really cool and it shifted kind of subtly and I didn't notice right away, but I can track it and I can track it back to before. There's even sexual things in your head. So I don't even know how that happened.
Speaker 1:It's just like a moment where you saw a guy and you're like, wow, that guy's so cool, I want to be like him. Or was it like a fear of?
Speaker 2:guy. It was that one. It was like that guy's cool, I want to be like him. Even while I was dating that girl in second grade we would play spies together or whatever. But we would look up celebrities that we wanted to be or we'd pick people in our lives like adults that we thought were really cool and we're like, oh yeah, I'm this person. We would play these characters, but I would choose them based on the admiration factor of who I thought was really cool, who I wanted to be like, and it sort of stands from a good, genuine place, but I can sort of track it back to that.
Speaker 1:Did you end up being more comfortable around girls? Yeah, I would say, and you just you tell me if I'm wrong Did your, being more comfortable around girls, put guys on like a different pedestal where you were a little more nervous around guys?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say I was nervous, like I'm just relational, so I just yeah, how to get along with everybody? Kind of regardless. I think I wanted and I think this is more universal than anything but like you just want to be cool with the bros. So I just the only sort of nerves that I had around guys was like I just want to be cool, I want them to think I'm cool. And I noticed like even working customer service, like my voice would go lower when I was serving a guy. I was like no matter what, no matter what, my voice would just drop because I'm like no, we're cool, like I wouldn't be as inflection, like I was just like morning, what can I get you? Because anyone else that comes in like hey, like how can I hope? What can I like it's more fun? And I was like wait, so dude, and that's just like I just want to be cool with you, I want you to think I'm cool. And I learned eventually that everybody just wants you to be yourself and they get excited when they just get to know you as a weirdo and not as a front of a cool person. So I can trace that awareness sort of back to super, super young but as the pictures and the porn and everything sort of manifested itself through sixth, seventh, eighth grade, obviously got a lot worse in high school. And the thing is I do want to specify the awareness of the same sex attraction was not like isolated to the same sex, like I was attracted both ways but I wanted to get married to a girl, like I wanted to date and marry a woman and that was like my dream. That was where my mindset was at and the same sex attraction was more of like a lust, physical thing, but no part of me ever like saw myself being in a relationship or pursuing that sort of lifestyle. It was very different and through my experiences going one way and we'll get into that I found myself actually and I've talked to Morgan about this but it changes your perception of just sexual things in general Because as that shame built up, one way I've placed women on this higher pedestal where there's this purity thing where, like even when I would imagine being married, there were certain things where I was like well, I can't do that to my wife. That's disrespectful, even though it's just like it's sex, but because I had there's this shame filter on it, from what I've experienced on this side, I could not even imagine it being placed on like in a situation of purity. It didn't compute, I could not cross over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I think that's called and maybe this is too heavy a word for it and so people might forget. You might have to forgive me Trauma in some ways but like no, from pornography. Yeah, we talk about pornography. Like, yeah, it's like there's ramifications with pornography, there are serious ramifications with pornography and so, like the problem like a friend of mine was talking to me about this shame thing that he had, that like was for years he was battling with it so he couldn't be, he didn't understand freedom. But he knew he was like why do I keep going back to this? And then, through therapy, like something, back to when he was three years old, something happened and so then he developed like this idea about sex he didn't know this but later in life, this idea about sex that was in contradiction to what sex actually is, what it was created for and all these things. And so I'm sitting there with him and I'm like you need to consider how you're thinking about sex, what it actually is. And he started thinking how do I actually think about sex? And from what you're and this just reminds me, like from what you're saying what you were thinking about sex was perverted by all of this stuff, and so you're putting women on a pedestal because you're like, all that stuff that I've looked at I could never consider, but we're starting on a foundation that's like lies Reversed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 100%. So when it came to relationships in high school, the thing is I wanted to date. I want to get married at some point. There were people that I liked, but I refused to start a relationship on a lie and I'm not going to tell them. So I'm not going to tell them.
Speaker 1:What was the lie at that point? Was the lie at that point I've looked at pornography, and not just any kind of pornography. Or was the lie at that point? I am this thing.
Speaker 2:I've looked at pornography. Honestly, pornography was a thing I just didn't want to tell anyone that I was doing that. But then the type of pornography, what I've looked at, or what I can be attracted to, that was never going to come out of my mouth in a relationship where I'm not married to them but then I'm not going to tell them after we're married. That's insane. So I'm just not. I can't start without lying, so I'm not going to start one. But I'm not going to be honest before I date them. So I'm just not going to date. Decision made, I'm not dating in high school and I had some really good friendships and some opportunities that I, in order to protect myself, acted or just didn't treat the situation as honestly as I could have. And I heard some people but it was all shame just keeping me protected until I figured out that was my plan was this is temporary, like it's this thing, but I can solve it, like and as long as you're going to solve it dude who even freaking, knows, I don't know, but I can solve it because I can just stop. I have a determination and a willpower where I will know I can just stop washing porn because that was the biggest symptom, that was the in your face evidence of this thing. So I can just stop that and then there won't be any evidence and then I can just control my like internal thoughts and desires and eventually by doing that, I will have distanced myself so much to where, when I do date or get in a relationship, it'll be so far in the past that it won't have to be brought up. If it's recent, you might need to talk about it, but if it's distant, that won't ever be mentioned and I'll be good. I'll be like safe and protected. No one will ever have to know.
Speaker 1:You're so sincere, dude. I really think that's like the realest thing about you. Is that? No, if it isn't legit, I'm not even going to date and I'm going to figure this thing out in so many years, and I think it's because of your love of people Like I don't want to hurt anybody. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, 100%. And and again, you asked where I got this knowledge when I was young about like the relationships or whatever. I legit don't know where I had like the perception and knowledge that I did, but I knew like people got married with porn addictions and I knew they thought marriage would fix it and I knew that it never did. And I have no idea how I knew that. But I was like I'm not going to use a girl to try and fix this thing because I know that won't work. And so even considering a relationship and like trying to use sincerity and commitment to this other person in order to not like, in order to break this habit, I knew it wouldn't work and I'm not going to try it because that's not fair to them Not going to work for me off the table. The closest thing I came to that was a mindset of my future wife and I was like for her, I'm going to do this for her. That didn't work out either.
Speaker 1:Well, that's because that's what's preached, yeah, like in the purity culture Culture. What's preached is like if you have sex, you're hurting your future spouse and it's kind of like a scare them into, to to living correctly it doesn't work. It doesn't, that's not going to work. But then when you do mess up, you're like oh no, my future spouse somewhere is going to be sad. We're going to have to explain this Other than like to explain how. Like yeah, like this is actually hurting us. Yeah 100%.
Speaker 2:So again, my sincere plan was to control, conceal, don't feel, don't, don't let them know. Frozen lyrics really, really came in clutch but it like that was my plan until I was so distanced that I could live my sincere, like authentic life and potentially get married someday and do my stuff and no one would have to know ever I was going to do it on my own. That didn't work out because at some point in high school my parents found some pictures that I printed off because I guess I got sick of like going to the computer every time. So I printed off some pictures because you're not thinking.
Speaker 1:Remember, we talked about the computer thing. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we're going to print out on our black and white. We'll lose all the toner.
Speaker 2:Full, full color picture and I put them under my dresser next to my bed and at some point my mom found them pretty, pretty shocked, pretty disturbed, and they came to me really, they're very sincere as well, and they came to me really sincerely and they were concerned because some of them were just like it's crazy stuff that you're just exploring and trying to figure out, but they also just like they wanted to talk to me about it and so I, we sat down and had these conversations and I shared my heart. I am trying to stop this. I am trying to like I don't want it. I have this life and this picture of what I want and I'm trying my hardest to overcome this, to change this and distance myself. And they prayed with me and like walk me through this prayer. I prayed like it was a very sincere thing and I've been nervous to share any of that story because I know people will hear like, oh they, they were trying to pray the gateway Right and that's not one. I know that was never an intention of theirs. Two, that's not ever how I felt. I know that's that's not their heart. But also like we were just praying for peace, honestly, because I was so just like attacked and tired, and it was just praying for peace and I had it for a second. I was like dang, somebody knows, and they still love me. That's great, that's a good start, and now I have like accountability and I have a reason to stop. This is a fresh start and that lasted for however long.
Speaker 1:But, but before we leave that story man and I think I think this is appropriate to give Wayne and Michelle Morrison a shout out, because you were able to actually be sincere and share your heart with them- yeah. Where many parents have set it up so that you're not able to do that Like, like if you, if they find a thing, then you're going to get punished or you're going to get sent some to military school or something. But yeah, man, they have wisdom, yeah, they walk, they made it.
Speaker 2:God, they made it so, so, so clear. If I walked away with anything, it's that they love me, like I love you, I love you, I love you. Like that was, that was the takeaway, no matter what. That was what they wanted me to know. And you're right, my dad, my dad has literally caught me with my pants down. He has walked in and I could not get my pants up fast enough and I just had a blanket wrapped around me and he went to give me a hug and he saw my pants on the floor around my ankles and he like there was disappointment but like I think it was a hit harder, just for how I perceived it. I don't think he actually gave this like disappointed look, because he had already hugged me, like he already loves me and I think we talked about it later and like there was no shame, there's no condemnation, but he's, he's literally caught me and there was still like just this love and forgiveness and grace that I'm so blessed for having my parents and my family, that I do, because I know that's not, that's not a common thing, but yeah, that conversation and interaction with them was super great. They did mention in that conversation they're like your sister has seen. She's found some stuff that you're looking at on on the internet, so you might want to have a conversation with Katie. And I was like, yeah, I might. No, I will not be having that conversation with Katie. That conversation comes 12 years later. But they were like, yeah, she's seen some stuff, you're going to want to talk to her. And I did not. There was shame that. I was like there's no way I'm talking to Katie about any of this. She's only two years older than me. Like it's not going to happen. I did have a little bit of confidence at one point, so obviously I sort of fell back into it. Those sort of commitments can only last so long. But my senior year we did a senior retreat or like a school retreat out to North Star Camp and Anna Rommwald was our like youth pastor Shout out Anna Rommwald. Yeah, lover and spirit just did work that weekend. It was crazy and I remember people that's when, like, soaps was a really big thing when you like read a scripture, there's observation, application, prayer and then sharing. And there was just sharing on sharing, on sharing on sharing, like spirit was working on this class and people were like lining up to share what they're hearing and how it's affected them and like it was beautiful. And I remember, like I don't remember what the verse was, I don't remember how it happened, but I remember feeling released, I remember being like this isn't me and I'm good. And I felt comfortable enough to share with Anna after that and I told her about my struggle and about where I'm at and how I know that's not how I want to live and this is how I want to live and I'm going to do it. And my plan was I'm going to do a chapel at school and I'm going to tell everybody. But I'm not telling everybody, like I'm not coming out Because, first of all, I'm not gay If anything, I'd be bi but I'm not coming out because I'm not identifying with this thing. I'm coming out as like victorious, like, hey guys, this is what I've been struggling with, but this is how like it's changed my life and I'm, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:You were going to talk not just about porn. You were going to talk about the kind of porn and every, and your attract.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to talk about, like, sexuality. I was going to talk about victory, somehow. I honestly don't know what my plan was. I don't know what happened, but I remember being pumped. I talked to Mrs Vigil and I was like, give me a chapel time, like, set this up, we're doing it. I told my parents and they were like, pray about it, wisdom. So they're like, pray about it, like if this is what you want to do. And I just remember if, if you remember my first episode, I had so much fear because everyone knew me. Like you said, I'm sincere. I try and be as authentic as possible. So when I'm with everyone, that's who I am, like the person that they knew, the, the character of the basketball team, the like friend, genuine, whatever goofy guy that is beat. But my fear was that, if I added this like secret struggle, because of the culture and the society we live in, sexual identity becomes top, like that is the most true thing about you and it affects everything. And my fear was because I was struggling last week or last month or whatever it was, by opening up. They would then identify me as this thing and I would lose all control of what they think about me. I was afraid that they would think of all their interactions with me and like, filter it through this new lens of like oh, he was probably flirting or oh, he was probably like which was not true because it wasn't me but I would lose all control and just that fear of being misunderstood and then rejected or abandoned for whatever reason Because that is the opposite of the, the through point of wanting to be known and wanting to be left then being misunderstood and rejected kept me quiet, so I don't know at what point. But I was like cancel it, abort, abort and get me out. I'm not doing this chapel and that kind of like. That ended that I don't know what happened to like the victorious mindset. I think I probably slipped up a couple of times and I'm like all right, well, that was close, valiant effort, but back back in it Were you disappointed with yourself or were you like starting to believe like identity stuff? I was starting to believe not necessarily like this is me, but I was starting to get tight. I was starting to. I've had enough like close calls and effort and then like failure and dips where it was just harder to imagine victory. It was harder to imagine the distance, and so I was like this might be a lifelong struggle, maybe, but I wasn't. I wasn't going to give up. So before we get out of out of high school at that point, god still loved me, wants me to be happy. I love that guy, so sweet he's. He's been good to me the whole time. But I believe that I needed to do the work Like it's on me to fix this thing, to change this thing. And because I started getting like tired that fact up and down. I remember my favorite verse in the whole bottom all through high school being Matthew 11, 28, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. That was my go to because even while I was struggling, I knew I could go to him at least for a break before I like strap on my boots and get back to work trying to fix myself. I knew he was like a safe place for rest and I knew yeah, I knew he was the answer, but I was still trying to work for it. Man.
Speaker 1:I almost teared up thinking about the time I'm almost tearing up because when you're living in that space and I certainly was living in that space where you're like I know I don't want this. I know I don't want this because you come from a good home and good parents who tell you about God's love and you're around all these people talking about God and you sincerely love him. Yeah. And you're doing this thing and you're just like get me the hell out of here. Like you want out of it, I want out and you're tired.
Speaker 2:I'm doing my best, I really am and sometimes it doesn't feel like you're doing your best because it feels like you're actively making the bad choices. Because, again, like you said, it feels good In the moment, you're not thinking and it feels good and you want it, but your ultimate desire is on a different level and you're working towards that and you're doing your best and it's not working out. But yeah, so then college In college, I feel like there were definitely some ups and downs in college. So I came in freshman year. I have always been. What year was your freshman year?
Speaker 1:2014. So I had been gone. You were never at uni when I was there, was I? No, you were still there. You were still there one year like one year together.
Speaker 2:Because Tyler came back from Australia halfway through freshman year, we played basketball together for a semester, okay now I remember that and then I think he took your job yeah. Not took your job, my job yes, but he came in and kicked you out. But yeah, I came in 2014 to uni college in Lincoln, nebraska. I literally never wanted to go anywhere else. I loved union. I got it. I would visit. I would visit all the time. Because my siblings were there Seeing like I was. Because I've visited you my freshman year. I knew you. I was following your blog posts.
Speaker 1:And I was like you had a bunch of pictures of you on there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was in it. I was like I basically already go there. I have friends that are already there. There was a point where my senior class, like a group of my friends, did a road trip down to Southern just to check out the school a free road trip with my friends and I was like I'm not going to go, I'm not going to Southern, why would I go on this road trip? Stupidest decision. It was a free road trip with my friends and I was like, nah, I'm going to union, which was great. So I loved union. I loved going to basketball tournaments there, like some of my favorite memories. And the thing was other people saw basketball tournaments as like competition You're going to compete against these other schools. I went in being like more friends that all play basketball, let's go Like I would try and sit with other schools at lunch like just dumb stuff. But I made some friends. And so, coming into union, all these kids from these other schools are coming in at the same time and now you're not competing, you just get to be their friend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when your team lost your senior year, I remember everybody on your team was like wanting to like kill themselves and you were just like, well, what's next, darn.
Speaker 2:No, I, literally I played pickleball. I played pickleball with Kyler Stock Like every every week now down here in Florida. He was on the champion team that beat us and we bring it up all the time. He was like, oh, this guy's a baller. And I was like, yeah, well, didn't win the championship but beat him in a three point contest every year. Um, but yeah, we, we lost. I remember my friends because that's live streamed. My friends back at Maplewood were watching it in the chapel and they said the camera like was panning down the line of like shaking hands and there were guys crying. And then there was me like good game, guys Like pounding a Krispy Kreme donut or something. I just I wasn't that. You were there for the friends, bro. I really I wanted to win. I watched that game back on the bus and I realized I had only shot two times in the last game of my senior year. I had shot Tyler was more angry than you were. He was like maybe you want to shut more.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, and I should have, I'm like just doing his thing, man, he's out there making friends.
Speaker 2:I was still transit them to this day. So it's great. But I came into college hopeful because any if you've ever been trying to like change your life, any new start time period that is new is a fresh start to try and reinvent yourself or building habits or what are you going to get that new computer?
Speaker 1:It ain't going to be no porn on this computer, literally.
Speaker 2:I've seen so many new phones where I'm like don't need to download any apps because it's a new one, I'm not going to, I just won't buy them. It has worked before for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Sure. Nothing wrong with starting.
Speaker 2:No, and it was. I was excited. I was not really excited about school necessarily. I was excited about hanging out but I had no plan. I had never really been passionate about like anything. That weren't really any skills that. I was like, yes, that's a career. I thought about architecture for a little bit because I like to draw, I'm an artist. My brother-in-law was an architect and I loved seeing him like draw houses and seams and stuff. And then I realized how much of it is math and I was like dude, like I'm told there was no math.
Speaker 1:You know like I'm out here.
Speaker 2:This is just like dreaming right With a pen. No, so I got rid of that one and I decided to do business admin because you can do anything you want and graphic design, and I double majored with marketing and business and graphic design so that I could. I had some time to figure it out and, who knows, I could change it if I wanted. But, like I said mostly mostly here for the people I was on the basketball team, so I got close with some of those guys on my freshman year, which was awesome. I was not good. I was not good on that basketball team. My brother came back second semester was on the team. I think we played a total of like two minutes together because I did not play in the games, but we got to practice together, which was awesome.
Speaker 1:That's when I was the coach and the girls team. Now I remember all that yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I mean again, not a competitive guy, so I did not need playing time. I was fine sitting on the bench. I had so much fun traveling with the team, eating pizza, like going to practices. It was fine. Not a big deal, but it was fun being on Steam with Tyler because he's always been four years ahead of me so he always ages out before I get there. But yeah, just about the people I was making, like all the friendships I made in high school we had like maybe 80 some students, so I know everybody and I'm friends with everybody. We just multiplied that to like 900.
Speaker 1:Maybe how much does he even have Right, it was about back then it was and I was like, let's freaking go.
Speaker 2:I get to now meet 900 people. This is awesome and again, I just really wanted to know everyone. But I'm not a superficial guy. I don't like small talk, unless it's like deep small talking, I guess.
Speaker 1:You're the realest of the real. You want to get to know people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like if I'm asking you how you are, I'm going to stop and be like, no, how are you? Yeah, and me and my friend Larissa, we actually just asked like how's your heart? Because we're not. We don't want like a good answer or like fine, whatever. We want to know like how are you doing? But I just, yeah, making connections left and right. There was one point where one of my friends was hanging posters and I did it with them. They were like, yeah, come with me, I don't want to do it by myself. So we were walking campus and it took two and a half hours because I would stop and talk to everybody. And she was like you're never coming with me again. We're not doing this. This is not fun for me, but super fun. I was loving, like circumstantially, I was loving my life. I had an easy schedule. It's business and graphic design generals. I was on the basketball team. I was making friends. My sister was in school with me, katie was there, tyler came in second semester. We were all in school together, which has never happened, and it was just like a great time. But because I was still sort of struggling, like on the side, I was a little too busy to even really struggle. But I was struggling. There was like what I now realize is depression. Did not realize it at the time because how could I be depressed? My life was awesome but I was sad. That was sort of like underneath. And then I'm sure you do remember this, you have a great memory. But there was a girl from Walla Walla that I think it was first semester. She got hit riding her bike and she died. Oh man. Her name was Maddie Baird.
Speaker 1:And I remember that hit you hard.
Speaker 2:I remember that hit you hard. It hit me hard and I don't necessarily know why. I didn't know her. I knew a couple of people that knew her but I didn't know her and it hit. Social media was big enough that people were posting on Instagram, people were posting on Facebook, so I had access to all these stories about this girl and she was godly, she was sweet, she was adventurous, she loved being outside, like she went to Walla Walla so just picture, like a quintessential PNW girl but she was involved in campus ministries. She was as far as perceptions go, she was doing great and she was doing great Thanks for God and in the like, dealing with this loss and for some reason, it really did feel like I lost something. There were two streams of thought in this loss. And she had these clothes pins that everyone made on all these campuses. I had a couple of them. Yeah, that was hashtag, maddie Strong. I had like I'm dumb and I had like 12 of them because they all had different colors so I would match it to my outfit or whatever I was wearing and I just had extras in case I lost them. But yeah, I wore those all year. Like it kind of fell off. I wore them all year.
Speaker 1:You're very sensitive, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but you feel it all, yeah, and I feel like I feel negatively, like I feel sad.
Speaker 2:More. I was going to say like I'm a pretty neutral emotions guy. There's not a lot of things that gets me like really, really pumped and hype. Obviously, like losing a basketball game, championship did not really affect me Like shoot, but it's fine. Like there's not a bunch of things that get me super super hyped or super super sad. But when I want to feel there were certain things that like I would do to just make myself cry Because I just needed to release emotion and that was the only way I knew how to feel was watching a sad movie or watching a sad scene. There was certain scenes of certain shows that I could just watch that scene and I would cry, and so I would do that. Whenever I need to like release One thing, I just think about loss. I thought about loss. All through high school I thought about loss. I don't generally emote in like normal life situations, but movies or stories or whatever will like get me and so when I want to emote in real life I will force it through these other things. But for some reason yeah, maddie, getting hit and dying like that wrecked me Four, two, two lines of thought, for two reasons. One, because she was doing so well, like she perception again, but her life seemed really put together. It seemed like she knew what she wanted to do. She was I don't know if she was going to graduate soon, but she was pursuing a life that she was passionate about. She was spiritually focused, whatever it was. It just seemed like she was doing well and I was not. I was struggling, and because I was tired of my struggle and because I didn't feel like I was doing well, I wasn't contributing, like to God's ministry or like loving people, whatever it is, I just didn't feel like I was doing well, I told God I was like I would trade with her, like if she could live and keep doing her thing that she's doing really well. I am down, like I'm down to trade, and it's not like I wanted to die, but I was good with letting her keep going because I wasn't doing anything that needed to stick around and I felt like she deserved it. And so that was one line of thought where I was like, shoot, I really wish that she was still here, I'd be okay, like giving that up. And my other one came from that lie of me not being lovable with because of the shame of like being attracted both ways. I didn't think I could ever like find a good Christian girl that loved God, that would love me, because that sin was so like filthy that even if I was distance like they don't deserve that. If there is like like the kind of person that I would want to marry, being like a good, whatever girl, they don't deserve to marry somebody like that. And so in my head like I wouldn't find anyone, and for some reason I got in my head and by for some reason I mean Satan, that would be really fun to put it in my head that the only girl that would have loved me was this girl that had just died and so the only person that I ever like would have had a chance to be loved by is gone. So just accept that, that you will be alone.
Speaker 1:Man, you really, you really ran with that. I did, I have no idea, you've never met this girl and you're like this is the girl that was for me. Yeah, and then the lies of the enemy that's saying no, you, you're gross. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No one and I I don't know what about it like connected so deeply with me. But I went on her Instagram. She had some art that she had done and at the time of graphic design major, I made this. I followed her sister on Instagram right away and I made like a graphic version of a piece of her art. It was like some mountains with a heart and a sun or whatever, but hashtag that is strong on it and sent it to her sister. I was like you guys can use this for hats or t-shirts or whatever. One. Genuinely I wanted them to use it. But two I wanted to like somehow just make a connection to this family. I just wanted to connect because for some reason, I felt connected already.
Speaker 1:I did the same thing. I think anything that makes us feel in a big way we go after it. We go after it, like Natalie, sometimes, like why do you want to watch that movie? And I'm like, anything that evokes feeling, like I want to feel that big feeling. Yeah, I would put on, cast away and watch when Wilson leaves, just to hear that music, because, like, like anything that moves me that way. And so when Maddie died, I did go and follow all that stuff because, man, it is crazy sad and it was making me feel, and so then I was going out. I don't think that's right. I mean, I mean I did that, but I don't think that's appropriate. Like there's something that I'm missing there if I'm facing some huge feeling, yeah, same same same.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, those were, those were my two things that I really sort of laughed onto in that scenario and honestly, that was the first for like a year, I think. Like five or six young people died within that year from different schools, different camps, like it was left and right and it was awful. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Will Green was right around then.
Speaker 2:Jeff McCrary went to high school with him. He died that summer in a motorcycle accident. That's right. Someone died in a fire at Southern. I think yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just crazy, it was terrible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was wild. But yeah, maddie, like Moses, died that next year too.
Speaker 1:Was that the guy in Colorado?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but he had gone to Union in my freshman year.
Speaker 3:Yes, a Revolo right, yep so he was actually one of those guys. It was crazy sad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was one of those guys that he's super sweet. But I do this thing to make friends with guys that I think are cool, that I want to be cool. I try and not like be goofy right away, but I trick them into being my friend by just saying hi to them. So if I know their name, just anytime I see them I'll be like what's up, moses? And he'll be like, oh, hey, and then like I do that enough times to where, when I don't do it, they say hi to me. And then it's like we're already friends and they don't know when it happened or how it happened. I've done that a lot of times and I didn't know that I was doing that, but I've caught that pattern. I'm like, oh, I guess that's how I make friends. Sometimes it's just like you say hi to them enough, then they start saying hi and now you're friends. It's pretty sweet. But Moses was one of those guys. I love that guy, so that was one that I hate hard to. But yeah, maddie, somehow like that was just a big thing through my freshman year and then at the end of freshman year. So up until this point it's mostly just been porn, right? That's been the evidence and the manifestation, the symptom that I've been trying to treat. At the end of freshman year, at some point I had downloaded Grindr onto my phone and part of that is you are searching for connection, right. You're looking for intimacy and whatever it is, in different forms and the one that I wanted, right, relationships. A relationship with a girl was not a possibility, but I also did not want a relationship with a guy, but I followed the attraction. I let sort of my body lead and so, since I couldn't have this thing, I was going to explore, not necessarily what I wanted, and not dive all in. I'm not just going to start living that lifestyle and be like all right, this is me now, full steam ahead, but secretively I started dabbling deeper.
Speaker 1:And the reason that you couldn't have one is because you had cut yourself off from that because of your future wife, right, that would be discussed about you.
Speaker 2:Nobody's going to want that and that's projected, but also, I would say, pretty well founded within the community and society and like Adventist bubble that I grew up in, sure, but I don't know. I never gave anyone the opportunity. I had set up clear boundaries for myself of what was acceptable and what wasn't, lines that I would cross, that I could sort of like come back from, and lines that I could never come back from. And downloading Grindr was like it's basically still porn, like those aren't real people, whatever they are real people. But it felt disconnected still. But I did end up meeting up with somebody before my freshman year ended and we didn't really do anything. But we crossed a line that I had set and I remember like leaving that in a daze, like my mind was so confused and it didn't feel real. And I remember waking up the next morning being like did that happen? Because there's no way, there's no way that, like there's no way I did that, there's no way I crossed that line because I can't come back from that, I can't undo that. That is now part of me and it was so like sort of out of body, but also like I was very sick in my body. It's like I was very sick to my stomach, so a very just different reaction. But, yeah, I think I did end up deleting the app just out of guilt, right away. And then I worked at GVR that summer. So I went to Colorado the camp up in the mountains and it was really nice because you don't have cell service up there and so, as that is sort of my, access to internet porn was not a problem Talked to anyone, like it was a fresh start, right, and it felt good and it was nice to be in control. I was not in control, obviously, circumstances made it super easy for me, but I felt really good that summer and there was actually a girl that I was really interested in and I really liked her. She was super cool, everyone thought she was really cool, and so the fact that I liked her and she liked me was a huge deal to me, and because I'm all about affirmation, I was like, yes, the girl that everyone thinks is cool, that everyone vouches for, is interested in me. I have no idea why, but I'm going to take it, and we both had like, we've worked at camp before, we know what camp goggles do, and so we weren't going to make it a public thing. We were like, no, we're just going to keep hanging out as friends, no one's really going to know. We're going to hang out in groups, not isolate ourselves. And we hung out throughout the summer. And the thing was I was going to Italy with my sister in August, like we were doing a year abroad through ACA, and this girl was going to Walla Walla and then when I get back from Italy she was going to go to Italy for a year and then when she comes back she's obviously going back to Walla Walla and so that's automatically like at least three years where we're not actually going to be together. And so my logic came into play, but also just like my fear and shame and habits that have built up of me like yeah, I'm not going to date on that ready because I'm not distanced enough, I'm not in control enough I came into play and I told her like I'm not doing a long distance thing, we can't do this. And I thought it was a very mutual thing. I thought we both were like, yeah, it doesn't really make sense. This is a really nice summer. I'm super bomb, but like timing's just not there. But I do think I unintentionally kind of hurt that and it didn't seem because I used logic, but it was really very fear based and protecting on myself, I think I actually it just didn't seem like I liked her that much.
Speaker 1:So why was it protecting yourself?
Speaker 2:I still didn't think I could be in a relationship, I still didn't think I deserved one, or and there was a lot of fear of like if I start one I'm going to have to tell them eventually, and I wasn't ready to tell anybody, and so I was just protecting myself from ever having to have that conversation. But it came off as me not being willing to try, not actually like thinking they're worth it to try long distance or do that thing when there was a lot more reasons I didn't communicate.
Speaker 1:That's the weird thing about old Nicholas, because when we would see old Nicholas, we'd be like that guy is the sweetest sweetheart of all sweethearts, like he's just a loving, wonderful dude and he is saying that he wants to like I think either I was around or Tyler was around or Katie was around and we're talking about dating and always you guys are always talking about dating and you would get strange. You would get like and we are always like huh, hey, like what do you think? And we didn't want to. We didn't want to deal with anything that we didn't want to deal with. Right, we didn't want to. Yeah, I think from both side we're like we don't want it percent, we're going to act like it's not there, right, yep.
Speaker 2:So I'd give you enough. It wasn't enough, I'd give you, I'd play your game a little bit, because you were like, all right, who should Nicholas date? Like at dinner or at village end or whatever. Katie would bring it up or it would just be a fun little game, right, who do we have for Nicholas? I remember, coming back from Italy, one of my first conversations with Tyler because he's a recruiter at that point was like, all right, I know some girls coming into school, we got a cool one, we got a funny one and we got it. And obviously he wasn't actually trying to reduce them, he was just making it simple for me to be able to choose. And I was like this is a dumb game. I'm not playing this game with you.
Speaker 1:You do this all the time, but you're mine, you're still like this is kind of off limits for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah absolutely, especially because that's coming back from Italy. Italy was a bad year for me. In that sense, it was a great year and I'm actually really bummed that I was struggling so much throughout the year because, again, all of my circumstances were awesome. Yeah, I started the pictures, man. Yeah, we have a whole blog to document our trips. My sister had waited for me. She was going to do it the year before, but she waited so that we could do it on my son for a year and we went to Italy together. It would have been her senior year and she waited. So we went to Florence, italy, and met a bunch of super cool people that were also in the program, from other schools around the country and other countries actually had come in as well. So my roommate was from Germany. He knew like four languages and was way cooler than I was and knew what he wanted to do. But, yeah, just met a bunch of people and we're in Italy. We were going to get minors in Italian. We were learning how to cook, taking art classes, like all this jazz, and traveling around Italy with the school and then traveling around Europe on the weekends that we had free. Like it was a great year, but because I had downloaded Grindr before, it was a lot easier to download it again. And there's this mindset Tyler described a mindset when watching porn and where you're looking for the best thing, the one that will make it worth it, and so that's how you can spend hours, because you're not just looking to to like get off, you're looking for like the video or the picture that will make it worth it. And the same goes for dating apps or hookup apps or whatever it is is. Your mindset is like, well, what's out there? I don't know what is available, I don't know what the options are, and at that point I was just curious because I hadn't really done anything, but I wanted to know. Like I'm in Italy, I think, like I don't, I don't know and no one really knows me here except my sister, and so I I sort of had like a weird kind of freedom and I love crossing a lot of lines that I had made, and the more I crossed the lines, not the easier it got, but the more it was like I can't justify this Like the guilt was so heavy and I don't have public transportation, so whenever I was deciding to like I'm messaging these people and then going to meet up with them and doing whatever it is, I would walk there at night and I would go like I would leave the dorm and leave campus and walk the streets of Florence and then I'd have to walk miles back to the dorm after, and the whole walk there I'm like, what am I even doing? Like that's a long walk to be, like I don't need to do this and I don't have service anymore. So it's not like I'm still like messaging anyone, it's like an active choice every step of the way. But because perception is everything, I don't want to be like this flaky guy and the curiosity is like, well, I just don't know what this is. I'm exploring what it's. Just it drives you enough Because, again, your brain's not thinking super clearly. But on the way back you're so reminded and it is just a two and a half miles walk of shame where it's just guilt and you're in your head and I'm a very introspective person. The aspect of what drives me, of needing to be known, has led me to just I need to understand myself to a point where I can explain myself to somebody else so that they can know me and then, once they know me, they can love me for the genuine me that I am. But I have to know myself first. I have to understand what makes me tick so I can actually communicate that. And those walks would be me just like what am I doing? Why is this happening? What do I actually want? Why am I making these decisions? Why can't I do this thing Like whatever it was? But it's all guilt. And there's a lot of walks and we visit a lot of countries and I'm not going to say that I hooked up in every country Because I would say I'm with friends when we're traveling or whatever. But there was a decent amount of sneaking around or sneaking out and sometimes I really was just going for walks because I love walking and it does clear my head and a lot of my Jesus conversation and prayers happen while I'm on walks. So I didn't have to meet somebody to go on a walk at night and like leave wherever we were staying, but I did do that and so it's hard to differentiate between the two if anyone was keeping track.
Speaker 1:This really sounds very tiring then, like if it was tiring in high school and your first years of college, like I imagine you're just who you are is getting wrecked, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's where it changed. So my view of God was pretty consistent. God loved me. I knew that God can forgive me, like God loves me. God is good. I know that. But I could not forgive myself. I knew myself too well. I'm introspective. I've been thinking about who I am and why I'm doing things. I know myself too much to love myself or to forgive myself because I'm actively making the same choices over and over. That doesn't deserve forgiveness. If I ask for it, that's not genuine. Because I'm going to keep doing it and because I knew that I could not forgive myself. I could not love myself. Even if God can do what he wants. He can love me if he wants to. He can forgive me if he wants to. I cannot do it and it was exhausting. So even coming back from Italy, which again was a great year we made a ton of super good friends my world view expanded, my friend view expanded because I was always sort of in the Midwest and the types of people that I was with were all the same. And so going to Italy, meeting all these friends from different walks of life, from different people, from different schools and states and whatever, just expanded who I could relate to and how I became friends with them and there was just so much growth and it was awesome. They became family and it was amazing, which the fact that it was such an amazing year just made it that much harder to come back. So, coming back from a year like that, going back to normal school, I was just really unmotivated, I was sort of depressed and I was still relating to people and making friends, but again, because I don't like small talk and I'm all about like deep connections, what better way to get deep than to relate to people in brokenness? And so I was leading out of just use of Sabbath school and I think it's just like Sad Boy era, where it's just like let's just get together and be broken together, like how are you really doing? How's your heart? Because I know I'm broken and my life is basically perfect. But if I'm struggling and I'm broken and I'm sad, sometimes like I know someone else is struggling, everyone's searching for something and I want to know what that is, because we can all relate to each other in brokenness, but then there's no hope after that. It's just like, hey, you're hurting and having a good time, same how fun is that let's be friends and that's like.
Speaker 1:That's where it is. Hopefully God loves us and hopefully, you know, maybe he does, even though look at all this crowd in our lives.
Speaker 2:No, literally. And so coming back like just not having a great time but like school, school friends are still friends, like it's fine, but I found myself always, always messaging someone and you can change the location in the app. So, because it wasn't really for sex about me or for sex for me, I would change the location to like other states and then be like, oh, I'm like messaging you on that, I was traveling or whatever and I would just message certain people for connection and I had a way of like just talking and I could because I'm genuine and authentic and that's apparently not very common. An app like that, which makes sense, it was refreshing and people, because people crave connection in general. That's why everyone's on there. I was able to connect with a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Some don't really crave connection, some are just. That's true.
Speaker 2:And I didn't talk to Dation as much. But I yeah. And then I got a lot of affirmation because people would be like oh, you're different or you're cool, or I want to meet you or whatever. It is like just feeling wanted or feeling special or whatever that was. I was seeking it all the time, so I was just on my phone having 12 different conversations, whether through Snapchat or Grindr or texting or whatever.
Speaker 1:It's super powerful, it's, you have it done. So at this point are you just like all the way like before. You're like I really want a girl, but that's not even an option Now are you? At this point, just like no, I'm not, like I'm not even interested, like this is who I am.
Speaker 2:No, I have always wanted it because and the ups and downs, like I go through bouts of motivation, which I think everyone does, and so when I have a new idea of like, oh, this can help fix it, I'm going to start prayer generally or stick to this new routine, or whatever. I would delete everything, I would cut all contact and I would start this new habit and it would work for however long and I'd be and I'd feel good, but I was only doing as good as I was doing, right, right, it's like how people live and I could only do good for so long and then I'd get tired and I'd mess up and I would give up for a little bit. I was never giving up completely. There was never a point where I was like, yep, this is it, this is my life. Now I'm giving up because I didn't, I didn't want it, I did not want it and I knew that. But I would give up for a little bit and I'd be like, all right, I'm just going to write it out until I have another idea. Or sometimes I would give up and be like God is the only one who can do this. He says let me do it and I would pray and I'd be like all right, god, you do it, I'm not going to like I won't do anything, you do it. And he didn't do it in the way that I thought he should and that led to eventually. Eventually it led to me sort of losing trust in him Never, never stopped believing he existed, never stopped believing he was good or loving or forgiving. But I stopped trusting him to come through for me Because he hadn't. He said that he would and I've given him ample opportunity and he has never come through in the way that I thought that he would and expected him to, and so I sort of stopped trusting him in that way. But I never just gave in and was like yep, the dream is dead, this is who I am, I'm diving all in. It got harder and harder for me to imagine the future that I could have. It just kept getting pushed further and further and I was like I don't even know what that would look like anymore. But it was still something I desired and I feel like it drove me a little bit. But it also just added to the exhaustion a little bit. And there was actually one point, because I was tired, I got really lazy with hiding, and I think everyone kind of hits that point at some point where I was just like, flippantly, had like my phone out with stuff and whatever it was and one of my friends actually saw it and it was a close friend and it opened the opportunity for him to come to me and he actually voiced a very similar experience to mine and he was like this is something I'm struggling with. This is my experience, sort of like opening up, being really vulnerable with me. And because I had so much shame and because, again, I would only be vulnerable to the point where I could communicate clearly what's happening about myself, and because I still didn't understand this thing, I didn't know what it was, at one point I thought I was demon possessed, because it felt so different and outside of me, the decisions I was making, the way I treated people, like it was so contrary to my character every other time that I was like this is not me, something else is leading this. But because, again, because I didn't understand what this was, I wasn't comfortable talking about it. So, even when he shared, I was like yeah, we are loved, like God is good. I'm glad that you opened up all this stuff. And then I sort of started distancing myself because I wasn't comfortable being vulnerable. And he noticed it and was like you've been pushing me out. And I was like no, I haven't. And I gaslit the crap out of him because I was like I'm sorry. You feel that way, like whatever distance you feel like I'm putting, it's your perception, like you are feeling guilty, you feel like I should be pushing you away, and so you think that I am, I was and I'm sorry. Actually, that person is listening to this. I really do apologize.
Speaker 1:I think you were. I don't want to put this on you. I think you wanted to not do those things that you were doing and you wanted to not push him away. So it was like wishful thinking. Am I? Am I off on that? Yeah?
Speaker 2:no, I wish I had an answer, I wish I had like hope, I wish we could have like done it together, whatever it was like. I wish, because he was, he was struggling and he was hurting and she thought he had found like solace. Because I knew what it felt like to be isolated and to feel like I really felt I was unique, rich. I really thought no one had an experience like mine. No one was an Adventist pastors kid struggling with sexual like attraction that they didn't want. Because I had known some like pastors kids that like came out as gay at some point and in my head and I've never talked to them about it, but in my head they wanted it Like it was something that they were fighting for a little bit but then like to accept it and live that life. It was more of a they were pushing out this identity and hiding this and finally they were able to accept it and live that out. And I felt the opposite. I felt like the thing I was hiding I never wanted that's not something I ever wanted to to be Versus like. They really felt like that was that and so I was like I'm unique, no one's had this experience, no one can understand and, honestly, the more I've shared my story, the more I realized I am not unique, which is why I'm really excited to share, because well, I think the reason you all so much from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the reason you're not unique isn't because you're not unique, it's because, right, the enemy's lies are so similar, like, oh, he's a risk, he, he, he plays his greatest hits over and over and over again and we fall for them. So of course you are unique, but you have fallen for a similar lie. And, yeah, like as you're describing, like your story on, you're doing this thing. Like I can tell you a similar story from my life. It wasn't, it wasn't the same sex, but that same feeling of guilt, that same walk of shame, that same like who am I? I didn't know I was this person. Like that idea that hit me one time was like I didn't know I was this person. And I guess I am and then like head down. I guess I am this person that I didn't think I was and that hit me so hard for years. Yeah. Because it's the same lie. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it sucks, dude. The lies cool the lies aren't. They're not fun, but praise God that they're not.
Speaker 1:Especially when you don't know that there lies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we're in, it feels so real. But yeah, so at that point God knew me better than anyone else. He loves me more than anybody else. But it was passive. There's nothing like it's not an actionable love. It doesn't change anything about my circumstances and I felt like I'd tried everything. And so I was. I was getting, I was exhausted, but I had. I had one more fresh start that I was super pumped for. Reagan Dieter was one of my super good friends. I knew him since, I think, my senior year of high school, because he was a freshman at Union and then we came for Academy days and he was just one of the like really cool guys. For some reason I didn't think he was only a year older than me. I was like, no, he's at college, he's cool, and he wanted to hang out with me and I thought that was awesome. But he, that summer he had just graduated from Union. It was 2017, I think that doesn't seem right Because he was only a year old, but I think it is right 2017. And he was going home to Washington and he invited me to come with because I was so sick of living for the future, like when you're in school, you're learning for your career, but you're also doing like you're working to pay for that. But you're also doing internships to get positions, to get job offers and like everything is for the future and nothing is just for now. And it drove me crazy and so I decided to not do an internship the summer that I very much should have done an internship. I went to Washington and I lived with his family and one reason was I loved, like I was driven to be chosen. I was driven to be special and I wanted to be Reagan's best friend. I just want he was friends with everyone. He was close friends with everyone. Everyone loved him. But I wanted to be his best friend and I was like a summer with him and his family. Like this is my opportunity I want when he gets married, I want to be in the wedding. Like I want to be Reagan's best friend. That didn't really happen, like we were already good friends and we stayed really good friends. What did happen, of what I'm eternally grateful for, was I got really close with his family through that summer and I'm so, so grateful for that because we're still close and I love them. But I went to Washington. He had graduated, not gotten into medical school I was trying to take a break from all the other things and, just like, we both just wanted to focus on ourselves and like get ourselves in a good spot. And so we both got jobs. We sat down with each other, had these journals. We wrote out like habits that we wanted to do, keep each other accountable, different prayer things, dreams, whatever. And that summer I had made the decision because I'm really good at making friends I wanted Jesus to be my friend because I've seen Jesus as like he's God, god, the Father or whatever. I've interacted with him as in all these like spiritual ways, but I've never seen him as a friend and that's how I relate to everybody, and I was like he should be my friend. I'm going to get to know him like I would get to know a friend. And so I was reading a book called Beautiful Outlaw, which each chapter is like a different personality trait of Jesus that you see in the Bible in stories where he's like, oh, he's like mischievous or he's curious or he's loving or he's whatever, and it like goes through these stories to make him seem human, like it is the human aspects of God. And then I read the shack, which, if you haven't read it, I wouldn't say it's the most like theologically correct, based on what we believe about. But if you want to just cry for two years, read the shack, yeah read the shack because it's sad, but I have never seen a more beautiful depiction of the Trinity written that I like, have related to and just love to read. So I read that just to see sort of God in that way. And then I think you got Katie into this maybe, or Katie got you into this. But the 36 questions of the Fallen Love if you haven't heard of them, they are like some college came up with this set, like three sets of questions that ultimately add up to 36, that were designed and developed to get deeper as you go, for essentially strangers to sit down and ask each other these questions and by the end of it you will have developed a sort of trust and intimacy that basically equates to lead. Like that's the whole point. Katie and I would just do it with our friend groups just for fun. People were falling in love left and right, left and right. We did not realize the destruction we were leaving in our way, but I decided to do that with God. So every morning I would ask him all of these questions and I would walk around the neighborhood, their house, and I would ask him, and then he would like answer and ask me and I answer and we went through these sorts of questions and it was awesome and I did feel like I got really close to God that summer and I felt like I was sort of in control of my habits and just really like happy with where I was and Rich, I ran out of questions. There were only 36 of them.
Speaker 1:And habits. Here we go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the summer ended and went back to school and, yeah, all the habits like all the old habits or the habits that I had formed, we're gone.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're going to take a quick break from this episode and I'm going to bring on someone who we've all been waiting to hear from. Okay, some she's got a bunch of names, a few to her face, and some people just call her blade. Other people call her Morgan, huffman. Morgan, what is up? Hi, richard? Quick question, quick question for you. Quick question how long have you been rocking with the gospel?
Speaker 5:That's actually a really good question, and I was trying to think about that Just the other day. I was talking to somebody about this Is it four years?
Speaker 1:Since September of 2019, it would be five years coming up this September. Wow, five years. That's a long time, though that's a long time, praise the Lord. What has the gospel done in changing your life?
Speaker 5:What hasn't the gospel done in changing my life? Okay, this is the Lord question. First of all, I am a new creation, so I have a new life. I'm free from the old because the new has come, no longer I who live, but Christ living in me, which tangibly, like in my day to day, looks like I'm free from pride, I'm free from control, I'm free from pain, I'm free from all the things that claim to be my identity. But now I know that I am who Christ says that I am, because he lives in me. So that means that I have peace, I have love to give, because he left me first. It means that I don't keep record of wrong, because he doesn't keep record of my wrongs. It means that I get to forgive because he first forgave me, literally like from start to finish. It changes my life, it has changed, it is changing, it will forever change because God is so good.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, I do know. I do know what you mean. Man, that's a mouthful, but praise the Lord, okay, you have decided to give of your time, your energy, your finances, so much to keep this gospel moving forward. Why is that important to you?
Speaker 5:It's important to me because it is literally the reason I'm alive.
Speaker 1:Because of life.
Speaker 5:The reason I'm alive is for people to know who they are. So whatever I can do literally whatever I can do to participate in sharing in the gospel so that people might know that God loves them and he lives in them and that they get to be a new creation, I'm going to do it. You know what I'm saying. Whatever that is, You're about it.
Speaker 1:Okay, hey guys, if you want to help us move this thing forward and we are committed to it moving forward if you want to help us, go to loverealityorg slash give, loverealityorg slash give, and every dollar that you give keeps this thing going forward. We have the Death to Life podcast. We've got a podcast coming out, hosted by the Blade. If you haven't heard about it, keep your ears on a swivel. And yeah and yeah, every single dollar goes to moving this gospel forward. And so, like I said, loverealityorg slash give. Morgan, thank you so much for coming on, appreciate you. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, came back to school it was my junior year yeah, junior year and yeah, just went straight back into all the normal habits and stuff and I was frustrated again, just getting tired. But Tyler was working at Union at the time and, like I said before, like Tyler was kind of he was always four years older than me I always thought it was super cool, but we weren't really friends because I'm four years younger, so we were always in different life stages and, coming back from Italy, we just got to get a lot closer, which was awesome. This was right around the time where him and Morgan were having some issues which, if you want to listen to episode one and two, I remember that year about those, I was not really in a spot where he went to me during the issues. He would share more with Katie and stuff. I was aware that stuff was going on but I didn't really know everything. But when he ultimately, like, found freedom and like the gospel changed his life and he would not shut up about it, which is great, love him for it. But that's when Tyler just really started trying to like, speak life over me and share this with me and he kept saying stuff like, oh, if Morgan left me tomorrow, I'd be fine, if Morgan even died, like I'd be okay. And I was like this is not doing what you think it's doing, because I'm stupid and I would get frustrated. Because he had this habit of turning every conversation into something about the gospel and I was like, can we just hang out? Like can we just watch Inception? Is that too much? I don't know. And it was. It was too much ass. But here's the thing I could tell that it really did change his life. I could tell even though it wasn't like new information that's what was frustrating to me Like you'd be, like God loves you. I was like, yeah, I freaking know dude. And he would say it like it was new and it drove me crazy. But I could tell it was good.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no, but he really loves you and now I'm that guy.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it was just, it was just frustrating, but I could tell it was good and the thing was it wasn't doing anything for me. It was it obviously did something for him. I could tell it was good and could do good things for people, but it wasn't for me. I was, I was too far gone. I've tried everything already. Like this is it's not something that will change my life, but I wanted to ask him questions. I wanted to understand so I could give it to other people. I saw the value in it and I knew that I had friends that are hurting. I knew that I had friends that this could help and I just wanted to understand so I could give it.
Speaker 1:I didn't like this this was a wild time. Like Drew was all on it. Drew was there was. Like that this was a time to be alive.
Speaker 2:It was coming in hot and I I was just like, yeah, it's not for me, but if I can understand it, I would love to give it away, but I don't want it. I was like very trying to avoid it because of the shame. Because in my experience, what I witnessed is as soon as someone is free, as soon as they receive this truth and receive this gospel, they share their story instantly. It's like because testimony and it's awesome, and they get excited and they just tell all their secrets and like because they're free from them, they're like, hey, pride, that was a big thing. And I refuse to share my secrets. I refuse because as soon as I do, they would identify me with them and then I would lose control of that perception. I wouldn't be able to defend myself, I wouldn't be able to explain myself and I would just I was too, it's too vulnerable, you're losing control.
Speaker 1:I think control it was control.
Speaker 2:So I avoided it. I especially avoided Eddie after Morgan got free, because she said like yeah, he prayed with her. He was the one who kind of like, was very instrumental. God used him in that way and there was a point where I was at Morgan and Tyler's house and I went to the kitchen and get water and Eddie also ended up in the kitchen and I was like I need to get out of this kitchen. And he wasn't trying to corner me, he wasn't trying to do anything, but he was like you need to get out of your own way and I was like you need to get out of my way. He really just started talking with you like that. Yeah, he was just like he asked. I think he asked me like what I thought, and I was like it's good, like this is cool, and I was just trying to be as neutral as possible, so he knew I wasn't like not vibing, so he didn't like go, so he wouldn't go in. Yeah, but I didn't give him much to go off of and he was like you just need to get out of your own way. I was like, yeah, I know. And then I left, but I avoided it at all costs and God actually gave me this. Like a couple of months ago Someone was talking about Lazarus, and it's cool. It's crazy Because how often do we avoid a miracle or sit in death Because it looks like it might be uncomfortable to be raised to life? And in the story of Lazarus he's dead, he's in the tomb and Jesus says roll back the stone. He's about to do an act. That's crazy. And Lazarus' sisters are like God it smells in there. He's stinky Like he's stinky, he's dead, and it's like afraid of the rock. You're afraid of this thing that you would rather stay covered up. You would rather stay hidden than to be exposed in a miraculous way. And that's where I was at. I was not about to be in the light. I was not about to be exposed, even healed, even resurrected. I wasn't about to let that happen.
Speaker 1:So Tyler, when we recorded the first time, was this kind of still your mindset?
Speaker 2:Yes and no, yes and no, I'll let you get to it. Keep going. So, tyler Morgan, everyone was like it was. Seeds were being planted for about a year and a half for me and, honestly, at that point in the struggle like I've been going at it for so long, like just trying, failing, trying failing I feel like the question came up of like well, why not just lean into it, like you said, why not just give up and sort of just like full force, see what this is about? And I just couldn't. It really comes down to identity and that just was not who I was and there was still like a thing that I wanted, that I was trying to work towards, and even though I was comfortable being single I had friends, I was busy, like my circumstances were good I just I could not commit to this thing. That wasn't me and it really is like well, we'll get into that actually, but it was a struggle and it was a lesson in like God's patient love and that. If you guys haven't read the book Redeeming Love, freaking read that book. It is beautiful, but it's this girl, it's essentially the story of Hosea in like Gold Rush era California, and it's this farmer who ends up marrying this prostitute, this girl who was sold into sex slavery and like trained since she was young. She has no idea how to be left and God tells him to like take her out of that and marry her. And she keeps going back because she doesn't want that, she doesn't believe he can love her, she doesn't know what love is. She only knows this other thing she doesn't trust Like it's just, it's such a good story, but I feel like that sort of just, patient, unwavering, like unconditional love is is what really got me. So jump to 2019. It's my senior year, I'm about to graduate and I think it's March. I'm on ASB associated student body. We just planned a banquet in I think it's in Iowa. You had to drive like an hour and a half to get to this like vineyard for an Italian, like fancy, classy banquet. I was, my friends had planned it, I was on the team, but like they are the event team and I was going to go, obviously to help support I get a text from my buddy, ryan Dieter. That's Reagan's brother. I had spent the summer living with them and I thought that like the text was like oh, I need to. I was just like checking to see if you were available. I need to tell you something. And I could tell from his tone that like something had happened in my head. He had broken up with his girlfriend or like he was certain or something. So I was like, oh, I'm just going to swing by really quick before banquet. I'm like check on Ryan. So I went to his apartment and my buddy Jimmy's already in there and Ryan sits me down. I'm like, yeah, he probably broke up, like that's why Jimmy's here, he's just bummed, we're going to comfort him. And he starts saying like last night or earlier this weekend, reagan was driving, like at night and he got in an accident. I was like, oh, shoot, I hope he's OK. I didn't say that, but in my head I was like, yeah, an accident, that's terrible. And he was like, yeah, and he, he didn't make it. I was like, yeah, he didn't like have to go to the hospital, like he didn't make it home. I don't know Like I was filling in these gaps and he was like, no, like he didn't make it and it didn't, it couldn't register with me. And Jimmy just started sobbing and Ryan was sort of still in shock. But he started crying and I again can't emote in real life. And so I'm in shock and I'm struggling by just like have my hand on his knee or on his shoulder, and I'm like trying to absorb it and I can't process it. It doesn't, it doesn't compute, it doesn't make sense. And then my friends call me and they're like hey, we're outside, like ready to pick you up, and I can't, I'm not allowed to tell anyone. They haven't like released the news yet. And so I just go to the banquet and I'm sitting in this bank, I'm sitting in the car ride, just silent, like looking out the window. I get to the banquet and like I'm not in a party mood, if you can imagine. And I asked, I texted Ryan, I asked if I could tell my sister because she's also good friends with Reagan. They graduated together and just have been. We've been friends for years. And so I call Katie, I go out in the vineyard, I'm just walking and that's when I break and just telling Katie, saying the words out loud like the weight of them was crushing, and so she's crying and I'm crying and I don't have any answers. She has a bunch of questions I know very little. Tyler already knows where I get. Parents called him and he offered to come get me from the banquet. He was going to drive to Iowa and pick me up and I didn't. I'm all about not inconveniencing people so I was like no, don't do it, like I'll be fine. I was not fine. That was a really dumb decision and I stayed at the banquet. But I was just not having a good time and I kept disappearing and going back out to the vineyard and crying and coming back inside it trying to be normal. And when I did get back I went to Tyler's apartment and some of our mutual friends that all knew Reagan were already there. People were hanging out and it like this was the first time that loss actually like hit close to home. My grandpa had died my sophomore year of high school but it wasn't that shocking for me. For some reason he wasn't that old, but I guess I just it just wasn't that shocking. And then there were other losses, but they weren't close to me, like I didn't know Maddie that well at all. I didn't know Maddie. I didn't know her middle name, when I read all the Instagram posts, but yeah, like it had never been someone close. And if you're similar to me, like you say, we've thought about it, I thought about losing someone all the time. I would think about what it was like if my sister was gone or if I lost a parent or if I died. Like what would people say at my feet? Like you're just thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I never thought it would happen and it happened. And so, yeah, just sitting sitting with them. It was off and it was maybe a month, month and a half, from graduation, so I had no motivation to finish any of my finals. I had no motivation to get a job. Okay, I just did not want to do anything. I had incredible support from my friends from faculty, just like it was a huge blessing. But the crazy thing is I finally had a reason to be depressed. I was already depressed, I was already sort of sad underneath, but my circumstances were awesome. My life was good. So anytime I was sad, people would ask, like my friends would be like, are you okay? And I'd be like, oh, yeah, I have a headache or I just I'm tired. But I was depressed and I couldn't say that, because why should I be? But now I had a reason to just lean into it and I just let it consume me, because you want to feel, like you said, like we want to feel deeply, and now this thing is all consuming, feeling. So I graduated, I went to Florida my sister had been down there for a couple of years and I got an internship. It was just to buy me a few months and then I was going to move to Colorado with my parents or find a job or something. But I really was just sort of trying to buy myself time. I legit did not want to heal. I told my parents like I'm not bringing this to God, because I know he can comfort me, I know he can fix this and I'm not going to let him. I want to feel this, I want this to affect me and I just leaned into it. But that led to just sort of almost like a PTSD of the thoughts of loss that I already had now became super plausible and so anytime there was like a fear that someone had died, like any text, or if someone says I need to talk to you, or like someone calls me out of the blue, I just feel like it's bad news. My sister didn't show up to work one day and she only lives like two miles from work. We worked in the same building and no one knew where she was. Her boyfriend didn't know why she would be late. Her team didn't know why she wasn't there and I was calling her and texting her. She wasn't responding. I called my dad like instantly, just sobbing on the sidewalk outside of work because I thought Katie had died in the car accident on her way to work and I couldn't fuck. She Turns out she was just at a brunch, which was great. I think she actually told me she was going to brunch and I forgot. So that's a read. But I was like it was just, it was depressed man. I was depressed and I was depending on distraction for any semblance of happiness. So Katie was introducing me to people. We were hanging out, we were watching the Bachelor with people like just always searching for distraction when I was alone. It's just stimulation. So it's not. I didn't have time to meet anybody but I was on apps and I was talking to people all the time. I had conversations all the time. I was being distracted at all times with different forms of connection and the shame, the depression, all of that just compounded to the point where I could not imagine victory. I could not imagine my life being any different. The dream, the picture of a future I was working towards was unattainable and I couldn't, I can't, fix it. I did not think my salvation was tied to changing these things. I just thought, like a happy life, the life I wanted, was tied to changing these things. But I knew God let me. I knew I would be saved. But the reason I would be saved, I knew it would have been because I'm working towards it, because God could come while I'm doing like the two steps back in the dance, like even while I'm messing up. He could come, but my heart is so sincere, I want it so bad. I've been trying so hard that he will let me in because I didn't give up Even while I was in the midst of my struggle. He knows that I want to fix it and that'll be enough and so as long as I keep fighting, as long as I don't give up, I'll be good, and he'll see that that's where I landed. That was my. I was like right, this is life, it's going to be tough, it's not going to be different, but I'll be good, because he knows that I'm trying really hard. And I actually talked to a friend, slash mentor person, and sort of explained, not any of the details but just sort of where I'm at and what I'm struggling to accomplish, just mindset-wise. And he posed the question what if you don't have to change? And I was like that's stupid, that's not an option. I obviously have to change. I have this idea of like a Venn diagram of who I am and who God, like wants me to be, and it's mostly overlapped, like I am a good person and I am trying to love people and I am trying to be genuine and there's just a little sliver. That isn't in line. And if I can just fix this like that's what I've been aware of and focused on this whole time to bring myself into full alignment Awesome. But I obviously need to get rid of this. I need to change this. So him, that friend being like what if you don't have to? Was the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I was like obviously I have to, and part of me like discounted it because at that point, if people like are intuitive at all, they would pick up that I'm struggling with something. And if they look at my life, society would start to guess like it's probably a sexual identity thing. Because someone goes that long without dating anyone, they're just going to assume you're gay or some form or another. And so in my head he was just an accepting friend. I was like it's okay to be gay and that's sort of what I pictured him saying by like what if you don't have to change, why not just accept this thing? And he was just trying to be like accepting and loving. What I didn't realize is there was actually some gospel in that. That showed up later, but at the moment I was like you are stupid.
Speaker 1:He might not have known he was preaching gospel. He might have been preaching something else.
Speaker 2:But it really was so, really really broken. That summer I met my friends Matt and Brooke through a mutual friend. They were living down in Florida. Matt and Brooke instantly broke up. We met that weekend. Within three days they were broken up. They had been dating from high school, dated forever, but bad breakup. And me and Matt I somehow got really close to Brooke as well. At the same time Me and Matt got super close and he was obviously broken from the breakup. I was broken from losing Reagan and we just became extremely dependent. And the thing is, ever since probably elementary school, I've always wanted a best friend, always wanted a best friend, but I had very specific criteria of what that was, because in high school I had tons of best friends, but one was my sister and that's your sister. So it doesn't like it's not the same. You can't just talk to your sister about everything. One of my best friends was a girl you can't talk to girls about everything and I kind of liked her. So it was a little different. One of my best friends. We never went deep and so it was just like one of those comfortable, long lasting friendships but you don't talk about deep stuff and then a different, like it. Just, I had very specific criteria and Matt, because of our interdependency, which was not healthy, matt was my shawning Gus friendship like from psych if you've seen that show, it's just like they're just buds and they just do everything together. They hang out all the time, they have like inside jokes, they just get each other, but they're together all the time and that's what Matt and I were like. And God actually used that friendship because it was new to kind of pull me out of that depressive state because over time, I was trying new things and we were like making plans and going out and I wasn't alone all the time. And by Thanksgiving of 2019, I was in Minnesota with family and I remember for the first time like looking at them, being really happy and excited to be with my family, and there wasn't the heavy dark cloud that was always present underneath it. And it was the first time I was like, oh shoot, I forgot. I forgot what this was like. Well, god had sort of like weaned me off of it. The tough part was it was all very much rooted in my friendship with Matt and other people that I had met down in Florida, and all of my happiness, all of my fulfillment was based in these pillars of like my hobbies and my friends and my job, and when that happens, it is very easy for that to be shaken, and it's very easy. It's not sustainable. And so that Christmas, like a month later, matt moved to Washington. He went to pursue another dream that he had, and it felt like a breakup. I had never been through a breakup, but I assume that's what it felt like, and I hated it and it wrecked me, and so I ended up leaning into my other friendships and I formed another core group and really depended on them for my fulfillment and satisfaction. But if you remember, early 2020, is worldwide panning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I felt pretty crazy.
Speaker 2:So right around that time I was at the beach, lost my phone. So there's a series of events We'll just skip through really quick Lost my phone in the water, so nothing was backed up. I lost all my notes. I lost all my apps. I lost all my contacts. I lost all my pictures. Luckily, one of those apps was Grindr, and when you get a new phone, it's a fresh start to something. So that was nice. But I lost all my notes, which I love keeping stuff in my notes. So I was devastating. Covid hit I did not have any connection to my work people, so work got really hard. Because I like being with people, why would I work from home? That's crazy. Then I couldn't hang out with my friends anymore. And then the friends that I could hang out with because we decided we were going to be in a bubble together Brooke moved to Washington to try and be with family and be close to Matt and they did like it doesn't matter, but she moved and I was like all of my pillars if I have a table, like all of the things supporting my table of like happiness just got knocked out, one after another and I was left. March of 2020 coming up on the year of, like, the year anniversary of Regenstead, and I had nothing. Like all of the things that I depended on were gone, but I was reading. I had books and I could go lay out in the sun, meet watermelon and read books. And I started reading this book. To this day, I don't know how I found it, because my memory says Morgan Huffman posted on her Instagram story hey, this book is really good, you should read it, or whatever, but she doesn't have Instagram. Morgan has not had social media since 2010. So no clue. I do not know where I found it or who I knew it was, more than I don't know how. I don't know how I started reading this book. It's called if Jesus loves me. Why isn't this working? And I've actually been rereading it recently and it's still so good. It's so good, so everyone needs to read it. But essentially it is letters from God, and so the first letter is God reintroducing himself and he's like hey, forget everything you know about me. Like, let me introduce you. Like we're meeting for the first time. And he goes through that. And then he tells us, like who we are, why we were created, and it's just to be loved. Like we're created for intimacy. Out of his love we were formed. And then it talks about like sort of the fall and he's like why we're in the state that we're in, but what he has done to rectify that. And he's like in order to like, redeem you to myself, in order for us to be united like we were meant to. This is what I did and in order for this to happen, I gave you a new heart. It's not we had to change your heart. We had to remove it and replace it with mine. I gave you a brand new one and because I did that, now my spirit can live in you and because my spirit lives in you and this is each like a chapter that builds and because my spirit lives in you, we are one. Because we are one, I live my life in you and because I live my life in you, this is true. And because we are one, this is true, and it's just going through these realities of who we are. But chapter five there's a little prayer in there that basically presents us with a choice and it's just talking about faith. But it's basically like there will be evidence in your life. You think you know what your reality is, based on your experience, based on your thoughts, based on, like, what you know or what you've experienced. But I am telling you, I have done these things, which makes these things true, regardless of what you have experienced so far, what you have to choose to believe that what I say is more true than what you think you know. And it struck me for a moment. One, that what I've experienced and all the things I think I know about myself from being a very introspective, knowledgeable, intuitive person, might not be as true as I think they are. Two, if I get to choose between everything I've already been experiencing and struggling with and what I think of myself, and then what he just said about me and all of those things and what he's done, and, like relying on and believing that I'm going to fricking, choose option B, like, like, his sounds way better and it is just the choice. And so, from that moment, I got to pray this prayer and I did it almost like a mantra. Every single day. I would pray this that, because you are, because God is who he says he is and he's done what he says he's done, I am who he says I am, and then I'll say the things that he says I am and I am righteous and I'm forgiven, I am new, I'm fully and blameless, all of those things like I can claim, not from my experience, not from what I've done, but because he did it and he says it and it's true. And that is where that's sort of what I shared in the first episode, where it released me from the exhaustion right, the digging, the striving, the working, just all of that. It finally gave me rest and peace and joy. That wasn't rooted in other people, it wasn't rooted in what I could do or what I could give or what I could get. I was finally like, good as I was. I didn't have to change to be perfectly loved, to be perfectly forgiven and righteous and holy. I didn't have to live in shame and it. I think that moment is, in my opinion and in my experience, the closest thing to the relief that I have witnessed from media or talking to people, the relief of coming out, I think, the realizing of your identity in Christ. They are the closest parallels. I think coming out is one of the closest things the world can sort of conjure or produce to get close-ish to what it is like to realize who you are in Christ, the freedom and the relief of what that is. And there's a if you haven't seen the movie Love Simon, it's a really good one, it's just a really good story. There's a lot of love in that story and friendship and family, and it's great. But there's a moment one I just love Shoot. I'm forgetting her name, but the actress, her name, she's one of the Jennifer's, she's the mom, and it's after her son has come out and she's talking to him and she's just saying, like I knew that you were carrying something, I could see you. It was like you were holding your breath for years and she's tearing up. And she was like you've been walking around holding your breath and you can finally let it out. And he's crying and she's crying. And it's just this moment where, like you can finally take a breath, like you're finally able to breathe. And that's what it felt like to recognize that I didn't have to change, I didn't have to do anything to be loved or to have joy or to earn it. I was good already because of what he did. And that relief was insane and it's all rooted in identity and what you know and believe about yourself, in him, and it's a game changer because all of that identity is rooted in him. It's not your career, it's not your sexuality, it's not your past, it's not what you've done, it's not what you're doing, it's him. It's who he's made you to be and what he's done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you said that coming out, I think it's the second most powerful thing that anybody can experience. Probably, yeah, because when you come out, you're coming out to who you really are, right, your true identity. You're coming out to a purpose Yep, like there's, like you're coming out to people who love you, finding a community, all of these things, community. Yeah. But the problem is at the end of it. There is no answer there. Yeah, it's, it's shallow, like what it's based on.
Speaker 2:Right. And I actually doesn't deliver those conversations because I haven't allowed myself to have those conversations out of shame and fear of like, oh, if I'm too curious people might start to catch on. Why am I asking these questions? But I genuinely want to connect more with people who have had these experiences because I do think it's so similar and it is like a mimicry of what I've found in the gospel, in the community, in the acceptance and the love and like knowing who you really are, like all of those things, the identity. It's all there, but it's just rooted in something so much more permanent and more like actually who you are, not just a preference, but I think we create identities in the world based on our desire for acceptance and to be understood yeah, to be understood almost in an instant. So that's why we take these personality tests and we take these enneagrams and we label ourselves based on our career or sexuality or whatever it is, so that you could do like a five bullet point thing and someone would have a really solid base understanding of who you are. You say I'm an ENFP number four, wing three bisexual football player who loves chiefs. I don't know Like you can, just, and they're like oh yeah, I know you, like we can relate somewhere in there. I understand, like, oh, you're motivated by this thing, like there's no more need for like probing questions because there's boxes that everyone can just place you in. But people have been ostracized for so long in different categories and in different ways that they almost want the boxes, but then there's, but they want their box to be specific enough to them. I think that's why we're adding so many more categories when in reality it's more complex and more simple than what we're making identity out to be, and there's so many things that we're adding and carrying around as our identity that can never actually People want to be loved for who they actually are yeah, but they don't know who they actually are yeah. Everyone's searching. Everyone's searching.
Speaker 1:And if you find yourself outside of Jesus Christ, it is fake news. Like a really good friend would always say I just need to find myself. Just need to find myself. I said, well, where are you going to look? And there's no answer for that. It's like this abstract idea. I need to find myself. Yeah, well, where you are is hidden with Christ and God. And that is because, before the foundation of the world, this is who he created you to be and by this is never separated from him. And your unity with Christ is what allows you to be like. You are not far from God, correct, like you are in him and he is in you. Like, if you believe Jesus is the Son of God, he lives in you, you live in him. And so we're searching and we think it's gonna be found in what excites us sexually or what team we root for, or meanwhile, those things can change. Yeah, like, yes, sometimes. Like what is it that decides what you're going to be attracted to sexually? Well sometimes it's something from early in life, sometimes it's something that you've watched too, like a lot of porn. Sometimes like like I don't think people actually know and yet we're gonna make a whole like this is who I am and we don't even know. Hold everything why it's building a foundation on sand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 100%, and it's yeah, it's crazy, but I've been growing in that identity. I think I was always looking for identity because I knew I didn't identify with a sexual preference. That was never a big thing and I've actually found maybe not everyone's experienced, but in talking to as many people as I've talked to through apps or whatever it is, people will ask they're like oh so, are you gay, are you bi, are you whatever? And sometimes, just because I don't want to have a conversation, I would just say bye, just to be easy, like I don't actually want to talk about it. A lot of times I'd be like I don't actually like identifying with it, like it doesn't. It's not that big of a part of me for me to like say I am this thing, and a lot of people would be like I feel that, like I don't actually like labeling myself.
Speaker 1:You know a lot of people would be really offended of what you just said, though.
Speaker 2:I know and I hate it when it's an individual.
Speaker 1:But because it means so much to them. And then you're like why are you lower? Like this is who I am. Who are you to say? Because they're putting their identity around a sexual preference, right.
Speaker 2:And again, because I hate offending people, I've avoided any opportunity for me to accidentally say something wrong or hurt somebody's feelings. But again, this is my experience. This is how I feel, or what I've learned about myself in Christ, in what this is and my experience. I've never identified with that, it's never been. It felt like a football team preference which I don't really watch football either, so that's a bad comparison but it just felt like like liking mangoes and not liking mushrooms, like you're attracted to this but not attracted to this. But it's not who I am, especially because it's weird to build an identity around sexual preference, because sex is generally a private thing. So it's weird then to advertise like I am having sex with these people. What, why should we care? Like, as a person, as an identity, if I'm trying to get to know you, I don't really care who you're having sex with, like that doesn't tell me anything about you and your character.
Speaker 1:And then we go back to this idea of how do we think about sex and what is sex actually? Right, like what was its purpose? And in 2024, the year of our Lord, 2024, the purpose is there's like a million different purposes, but it seems like way further down the list is for intimacy and covenant yeah, between spouse with your spouse. Yeah, it becomes much more, and I mean, if you're listening this far into the podcast, like sorry, these are adult themes like it becomes more about an orgasm. Yeah, it becomes more about a feeling. And then people are like frustrated that they can't have sex. Like if the church says that or if the Bible says, you know, sex is for marriage, people are like, well, how, if you don't understand the purpose of sex, if you don't understand what it is, then you'll be complaining about not having it. Yeah. When you're not married, but that, like the purpose for it, is within this union. Yeah, that draws people together and, yes, it does feel good, but that's not the purpose of it. It's through all these different things and then, like you said, we make this identity around it, and I think you would probably remember this conversation, what you and I had when we were up in the Grand Tetons. Yeah. And I don't know. Like at this point you've been walking in freedom, like and if you don't mind, let's do a little fast forwarding right here You're walking in freedom. Yeah, the Florida boys are doing their thing. You're heavily involved in doing these Bible studies and I see you on there every week and I see your heart for the Lord and I freaking believe you. Like I know you because you're sincere man, like you're not gonna fake it and because I also know this thing that you've been struggling with that. But you don't want anybody to know and you don't think we know, and I don't think a bunch of people know, just the people that like I feel like I'm like a cousin to the Morrison's, like that's how, like I feel with your family. I'm like like I know, bro, like I love you, like I want I wanna know if you're all right, like how you're dealing with this. Did talk to me about like I don't know if you wanted to do some stuff in between there, but I do think there's some stuff afterwards. So I wanted to fast forward a little bit.
Speaker 2:There's some stuff. We'll go through the before pretty quickly. But wave one kind of happened a couple of weeks after my discovering. So April 1st 2020 is when that decision was made. I get to choose to believe God and I chose to believe him. And then wave one started digitally for Love Reality and I was hopping on those Zoom calls and I was like this is like all the seeds that had been planted for a year and a half made sense. And so every night I was like oh yeah, everything Jesus was just telling me, like in this book and what he's been telling me for the last few weeks, it makes sense and I'm in it and I was growing in that mindset. I will say porn did not just like disappear and I really wanted it to. I was kind of just like really hoping. My expectation was that it would. But it didn't just disappear, but me coming to God, like I was not just sitting in shame anymore, like I would come to him and I knew like that's not me, that's the old Nicholas and I am still this thing that you say I am. My experience does not speak louder than you and I was growing in that. And then the Florida boys came, so Zach moved down to Florida. I met Connor through him Cameron I already knew and we start. He started this home church that then turned into Zoom and we started this Friday night Bible study and there was so much growth and power in one. We were learning together and sharing what we were learning and we were excited. But then we were learning to lead at the same time and leading out. In this Bible study you grow and learn so much by teaching but also by allowing other people. Like just seeing people experience it firsthand gets you so fricking, jazzed, like it was so fun and we're meeting people from all over the country, all over other countries. We were witnessing freedom like changing people's lives. We were walking people through confession, we were praying with people and it was just fun. We were loving all people in our community here in Orlando. We were just like having a blast and it was a great, great time. I'm trying to think we'll get to that. I recorded my podcast with you and so I had made a deal with God pretty much right off the bat, because he knew I was afraid to share and he knew there was shame in that and he said you don't have to share your story Like it's yours. It's between you and me. You're good, you don't have to share with anybody. But we made a deal that if somebody asked me straight up, I wouldn't lie and I would share the truth. And if in a moment I felt like someone needed to hear and God prompted me to do so, I would share. But I wasn't gonna like publicly share, I wasn't gonna whatever he said, that I was good to keep it between us. And so when I did your first podcast, if people listened to it in a certain way there are holes all over that Because I was like weaving my way around, trying to. But if you're intuitive at all, you probably could have figured it out and probably would have had a misperception, which is the exact opposite of what I wanted. But because I was leaving holes, you had to fill them and people could probably fill them in in ways that I didn't want them to. But God still used that and spoke in that and it was really, really good. And then in Hawaii I went and visited Tyler and Morgan. They had moved out there and Tyler asked me straight up. We were in the car at one point and he asked and I was like I saw this coming. I told God that if somebody asked I would share. So I opened up to Tyler and then I opened up to Morgan and it just felt really nice to talk it out and have life spoken over me and to be able to share and, like, be genuine, and it was just. It was awesome. So that year was really good. There was a lot of growth. Zach and Cam and I got to be camp pastors at GVR the camp in Colorado for a week during teen camp and it was so sick. Each night we kind of shared different parts of our personal testimonies. We would preach together, we hung out with the kids, we got close with the staff. It made me. I was like, do I want to be a camp pastor forever Probably New career please? It helped that they had a hot tub. We literally hot, sometimes like after lunch every day to plan the evening Awesome. But yeah, then I went back to Hawaii. So this is 2021. And Tyler and I started butting heads and I didn't really I couldn't catch why. And again, there's a lot of growing in your understanding of, like, what freedom is and who you are and what some of those lies are that you're removing or that are not true about you but you're not aware of. And Tyler and I like he came and slept in my room we had two beds and he like left Morgan, came and slept in the guest room with me and was just like we were talking it out. And that was the first time I had been getting frustrated with him because he would say things or like repeat what I was saying but change it, and so it wouldn't be what I meant and I would get so mad at him, so defensive and aggravated, and he was like why are you getting upset? Like why are we mad at each other? And that's when I first realized like my fear of being misunderstood drives me. I needed so much control over how people perceived, or how people like react into something or just needing to be known and liked, and like that fear of losing people and losing friends or offending someone like could not do it, which is why I kept you know that self preservation, like we talked about love earlier, like that isn't love for them, no, it's love for you it's self protection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like people, pleasing is the solution to a problem. It isn't the main problem, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:But all of that fear is why, like the fact that I was still struggling with porn, the fact that I didn't share my story with just people openly, it's why I kept it relatively a secret still. And then the devil would slip in and tell me like, oh well, you don't need to tell people. Like it should be able to, you should be able to fix this between you and the spirit right. Like, why would you need a person? You have the spirit living in you, you guys can fix this and that's technically true. But he would keep feeding me that so that I would be isolated and separate from the body of Christ and separate Ready. And that, just like it was pride and shame sort of all mixed together and it just created isolation. So that led to Idaho. It was really good, like a couple of years of growth with the Florida boys, with our community which is learning and leading. But I also was sort of struggling back and forth with the idea of, like I know I am a new creation, why are these things persistent? Like, why am I not seeing the evidence that I wanna see, based on the expectations that I have of what that should look like? So actually, right before Idaho. I downloaded Grindr, which I hadn't had for like two years, but I was traveling, I think, right before and my friends were at work and I was like bored and I was just like I don't know who's in this city. I haven't been here in a long time, wonder what's around, like it was just obviously not me, but the thoughts were there and I kind of just let them run with it. So I downloaded the app Once we were in the Grand Tetons. I still had it, but obviously it wasn't really using my phone, didn't really have service. But I started feeling kind of sick and if you have heard very many stories of this community or whatever, there have been times where there has been really cool like miraculous healing from different people being prayed over, whatever it is. And I felt God telling me I didn't want to be sick around all these people on this really cool weekend out in the mountains. And so I felt God kind of probably to like go tell Eddie you're sick, and I was like I don't want to Go tell Eddie you're sick and he'll like pray over you and I was like all right. So I went over and I was like hey, eddie, I'm not really feeling good. And he was like, okay, cool story. Yeah, I was like, oh God told me, like just to come tell you I'm not feeling great. And he was like, oh, come with me. He did not pray over my sickness, he knew what was happening. But he like brought me in the cabin and just sat me down and we started talking and he was. This was my Eddie moment that I had been avoiding but was very open to in this moment, cause it was like an apprehensive, like this is something I wanted and knew I needed, but it was uncomfortable, but I was sort of ready for it, otherwise I wouldn't have approached him. And he just like I opened up to Eddie and he was the first person that I would sort of share out of the blue with which obviously not completely out of the blue, but in sharing with Eddie and Morgan ended up coming in and we had a lot of really good prayer and just discussion. But in that I recognize like keeping it isolated is not good, like I need to be open with the body and the people who love me, but also like you don't have to just like dump it, you can just not be closed about it. And so when I came out to the campfire with you and Kessie arraign I just like I would insert sentences like oh, in my experience, like this, or I'd ask questions to be a lot more open. But I wasn't just saying like hey, I've done this or I think this because of these things, but I was just. I was sort of practicing in that and obviously I had opened up to my parents before that, obviously since high school, but also in freedom. I had a really good conversation with them. Tyler and Morgan knew, but my family did it, and so after Grand Tetons I was working through them like group by group, sharing my whole story with all of them and every single one of them. I was met with love. I was met with just like, yeah, overwhelming love. The only negative thing and the only thing that I felt bad was they were the pain that they felt. The pain that they felt thinking of all the times that I was alone. That was it. They were sad that I had been alone and sad and broken for so long and all they wanted was to help. All they wanted was to be there, and just to think of me being alone and hurting and broken wrecked them. But besides that, I was just met with love and joy. It was awesome. I lived opening up and I opened up to Cam and Zach and Bree. When I got back to Florida, I did a mission trip with a bunch of guys I was on a virtual Bible study with to Guatemala and I shared my testimony one night there. God kind of led me to do that and that was awesome and it led to a lot of really good things and it was great. That was all of like 2022 and it was awesome. There was still like bouts of struggle, but there was also a lot of growth and what I've learned is that the verse like take joy in your trials and tribulations because they produce endurance and all of that produces whatever. I've learned that like hope produces hope.
Speaker 1:and hope doesn't put us to shame it doesn't. We've been filled with the spirit of God.
Speaker 2:All the good things, but taking joy in those things is because those things ultimately lead you to like, depend on and turn back to God. So even if I am attacked or tempted and like impold this way, my habit and my true heart always brings me back and in knowing who I am, that just gets faster and faster. So every time he's pulled, or every time he throws a fiery dart or whatever like, my reaction is to go to God. So he is only making me stronger in those trials and those temptations. So something I've learned, because he would put those thoughts in my head and I would get so frustrated I was like why am I still thinking this way? Why do I still desire these things? This isn't me. And God was like you're right, it's not you. Stop owning what's not yours. It's the same way you can think thoughts, in the same way I can talk to you in your head. Other, like he, can put thoughts in your head. You do not have to own them, recognize where they're coming from, because if you believe that you're fighting yourself, you can't win. No. If you believe you're fighting yourself, you can't win and you will be exhausted.
Speaker 1:And then you'll have to listen to your heart, and then you might do something that's fake news. You might believe that this is my true self, when, no, it is not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no it is not, and so that was really big for me and just like, yeah, I just need to recognize, like that's not for me, I don't need to own it, like know who it's coming from and know that I already have victory and God is fighting that battle, like Jesus is fighting that battle from victory for me. Obviously, relationships have been a common theme in all of this. I've been really comfortable being single. I've been single this whole time, except for second grade. Really really comfortable, and Lauren ruined that. Yeah, she really did. But, praise Jesus, yeah, just really comfortable being single. I was fine, like I loved pouring into my friendships. I was busy, I had plans all the time Like I honestly couldn't even imagine being in a relationship. It would change my whole lifestyle, I think. And I was like I'm good. And also, if you're redeeming love, that man was single for a long time and had given that to God and God spoke to him when he saw her and said, like that's your wife, and so I had sort of made a deal with God. I was like I'm not gonna pursue anything, I'm not gonna go into a room looking for opportunities, I will just like I'm just gonna live my life, I'm gonna love people. I'm gonna make friendships. I'm gonna like do what I do. You tell me like in a moment I'll be open to you but I'm not gonna be searching, and so I sort of just made that decision at one point, but it is still something I desired. And so Zach we're one of the Florida boys, really good buddies he ended up getting engaged in 2023. No, 2022. End of 2022, he got engaged and just through them planning their wedding and just being cute together and like around me and just him growing in that relationship so much I felt there were just like feelings and lies of like you won't have that and you can't have that and you're not. Like he was growing so much and getting so excited and I was like I'm not gonna experience that, like I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1:And God said this is like Emily Ann's story. Have you heard Emily Ann's story?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have it is, it is and I. The thing is like God spoke to me, he made it. There have been two really important lessons that I've learned when it comes to the non-relationships that I've been through, and one is there was someone I thought like to me at some point and they didn't make me laugh, like we were in a group and they did something, and I was like, like they didn't, like that's not really funny and I want someone that's funny, like I'm bringing to them that way. And God was like well, they don't exist for you, so that's fine.
Speaker 1:I was like okay, I see you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. And so it changed like just my perception of people in general and like a relationship is not meant to like make me happier or like give me something. They don't exist for my fulfillment or my enjoyment. But also in thinking and comparing myself to Zach and his experience, god said he doesn't have anything that you don't already have in me. He is not more fulfilled. His camp is not more overflowing Like you are overflowing and living in abundance as he is overflowing and living in abundance, like you don't have anything that he doesn't have, anything that you don't already have. And I was like you're right, like I am fully complete in you as he is fully complete in you. I'm good, and I was sort of walking that out. Unfortunately, richard, there was one more pretty dark year that it was 2023. I don't know what happened. I really don't. I think some of the lives just were persistent enough. The thing is, it never got me to doubt the truth. I knew my identity the whole time. I knew God loved me. I knew like free will, god loved me. I knew like freedom. I knew it was untouched. But the sort of frustration and exhaustion came back in because of expectations. I was always looking for proof. I was looking for evidence or fruit to prove that I had been transformed. And when I didn't see it, my confidence dwindled. One year fresh, you're really bold and you just go in and you're excited and like it's this new information and you're ready to just like go for it. And my confidence started to wane and so I was not as bold and I sort of pulled back. We stopped the Friday night study, we stopped helping out at the youth Sabbath school at church. We just sort of like pulled back. And I think all of the Florida boys sort of had different reasons for that, but mine was sort of a growing apathy and I didn't want to be in a leadership position if I was like struggling or I didn't like Let me ask you this Was it just a growing apathy or was there former patterns that brought condemnation that allowed for the apathy? Yeah, I guess the second one and it led to apathy. But yeah, former patterns for sure, my dude.
Speaker 1:And that's the thing, man, because sin sucks all the way around. And I met with someone recently who just received freedom and I was talking to him and he's like I'm not sure why I'm not feeling as excited anymore. And I said, have you been doing that thing that you got free from? And he said, yeah, I was like there you go, my boy, that would be it. I'm like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And that's why sin sucks. Like yeah, I always give this example. If I've never run headlong into a wall, yeah, the first time I do it it's going to hurt real bad. But if I do it the next day, even knowing how bad it hurts, it's still going to hurt. That day when I do it, it's still going to hurt. And so sin has never had any answers. It didn't have any answers back then. And if tonight I log off of this and I look at something I shouldn't look at, it will suck, it will hurt, it brings heartache, devastation and pain, just because it's sin, and then I can't have this conversation with you because I'm self-condemned.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, 100%. So it was a year. It was just a year of secrets and darkness and like apathy, but it was former patterns in full force and it just like not only was it former patterns in my actions and what I was looking at and who I was talking to or what I was doing and acting on, it was distraction. Because I just knew, like the devil knew that in order to keep my focus from looking to the one that changed everything and is reality, just keep things in front of my face, and so I would have my phone and watch TV and my lap, like at all times there was stimulation I'd be in bed scrolling on it constantly. So, even if I wasn't making bad decisions, necessarily, or decisions outside of my identity, I wasn't focused on the truth of my identity. I had. No, I wasn't in community either. I wasn't hopping on Bible studies, I wasn't talking with the Florida boys in that capacity, like there was no actual focus on truth or life, there was only distraction or focus on death. So, even when it came to the gospel, my mindset was well, I'm free, I'm transformed. This should be different. And so it's still self-condemning, even in the focus of spiritual things. It got to the point where I wasn't even like seeing my friends all that often, because I was sort of leaving my evenings open in case I wanted to meet somebody. That's the I want to hang out with my friends. Like. I don't. It doesn't actually make any sense, but we were getting together this last Thanksgiving 2023, with my family. It was a Morrison Thanksgiving. We alternated. We had a lot of fun together. We had a lot of fun together. We had a lot of fun together. It was a Morrison Thanksgiving. We alternate every year. This year it was Thanksgiving. And I knew because my family's intuitive Tyler knows I'd already told my family what I had struggled with in the past and I knew someone would ask and I knew I wouldn't be able to lie because I promised that it wouldn't lie if somebody asked. And so I knew Thanksgiving was like a deadline. I knew it was going to be a fresh start. I knew I wanted to delete everything before I even got there so that I could say like, yeah, I'm making progress or whatever it is. But I fully planned because I was traveling the weekend before. I fully planned on like while and out, not crazy, but like a last hurrah, I got deathly sick. It's not that the weekend I was yeah, it was just GI stuff. I was on the toilet probably every 30, 20, 30 minutes and just I was out for the count. And then I had to travel to Colorado completely dehydrated, hadn't eaten or drank anything in 24 hours, got to Colorado for Thanksgiving and instantly got elevation sickness and it just compounded. I couldn't drink anything. I ended up not eating for five days until like actually Thanksgiving Day, and I lost 12, 13 pounds. And you don't got that way to lose. Don't have that way to lose. It was bad, but Thanksgiving was awesome, being with my family was great and Tyler and Morgan had come in with and he had already had conversations with me on the phone that have been really like good and enlightening and I just didn't act upon them, which is fun. But they came in with a desire to unite our family in the light. They wanted intimacy with our family because we are all walking this gospel, in this truth, and he wanted the same openness that he has with you and with different people in the body that he has developed over the few years. He wanted that same thing with his actual family that is walking this out. And so through Thanksgiving we had conversations altogether and like individual conversations to sort of bring to light different things and lives that we were living under, and I sort of avoided it for as long as I could until and by avoiding it I mean I was allowing other people to go first. Until the last night, tyler, like I had been sitting by myself on the couch for a while, other people were off doing other things and Tyler came up and he was like, ah, finally, that was a car ride. Here we go. He's like I've been trying to, I've been waiting for this. I was like, yeah, me too. And then other family was sort of in the living room for a while as well and it just like I was able to just confess to a loving like body of my family and believers of like just I had been struggling and I had been walking out these lies that I knew weren't true and I didn't want, and the thing was like as uncomfortable as it was and as much as I felt like I was avoiding it, I wanted Thanksgiving to happen. I wanted this opportunity to like come into the light, because you're going to know where this is. But the verse that talks about being children of the light First job, yeah, first job. The thing that I've learned is that when you're living in darkness, you fear the light because you fear it exposing you, the light. You think the light is going to illuminate and expose all of the bad things that you are right and put you on blast. What in reality? Because you are children of the light. When you step into the light, it reveals the truth. It shows you who you are and it should like. The light is good and it is illuminating. It is not exposing I mean it exposes lies, but it's a good thing that you don't need to fear.
Speaker 1:This verse keeps coming up in my mind. Read it Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he is not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people love darkness rather than the light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light so they may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. And as I hear what you're saying and I hear your story, man, I resonate almost the whole way, the whole way, even in knowing the truth and understanding freedom and falling back into old patterns. And when you're in old patterns you do not want the light at all because you're ashamed, you feel guilty. It's embarrassing, especially if you lead out of Friday night Bible study and a bunch of people get free, or if you have a podcast that people listen to. The truth is that is the enemy of your soul. Someone asked me okay, I'm free, why did I do that thing? And yes, freedom comes. Well, you're free because you died with Christ in baptism. You're free from that, not just in baptism, but because you died with Christ in baptism is a representative of that, for one who has died has been set free from sin, so that is why you are free. You're not free for any other reason besides that. And so then, when you start walking that out, that happens now, like you have it, you have freedom in Jesus Christ in that instant, yep, but your mind needs to be renewed. Yeah, and sometimes, if you've spent a lot of time and darkness, it doesn't have to be that way, but it is this way most of the time. If you've spent a lot of time and darkness, it takes some time for your mind to catch up to what is true about you through Jesus Christ. Yeah, and in your story, I've seen it, I've seen it. I know who you are, I know what you believe. I remember the last thing we spoke about in the Grand Tetons is you, me and Kessie, and I was like so what's your identity, nicholas? And you said I'm a son of God. Yeah, Like period, period, like you didn't add anything onto it, like this is it and this is where I'm going to live my life from, and I remember just you, me and Kessie and Rain just praying around that fire, yeah, and you believed it. Yeah, I still do. But then the world and your former patterns because you had many years of life, you had many years of living in that caught up to you and it condemned you, yeah, and you isolated yourself and you kept yourself away from the body just because of that verse in John three. You didn't want the light, yeah, and so I want to highlight this. And then I want to hear, as we wrap this up we have to be in community, yes, we have to be with the people of God, and if you don't have a community like love, reality, where, like Nicholas and I, can have a real conversation about what's going on in our lives, because we know the truth already, and if you're just in some community that have even said that you you cussed while you were driving they would condemn you. Yeah. Then that's going to be tough. You need a community of God, loving people that see you for who you actually are. Yeah, and then don't let any accusation keep you from the truth. Yeah, even if you participate, even if the accusation is legit, it is not true in Jesus Christ. Yeah, and so we. We. It might take some time for for our mind to catch up with what has already been made true in Jesus Christ. Yeah. But keep going for it Like you're a slave to righteousness. Yeah. Like you, nicholas, like you've been a slave to righteousness since 10 years old, and you didn't even know it.
Speaker 2:True, true.
Speaker 1:And so that's what I hear when I hear your story and I'm just, I'm encouraged that, while there were times where you wanted to, just you didn't know. Yeah. What you, what you did know, is what you've known from this whole time that God does love you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of confusion of what needed to change or what I knew. I knew what the goal was, but it was. It was all over the place and I want to highlight quit ish because we're only three and a half hours into this one. Those lies you think you know when you're, when you're smart and you're inspected Like you do you think you know. And in my head, the like homosexuality or like bisexual preferences. That was what I was trying to get rid of. Once I was rid of that, I would be free, right. And if you haven't read Jackie Hill Perry's book or heard her speak or whatever she said, god didn't come to make me straight, he came to make me whole. And that's where it sort of like broke down for me is I would have rather like, I would have rather struggled with heterosexual lust for some reason I would like over homosexual, like yeah, lust wasn't the problem, it was like the type of it. But that's not even true. It wasn't just lust, it was desire. But it wasn't just desire, it was lack. And it wasn't just lack, it was a belief in a lie that I wasn't lovable. And that was. That was the root and that's what I confess to my family at Thanksgiving is the belief that even in freedom, I knew God loved me unconditionally, absolutely. I could not be more loved by God ever than I am right now and will always be. There's nothing I can do to change it, but I will never find a human that can love me like that and that's true, like we're not God. But there's this fear and this lie that like it's just God, like no one's going to love me the way that I want to be loved, and just believing that lie and acting out of that kept me searching for intimacy in ways that I knew wouldn't fulfill intimacy and connection in ways that wouldn't give me connection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, like when you said that earlier in your story that's the lie from from the pit of hell. Like when you're like well, I cut off women because I don't deserve. And here's the thing. Like you deserve ain't got nothing to do with it. Yeah. Like you're a new creation in Christ. You're out here zealous for good works. Yeah, like you're created to shine and to love. And what if you end up getting married? It will be a blessing. Yeah. If you don't end up getting married, it will be a blessing. Yeah, like all things. Like if it's a gift from God, it will be good. Yeah, and it won't be like like because I only had heterosexual lust, like I'm more deserving of of of of somebody and I see it now. Yeah. It's it's, it's garbage, and so you are whole and complete. Yeah, and I get to.
Speaker 2:I get to rewrite the patterns through, through spirit, right, you said, like those patterns of the mind and patterns of the flesh. I am not in the flesh, I am on this. My mind is being renewed, I have a new heart, my spirit is like Christ, spirit in me. Right, I'm a slave to righteousness. The one thing that hasn't been renewed or transformed is my body. But my body is not inherently bad. So you had an episode with Jake Hodgkis, yeah, who wrote no Longer I yeah, I love that book, by the way, great. But in in reading that like, god gave me this analogy like my body is not inherently bad, no, and it's not inherently good, it's just my body. But it is innocent and it is curious and it is easily like distracted and swayed because it's just a body. And he gave me this analogy that it's sort of like a dog that's tied to your waist and it can be like distracted or like whistled out or like curious, or it's just sort of testing things out and you ultimately have the control to where, if you are like aware of where it is pulling and what it's distracted by, like you have the discipline and authority to guide it. But it's all in love and it's the same as like raising a baby, like the way that the spirit is renewing my mind and teaching me the truth and what is good for me and what is not good for me, and what is true about me and what is not true about me. I then take that and like he threw me is disciplining, and like guiding my body to reteach it like what is good and what it was made for and like. But you have to. There's an awareness in that.
Speaker 1:And you have natural, inherent desires, like you want to eat, you need sleep, you desire intimacy. But here's the thing before that intimacy and that desire was governed by the flesh. Now you are a slave to righteousness and so you have like. From the beginning, your story is you have desire for love connection. That's good, but now it is ordered by righteousness, like Jesus is the Lord of your desire, and you're not going to go anywhere outside of that, because by now you know that that road leads to just heartache and despair. Like I don't think I need to explain to you, sexual immorality sucks. I think you know, I know, I figured it out. And so, because you know that, because Jesus is Lord of your life, he is the Lord of your desire, where desire not good or bad, it just is it will not be fulfilled in unrighteousness in you, because you walk in the light as he is.
Speaker 2:And my focus is on the light. My focus is on him and I don't need to inspect for evidence. I don't need to be on guard for every temptation around every corner if my focus is on him and I think of the snake on the cross those people were being bitten by snakes, they had bites and they were being told to stop tending to their wounds, to stop analyzing their bodies and like trying to fix themselves and heal themselves, to stop looking at the ground at all times, checking every corner, trying to be alert and aware of, like potential attacks, and to look up, to look away from themselves, to look away from their bodies, to look away from their attackers and look at this.
Speaker 1:Where your hope comes from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, victory and hope and redemption of those things and that was the biggest thing I've struggled with, especially in this last year, was just looking at myself. Whether that was self deprecating or self pride or whatever it is, it was just me, me, me. And that's not what this is about. It's about him and that's why this isn't my story, it's his story and that's why anyone who comes to me and asks me anything, like my job isn't to tell you, like my ministry is not to tell you what to do or what not to do or how to live. I am like my experience is just to share that you are loved and he is the one who loves you fully, and from that, like he can do the rest and he will teach you. But it starts from you knowing that you're left. And that's all I'm here. I'm just going to point out.
Speaker 1:So let me, let me, and maybe, if there is somebody who is listening to this and they're this far in and they have struggled with whether it's same sex attraction or attraction of somebody who they're not married to or they're, they're struggling with sexuality, what would you like? They're struggling with that as an identity, maybe? Yeah, what would you offer somebody who's struggling in the same way that you have struggled?
Speaker 2:I would offer the sentiment of the prodigal son that the truest thing about you is that you are a son or a daughter of God. That is what you were made for. You were made for love and intimacy and you have always been that thing. And there may have been other identities that have been placed on you or that you have accepted, in search of a type of love that mimics that, but you know it doesn't like. You're still searching and you can tell that it's empty. This identity of being a son or a daughter, of being fully loved unconditionally, that's it and it like. If it sounds too good to be true, that doesn't mean it's not true. It is and it's awesome and it's great and it's led chidding. But you sometimes just need to decide to believe it. And it can be hard to make that decision because it sounds too good to be true, but you just need to believe it and stop carrying things that aren't yours. Your past and your mistakes do not define you, even your most recent ones. All of that has already been taken care of. You are who he says you are and, to quote the bridge of one of my favorite Maverick City songs, jira, you're already loved, you're already chosen. He knows who you are and we know what he's spoken of you. You're already loved more than you can imagine, and that's enough. That's it, that's enough Thanks. Nicholas, thanks.
Speaker 1:Rich. Wow, that was super powerful. If you are in a position, if you are in a spot where there is something other than Christ and him crucified as your identity, if it's something other than Jesus as Lord being where you're living from, and you know that, and you know that it can't be that way, then this prayer is for you, father in heaven. I've been taking my identity from things that aren't stable. I've been taking my identity from a foundation that isn't secure. I know what it's leading to. Thank you for being my foundation. Thank you for allowing me to live my life through your truth, what you have done through Jesus Christ. I believe it and I receive it in Jesus' name. Amen. Guys, come rock with the community. We can't do this without encouragement. That's why we invite you to our internet church, to our Facebook group online, to the Bible studies. Come be encouraged in who you are, in Jesus Christ.