Summary:
Join us on a heartfelt journey through Savana's life, exploring themes of faith, identity, and generational beliefs. From her grandmother's conversion to Adventism to Savana's own quest for identity, we delve into personal anecdotes and pivotal moments. Follow Savana from Adventist boarding school to college and beyond as she grapples with faith, love, and motherhood. Discover the power of selfless service and reflection, as Savana's story inspires listeners to embrace love and seek spiritual affirmation.
0:00 - Power of Gospel
5:59 - Family Legacy and Loss
11:33 - Growing Up in Adventist Boarding School
19:33 - Childhood Validation and Insecurities
26:03 - A Journey Through High School
38:32 - Struggles With Identity and Validation
44:33 - Struggles With Identity and Faith
1:01:17 - Journey Through Relationships and Mental Health
1:10:02 - Navigating Family Dynamics and Self-Discovery
1:21:07 - Journey Through Motherhood and Faith
1:30:03 - Journey Through Motherhood and Faith
1:34:48 - Freedom From Mental Load and Lies
1:45:51 - Living in the Spirit
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Summary:
Join us on a heartfelt journey through Savana's life, exploring themes of faith, identity, and generational beliefs. From her grandmother's conversion to Adventism to Savana's own quest for identity, we delve into personal anecdotes and pivotal moments. Follow Savana from Adventist boarding school to college and beyond as she grapples with faith, love, and motherhood. Discover the power of selfless service and reflection, as Savana's story inspires listeners to embrace love and seek spiritual affirmation.
0:00 - Power of Gospel
5:59 - Family Legacy and Loss
11:33 - Growing Up in Adventist Boarding School
19:33 - Childhood Validation and Insecurities
26:03 - A Journey Through High School
38:32 - Struggles With Identity and Validation
44:33 - Struggles With Identity and Faith
1:01:17 - Journey Through Relationships and Mental Health
1:10:02 - Navigating Family Dynamics and Self-Discovery
1:21:07 - Journey Through Motherhood and Faith
1:30:03 - Journey Through Motherhood and Faith
1:34:48 - Freedom From Mental Load and Lies
1:45:51 - Living in the Spirit
💰 DONATE & SUPPORT our Ministry: lovereality.org/give
👍 LIKE us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alovereality
📷 FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/riyoung31/
📚 LEARN more at our site: lovereality.org
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:I could literally give you a laundry list of all the things that I'm doing. I'm feeding the baby, I'm cleaning the house, I'm buying the groceries, I'm doing the meal planning, I'm doing the laundry. I'm doing everything and he just gets to sit in there and work. One morning I went to go shower and I told you know, very resentfully, I need 10 minutes, I just need 10 minutes to shower. Like, can you give me that? So I go shower and I'm like weeping in the shower and I'm crying and I was like God, this sucks. Like this is not what it's supposed to feel. Like Like, why do I feel so angry and I feel so overwhelmed? I don't get it. Like, why did you create women to do this? Why are we carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders? This is so overwhelming and I heard so plainly God tell me this is what I have for you.
Speaker 1:Yo, welcome to the Death of Life Podcast. My name is Richard Young and today's episode is with Savannah. I love these episodes that they go back in my time, my history, like I love that. Maybe you guys don't care about it, but it is so much fun for me and this episode was, it was just fun for me. There's some sad stuff. Savannah has an amazing story and when you hear her heart and what God has done and the truth that she's living in, you're going to be very, very encouraged. So buckle up, strap in Love you all, appreciate you all. Here is Savannah. Okay, so take us to the start. Where are we going?
Speaker 2:Okay, we are going to my maternal grandmother.
Speaker 1:Your maternal grandmother.
Speaker 2:Way back in 1864. Yes, my maternal grandmother, so my mom's mom. She grew up in Oklahoma and was Methodist and she met my grandfather. They like went to elementary school together and in seventh grade I think we're like really crushing on each other and kind of knew like, oh, we're going to be together forever. And so they were. They got married and I think when they were 19 and moved around, my grandpa joined the army and at that point they were doing like six months stints and so they went to Michigan during one of those points and my grandma became enrolled in what is now Andrews University.
Speaker 2:So they were Methodist, which is like I don't know if you know anything about Methodist, but like not doctrinally heavy right, so like all about Jesus and all that, but not like not religious, don't have as much of a religious, and my grandma, in her own words, has always kind of had this tendency towards wanting the structure of a religion, I guess. So when she went to Andrews campus, she was really kind of blown away by all of these people who, like followed all of these rules and like were really conservative at the time. And so she told her husband, my grandfather, like wow, you've got to come. Look at these people like they're doing things really differently, but like I'm kind of into it. And so he went and he was like, oh yeah, like that's cool. And while she was there she became like really convicted about the Sabbath and felt like that was something that she wanted to start practicing. And she didn't start it at that point it was many years later, but it was like the seed that was planted for her, I think, around like Adventist culture. So they stayed in Michigan for a while and they moved back to North Carolina or sorry, that's where I live they moved to Oklahoma and they had three girls my mom is the youngest and my grandma kind of like dabbled in and out of like studying about Adventism and like the doctrines and like reading the Bible more and all these things.
Speaker 2:And she started to like kind of believe that maybe this was the path that she was supposed to go on. And one time when she was in church, the pastor gave an altar call and she had this vision of Jesus standing at the front on stage and like telling her that he wanted her to keep Sabbath and to come to the front and like give her heart at this altar call and she was like really nervous to do that and so she kind of put her head down and like didn't go to the front. But I always stuck with her. And then, years later, so now my mom was around I think the age of 10 to 14 somewhere in there, and her older sisters were gone. So my mom was really the you know kind of more stuck in the middle of this next part of the story. Basically, my grandma became really convicted that she wanted to be Adventist and she told my grandpa and he was like that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:Like I'm not doing that, like you're going to be on your own if you're going to do that. And so my grandma wanted to do it and she felt really convicted about it and she prayed for the willingness to leave her husband, basically if that was what she was supposed to do, and literally the next morning she just decided okay, I feel willing, like God has given me the conviction to do it, I'm going to do it. And so she did. They got divorced and this was like four years of tumultuous, horrible, violent fights and it was just really, really hard. And my mom was the one who was the youngest at the time and still living at home, and so she was torn in the middle of that and then my grandpa met another woman and that was kind of the end of it. But the reason why I think that part of the story is really important is because it highlights the importance of the religious aspect in my family, like to the extent where a family was like really torn apart and then my grandma became really legalistic in a lot of ways and she loved the Lord. I mean, oh, my goodness, my grandma is like if righteousness were like levels, which it's not, but she would be like when I was a kid I used to think my grandmother is going to have the seat at the right hand of going, because she was just so holy and so anyway, yeah, so that's part of the story. So then my grandma raised the girls all really Adventist and they all grew up and started their own families and continued this kind of Adventist legacy of being in the church and doing all the right things and following the rules and whatever.
Speaker 2:So my mom went to Southwestern and she met my dad, who has a very different story to just give the bullet points, basically wasn't raised with any sort of religion, very, very abusive household, was physically abused most of his life, younger years, growing up, went to high school, got married out of high school, got divorced within a year, became an alcoholic for 10 years and had this convergent experience in his mid-20s and he gave his heart to God and he went to Southwestern randomly with like no experience of Adventism whatsoever. So I met my mom there, they got married and then they moved around but ultimately landed in California and so, as they were teaching, my mom was an English teacher, my dad was a PE teacher, they were working in public schools and they got pregnant and this is like the second story that I think really contributes to, like, my worldview. They got pregnant and this was like over 30 years ago. So now you know we can do all kinds of testing and whatever, and at the time they couldn't. And so they got pregnant and had a baby named Sierra, who's my older sister, and Sierra was born with Trisomy 18, which is a genetic defect, and I don't really know all of the logistics around it, but basically, if she were still alive, she would have not ever had the ability to eat or talk or walk or any of those things on her own. She had some physical deformities and she had a lot of breathing difficulties, so she was constantly seizing, like 24, seven, basically. So my grandmother came and lived with my parents during this time and the doctors told my mom, like if you guys want a baby, like you need to get pregnant immediately because she's not going to live very long Like I think, the longest somebody who's ever been given that diagnosis to live was, I think, like 17 or 18. And obviously their life is very constricted, and so my parents got pregnant relatively quickly with me and so, yeah, so they had Sierra and then they had me and I think we were like 14ish months apart or so and my dad, because of his background, he has always had this really sincere heart for the underdog and he's you know his throughout his work, career and stuff.
Speaker 2:He was a boys dean and did all this stuff in different academies and he's always like really been drawn to kind of like the outcast characters quote unquote people who weren't really good academically. And I think that's kind of where it started was with Sierra, and so he just loved her, like obviously you love your daughter, but I think there was this part of him that like just really just loved her. And because of that, when I was born I was this healthy baby who they'd never experienced before and it was really hard on my dad to see any attention given to me because he felt like it was being taken from Sierra and obviously he didn't mean that in any sort of like negative way, right, like it wasn't personal, but I think it was just. It was just really really difficult for him. And then when Sierra died, it was so hard and I don't I think she didn't make it quite till two, so I think I was like nineish months when she died.
Speaker 2:But the reason why I tell that part of the story is because the biggest lie of my life that I've lived is validation and constantly needing and seeking the validation of others, and I think that that is where that started was.
Speaker 2:Growing up because of what my dad had gone through like both as a child and then through different experiences of his life and then also losing Sierra, I think he learned that when you grow really close to somebody, you run the risk of losing them, and I think that that was kind of put on me a little bit, and obviously not intentionally, but I think I felt that like emotional distance from my dad as a really, really young kid. So, yeah, so that's kind of the genesis of my being born into my family. We lived in California for a couple of years and then moved to New Mexico. My sister was born she's two years younger than me and then we moved to Wisconsin where my parents worked at Wisconsin Academy. We were there for 10 years and my mom was an English teacher but stayed home. She had a lot too and then my dad was a boys dean and a PE teacher in a gymnastics coach. So we grew up in boys dorms, living in boys dorm apartments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what? There not very many people can relate to that. I think my daughter has some tiny memories of being in a boys dean apartment, the dean's apartment, and there's some. I think there's some real beauty. I don't know if it's a word, the word is beauty.
Speaker 1:There's something about that when you're working at a boarding school and I've talked about this before on the podcast that you can't be replicated anywhere else, totally. Yeah, and I never understood it because I went to a day school and then when I got to college I was like y'all boarding school kids are wild, I don't understand you. And then when I worked in a boys dorm like I'm still tight with the guys that were in the dorm to this day, like I text a lot of them and you can't replicate that and the camaraderie and even the, the we hate this together. It just does something I don't know. It's kind of cool. It's kind of terrible sometimes too, but it's kind of cool. So you just grew up in this kind of boarding school and environment. Totally, I didn't know anything different, I mean.
Speaker 2:And we lived in a boys dorm until I graduated high school. So that was the first time I was in a boys dorm. So that was like all I knew and I loved it. Like it was so fun we had a door from like our apartment into the boys dorm, which I never went into, but like we would have boys coming over all the time for dinner or whatever when I was a kid and it was so fun. Like it was like I had a you know 30 older brother to a sense that would come and we'd play music on Friday night or when it was one of our kids' birthdays like, or one of our birthdays, everybody would come and celebrate.
Speaker 2:And then, obviously, because of being on the gymnast, well, I was put on the gymnastics team when I was like five, so I obviously also knew these students from the different, from being on the team and, yeah, I loved it. It was a great way to grow up Like. It is very weird. So I'm sure there are people who are like what the heck? That sounds so crazy, but it was. It was really special, it was a good time.
Speaker 1:So what comes with the boarding academy, as you and I know, is it's the rules. The rules are a little different, yeah, and there can be a lot of hurt if, even if you don't know how to separate the rules from like God, like you, just if you're a kid there, how the school treats you, you feel like that's how God is 100%. How did who was God to you growing up, like you, have this strict grandma but is like super holy, and you have tell me about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've.
Speaker 2:Obviously I've listened to this podcast and you always ask that question and it is such a hard question to like it's such a big question and I've spent the most time this week specifically reflecting on that one and I think you kind of hit the nail on the head in that I think who God was to me existed within the frame of Adventism. I don't know that God really existed outside of it and I didn't know anybody. This is again I'm going to say I'm so wild I don't think I knew anyone who wasn't Adventist until I was like in my masters. So like I grew up, you're masters man, wild, like I knew some people, but like in terms of being in an actual in-.
Speaker 1:Friendship relationship with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, who weren't Adventist or didn't know about the Adventist bubble? Like it is a bubble and I was in it and I was deep and my family was deep in it, so like I just didn't, yeah, I didn't think anything of it. So God to me was very much, like I think, a little bit angry, you know God.
Speaker 1:Was that the Adventist God growing up In your opinion?
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause there was so many rules and you had to follow it. And my dad didn't grow up Adventist, so he would always eat like he grew up working on shrimp boats and stuff on South Padre Island and so he would eat seafood and man, my grandma had a hard time with that. We would get food from her Like he needs a stop eating this. And like my mom loves Dr Pepper that's the subreddit, that's what I'm even talking about this but she has drank a Dr Pepper every day of her life since she was like 15 or something crazy, and when my grandma would come to visit, we would hide it Like they would go like in cupboards in the laundry room. So no, she wouldn't see it. So it was like when my grandma would come, who's very Adventist and Adventist is where God is Like we had to change everything about the way we lived, or like how we were perceived.
Speaker 1:So it was a big yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're not Adventist and you hear that, you're like that's kind of wild. And if you're Adventist, you're like yeah, 100%. Because I remember my dad and I'm sure I've told this story before eating chicken for the first time in front of us and we're like you're going to hell, straight up, like you're going to die and burn, and we were crying. I think Dad is eating dead meat animal and my mom God bless her. She was just like guys, chill out. And then we really thought that we had never eaten meat before. But my mom had been taking us to Del Taco for like a long time and we never knew we had eaten meat. And one time we were like, oh yeah, we've never eaten meat. And my mom was like what you think is in them tacos? And we were like what? And we all lost and started crying. You fed us the meat of a dead cow and she was just like, no, yeah, we felt terrible because like it was life and death.
Speaker 2:No, it really was. Yeah, like everything felt like a salvation issue. It wasn't just like, oh yeah, that's fine, let it go. It was like, oh my gosh, I need to go pray for forgiveness, or like what's going to happen? Yeah, it was this whole thing. And, like you said, I grew up. I grew up on boarding school campuses and so I not only knew like the culture of the Adventist world growing up in an Adventist family that had been, at this point, three generations deep but I also heard about like conference decisions or meetings that were happening with my parents when they were going to board meetings or whatever. So I had this like added layer, of like really knowing that in an ounce of the Adventist culture, and I think that that had a huge played, a huge role in who God was, and I think that Jesus, to me, was somebody who had to pay the price to assuage God's anger. So, yeah, I think that that is who God was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a very typical. I mean, people believe that now that it's called a penal substitutionary atonement, which is the fancy way to say that God was mad at us and Jesus came in and was like no God, I'll do it, and so people don't understand that. That kind of thinking. It makes God the bad guy. Like God is a problem for you to solve and you need to solve it by behaving well. But you actually can't. But then Jesus comes and he dies for you. So because he died for you, you should really behave well.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then when you don't, you're just like, well, what the flip do I do now? I guess I don't know.
Speaker 2:Right Like God's mad, I really do suck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So growing up, that was the background. How was life going Like? You had a good childhood, even.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a really. I mean, I have such incredible parents who and I feel really fortunate in that, like I, my life was really pretty easy.
Speaker 1:Like-, do you think?
Speaker 2:they're gonna listen to this. Hi mom, hi dad.
Speaker 1:Cause I wanna say, let me just say this I was always very impressed by them when I would come to visit Sunnydale. Your dad is a big dude Dude and he looks like he means business, yeah, and I just was always impressed by how he didn't. He didn't. He looked like a big mean dude but he wasn't, and I had a ton of respect for him. And I don't remember your mom as well as I remember your dad, yeah, but yeah, I was like man this, these guys kind of know what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Shout out to you guys if you're listening. Yeah, I don't know if you remember me.
Speaker 2:you probably don't, but Sure they do. Yeah, no, I had great parents and I had a really good relationship with my sister and then when I was 10, my brother was born and that like really changed things for me and that my brother was really young and so when friends would come over they really wanted to just see the baby and for somebody who wanted the validation of my friends, that was really difficult, but life was overall really good. I kind of grew up with this feeling that I was the troublemaker and that I was like the bad kid which, when you grow up in the avatars world, the definition of a bad kid is so different than maybe like a public school definition.
Speaker 1:You swore in the hallway once and you're the bad kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I like I kind of morphed into whoever it was that I was hanging out with. So, like the, I really wanted to be part of the cool crowd and that was always the kids older than me. I also went to this teeny, tiny little school. I had the biggest class and there were four of us, so it was like a joke, I think the whole school there was maybe 15 students, like it was super, super tiny, and so my little friends was kind of limited, but the cool people within that group of 15 were the ones that I wanted to hang out with and I had so many crushes. Like I had a crush when I went to first grade, which now is just so sad and I was always like I know it's sad, why is that sad? Because I was five or six, like that was way too young. So I mean, but you're just having like the little boy.
Speaker 1:That's cool. If you're trying to like entrap them and give them kisses, that might be a problem.
Speaker 2:But I think it was kind of like more of that, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nevermind I pull, I take it back, not cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it was. I remember in first or second grade I had a crush on the eighth grader and I went home and I asked my mom mom, can we celebrate September 27th, cause that was his birthday? It's so sad.
Speaker 1:I'm mad that you remember that I'm really upset, I'll tell you why it's cause.
Speaker 2:my sister's birthday is on the 26th and my dad's is on the 28th.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'll allow it.
Speaker 2:Like right between I'll allow it, yeah, anyway.
Speaker 2:so it was like I just really needed the validation of boys from a really young age. And then when I was in fourth grade I had a crush on the sixth grader and I would like make fun of my best friend at the time, cause he thought it was really funny and it really hurt her feelings. But I really wanted to be cool. And then at one point I was really good friends with this public school girl and she had her ears pierced and was like kind of like a bad kid. So then I started piercing my ears on a regular basis in the bathroom with a needle. It gets so weird.
Speaker 1:Did you put earrings in after you pierced them?
Speaker 2:Totally Okay. So this is where the story gets so whack. But yeah, I totally would, and I had done it so much, Richard, I had done it so many times. But at one point I pierced them and that same person gave me a pair of her earrings and I wore them to Sabbath school. It's so weird, but it had happened so many times that my mom pulled me out of school. So sixth grade year I did not finish school because my mom was sick of me doing this, but she was like I'm done and she pulled me out because she thought my friends were being bad influences.
Speaker 1:And meanwhile you're like you're piercing girls ears in the bathroom. Were you the bad influence?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it was ridiculous. No, I only pierced my own. I didn't pierce anybody else's, it was just mine. But my dad like remembers at one point I was like sitting on the counter with like a needle and I was like poking it through. And he walked in and I looked at him and I like stuck it all the way, like I just was, like I was just kind of a bull in a China cabinet, like really stubborn.
Speaker 2:And I think also I'm gonna add one more layer to the story, sorry, but so at five or six I started gymnastics, and around this time is when I started to also become like really aware of my body being in gymnastics. You know you're getting thrown around or whatever, and like your body weight has to do with that, obviously. But then also I was on a team with other high schoolers and that's what they were all talking about was their body or how they looked or how they felt or how much they weighed or whatever. And so from a really young age I also became really aware of body image and that sort of became a fixation for me for the majority of my life.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, I think it was fourth or fifth grade I got really sick for like three days I had like the stomach flu, as any little kid does. But I weighed myself before and after and I think after I was sick I weighed like 99 pounds and I was like this is, my mission is to stay below 100 pounds and I was like 10 or 11. So that was also kind of like a nuance. So throughout this whole thing, and of my younger years specifically in Wisconsin, it was just a lot of like seeking validation from boys, having crushes and also learning that I needed to be really skinny and that God was mad at me.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the death portion of the Death to Life podcast.
Speaker 2:You know the life part starts. Yeah, it sucked. But with that being said, I also think you know good childhood. And then my parents wanted to move to Texas, so my dad got a job at CTA, which I actually think he taught Abner or Alfredo.
Speaker 1:Alfredo at CTA.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think he was a senior and he was on the gymnastics team and I was also, so I think I know him from that because he looks so familiar. And then he's mentioned CTA before. Anyway, all that to say, my dad taught at CTA. So we moved to Keen and when we got there I met all of these girls and they were so nice and there were so many of them and I'm coming from being the biggest class of four and there's all these girls and they're all going into eighth grade. Well, I was going into seventh and I was so sad because they were a grade ahead of me, and so I asked my mom if I could skip a grade and she said I could, and so I took a test. Do you want me to tell you my scores? I'm gonna tell you because it's hilarious.
Speaker 2:I got junior and senior scores and everything except for common knowledge. I got third grade.
Speaker 1:Third grade.
Speaker 2:And honestly that tracks.
Speaker 1:What kind of questions were for common knowledge? What's the color of a stop sign or something?
Speaker 2:Where was the battle of Gettysburg? Where is the? Oh no, see, this is where it starts. The person who holds the torch, the Statue of Liberty. Where is that located? See, this is what I'm saying. So I was like that and I was like Mississippi, I don't know. Wow. Yeah, but I got to skip all that to say, so I got to skip eighth grade.
Speaker 1:So you were a year like you're going in, were you a full year younger than all of them as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was young, I was 12, I was 12 going into eighth grade, yeah, but it was wonderful, like it was so wonderful I had so many friends. I think there was like 35 kids in the eighth grade class and some of the girls like I still talk to and I'm close with. So it was a wonderful year Like. It was so much fun, I gained so much confidence and I was like kind of the new kid. You know, I'm coming from up north, so I have a Northern accent and I like and this new person where all these kids have gone to school together since they were kids, and so I think I was interesting to other people and that was really exciting for me and it was just a good year Like, and I was so excited to get plugged into all these friendships and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:And then at the end of my eighth grade year, right before my class trip, my parents stopped me down and said we're moving again and I was so angry. Like I was so angry. It was the first time in my life that I had felt so like alive I don't know if that's the right word but like just plugged into so many friendships and it was so much fun, but behind the scenes my parents were miserable. My dad, I think, always kind of struggled with being feeling what's the word Like? Feeling appreciated. You know, like within the boarding school, life and gymnastics was always the first thing to get cut if there were any financial difficulties with the school, and so I think it was just really hard and obviously I didn't know all that. Like I was 12 and I just wanted to stay with my friends, but they were like we're gonna move to Centrallia, missouri, and I was like what's in Centrallia, Missouri.
Speaker 1:In Tralia how do you the answer Nothing. Nothing is in Centrallia, missouri. God bless it. It's a good place.
Speaker 2:It's a really good Mexican restaurant.
Speaker 1:It is not that good. No, shout out to Tres Jalapenos. I don't know what the name of it is. Is that what it's called? I have no idea.
Speaker 2:I think it's called Rio Grande. Okay, yeah, is that what it was.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I used to take seniors from Sunnydale there when we were the Well, obviously it's the only place to go, yeah. Yeah, Centrallia.
Speaker 2:Anyway. So we moved to Sunnydale and I was really young. I started my freshman year as a 13 year old and I felt the youngness. I think because of skipping a grade, I was always developmentally a year behind, but as soon as I got there I got a boyfriend and, as one does so, you know, yeah, so I was in a relationship for two years so long.
Speaker 1:Two years.
Speaker 2:I know, oh man.
Speaker 1:When you're a freshman, that's a long time.
Speaker 2:when you're a freshman, I know, yeah, Just pile on the shame, Rich no.
Speaker 1:I mean no, I'm just saying formative years of life, is all I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I know man Long-term committer over here. Okay, I'm committed.
Speaker 1:But freshman sophomore year, you had a boyfriend.
Speaker 2:I had a boyfriend but I was so excited to be plugged in and I met Kelly, shout out to her because she's the best and loved her, Like we clicked so so well and there were so many opportunities Like I was on I tried out for the volleyball team and gymnastics and choir and the select choir, like everything, and I was so plugged into all these different things and I loved it and I felt like really spiritually alive, I think at this point too, like I felt like you know all of these vespers that were happening and Sabbath school and all this stuff, Like I was old enough now, I think, to really understand it and kind of internalize it a little bit more than I was when I was younger.
Speaker 2:And I would say, if I had like put a label on who God was at this point, I would say my relationship with God was a very emotional one, which kind of fits, you know, as a high schooler, but it was, you know, like I remember the altar calls and like just weeping in the pew and it was like very like intense emotionally, I guess I would say. But I was also really athletic and so I was doing all of these things and I think, as a high schooler who wanted to be validated, like that was really awesome. I did try out for the basketball team and I didn't make it and I was so devastated and I swore basketball off forever because of that. And then later I learned that my mom went and talked to the basketball coach, who was the principal, and told him not to put me on it because she thought I was stretched too thin so I actually had made it.
Speaker 2:Mom, I know man, I held that over her for so long.
Speaker 1:Oh, if I was her I would have taken that to the grave. Be like well, I guess you just got to work harder.
Speaker 2:That's just that, yeah, anyway, so I was really plugged in and it was good and I really enjoyed it. I had a. Really I really enjoyed those first two years and then my junior year. I think there was like a little bit of a shift that happened, in that I broke up with that guy that I'd been dating and then I started to get really involved in the praise team side of things and so I started taking over. There was this person who had been leading out the praise team Friday nights and Sabbath and Saturday nights and he kind of took me under his wing because he saw that I had musical ability and he took me under his wing with the expectation that when he graduated I would then take over and be the person who ran all of the musical side of things with all this stuff. So I loved that.
Speaker 2:Like I sang on a regular basis, I was playing acoustic guitar a lot at this point and I was just really enjoying it. It was so much fun and I was the team captain of volleyball, varsity volleyball and also gymnastics, and then I was in the choir and the select choir. So I was in a lot of things and I was validated a lot through all of these things because I did really, really well. And then, to top it all off, I was also the vice president of SA and so I just was. I was busy, but I was thriving and I just felt like I was looked to, I guess a lot by faculty and staff as somebody who was sort of a leader on campus. And around this time I was also working as a TA teacher's assistant, grading for a teacher, and I lost. This is just so ridiculous. Ok, so I had a friend we were only friends and we wrote the lyrics to this song that was really inappropriate in one of our classes.
Speaker 1:Like what do you mean? You wrote it just on paper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you know how you pass notes back and forth, like during classes, so this song had just come out. It was so bad.
Speaker 1:What's the song, what's the name of it?
Speaker 2:It has the word gently in it. Oh, oh, it's a bad, it's a bad, it's a bad, it's a bad, it's a bad.
Speaker 1:Oh that. I don't know if there's a worse song that you could have chosen. It's a bad. If someone reads that and they have no context, you're like you got to get kicked out of school.
Speaker 2:OK, right, so this is where the story begins. So we're in class and this song had just come out and it was obviously so ridiculous, and so we were like writing the lyrics and thinking we're so funny because it's hilarious, like you're 16 and you're writing these stupidly explicit lyrics and it's just funny because you know it is. Anyway. So I lost my notebook, as one does, and I didn't even think about it. And months go by, don't even think about it, and I'm working and grading papers in my boss at the time, who was the science teacher, came and told me hey, the principal just called and wants to see you in his office. And I was like OK, like I didn't think anything of it.
Speaker 2:I'm a leader on campus, I'm doing super well, I'm really plugged in, I'm a good student, I'm a teacher's kid you know, I live in the boys' dorm over there. Like what could possibly go wrong? I have no time for my text, I'm just doing my thing. So I go downstairs and I'm like, hey, principal, what's up? And he was like, hey, will you shut the door? And I was like sure. And I'm like what is this about? Literally, I'd never been called to the principal's office before. So I have like no context. And he pulls out my notebook, which, I have to say, had my name on the very front of it, and he said, hey, is this your notebook? And I was like yeah, that's my notebook.
Speaker 1:And then I go, oh, I would have done that right there. I'm like I don't know what that is and I've never seen it before and you're a liar.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then I realized, oh my gosh, I know what's in that notebook. So he starts flipping through it and I'm like, please don't do that. Don't do that, this is so terrible. And he goes is this yours? And I was like, mm-hmm, that's mine. And from that point forward it all went downhill. I was crucified. They got me in so much trouble, they stripped all of my titles for me. I was no longer essay vice president. I was no longer varsity captain. I was no longer gymnastics team captain. I couldn't go on the mission trip that I had already signed up for and gained all the money for. I was on social for two weeks from this With who? With the guy that I had written these lyrics from With, who was just a friend of mine. I think that that was everything that happened, but it was ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile a couple of weeks ago, did you tell them this is a stupid song, like you can actually hear? This is not what we're planning on doing.
Speaker 2:I was yelling, like I am like overall, I would say, relatively calm as a person. I was yelling. I was so mad Because my name had been on the front of the notebook, so it was like they were intentionally looking through it, which, whatever, should I have written it? Probably not, but it was like such a joke. And meanwhile, a couple of weeks before, there was a guy who had been smoking cigarettes on the top of the boys dorm and they took him out to eat and said don't do this again. And that was it. And then this happens, which was dumb but like relatively innocent, and they just like threw me to the wolves. I was so angry. I was so angry because I had like, not intentionally, like built up this empire where I'm doing all these things, but like I had loved all of the stuff that I was doing, I was so plugged in and like so happy, and this was the first time in my life really that like all of that was just stripped from me and it sucked.
Speaker 1:This is so sad. I am so sad for you. This is like a. It feels like a life changing moment in some ways.
Speaker 2:It was. It really was. My parents were both teachers and so their stance on anything was always like they had the teachers back 100%. And this was the first time that my mom went to all of the board meetings and was like, ah, ah, you are not going to teach my daughter to do this, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:But their whole thing was she's really plugged in and we're making an example out of her, like she's doing all this stuff and like, or whatever you know, she's really plugged in all these things and our students need to know that you cannot behave this way. And so I think for me that was kind of a pivotal moment, because I just realized like, wow, it really has to do with behavior, like everything has to do with behavior, and like I could have a really horrible heart, but as long as I'm doing all these things, like that's all that matters. And so it just sucked, like it was really brutal. And because of my mom, I feel like I have to say, because of my mom, I was able to go on the mission trip and I didn't really care too much about being stuck to those titles because the yearbook was already in print. So in the yearbooks I was the captain.
Speaker 1:So you can show your kids one day Look at what mommy did.
Speaker 2:Look at all the stuff I was in, yeah, so I felt a little bit okay about that part, but it was mean, and I think, too, I felt like man I was, I was doing all of these things truly like out of the goodness of my heart, like there was a lot of purity behind all of it, like I was so inspired and like motivated to lead this praise team and do all of these things, and so, yeah, I think I just I felt really betrayed, I think, by all of these people.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm not going to defend this, but the people you know they probably forgot about it years ago, but I'm not going to offend it. What I will say? When you're on an administrator and you're on the other side, it's really hard to get it right Like you really want to get it right If you're a sincere person. And it's just hard and you make mistakes and I don't know if they would think it was a mistake, but it's hard.
Speaker 2:It was a mistake, though.
Speaker 1:So bitterness and resentment, for this is the end of your junior year.
Speaker 2:End of my junior year. Yeah, and right before, right before that I had had these like I started having these like revelations. I think about God and I did those sermon series where you go and live with somebody at the church for a summer. And the summer after my junior year I did that and then the summer after my junior year I went and did one of those sermon series that, like I've been to students, do you know where you like go to a church and you live there for a month and you do this like 28 sermon series on like the doctrines.
Speaker 2:And so I went to this little place in Illinois and I stayed with the youngest people in the church, and they were 65. And I think that there was like 14 people in the church and maybe three people came to the sermon series. But I lived basically by myself and during this time I had sort of this like duality of experience. One was that I was spending a lot of time by myself and so I started to have these like revelations about God and like who God was. And I remember this moment where I called my mom and I was like mom, I don't think that what you wear matters. And she was like, well, yeah. And I was like, no, no, you don't get it. Like we have all these rules about like you know what you're supposed to wear, and like you know your shirts can only be two fingers below your collarbone and like your skirts need to be super long, but like it doesn't matter, it's about your heart. And she was like, yeah, and that was like huge for me, because up until that point, god was just rules and everything was just rules. And so I remember that distinctly.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, at the same time, I was completely starving myself. I was like not eating, I was living with these people and I made it my mission to see like how little I could eat and like how skinny I could get. And when my parents came and got me at the end of that month my shorts, I remember like I had brought, you know, you have like different shorts with like different waistbands, that like summer looser and summer tighter, and I was wearing like my tightest shorts and they were like falling off of me and my mom made a comment about it and the people that I was living with pulled my mom aside and said, hey, we're really worried about your daughter because she's not really eating. And so she talked to me about it and I you know, as one day I'm totally fine, like whatever, it's not a big deal. So then I go to high school my senior year, and I was. I got so much validation for how I looked from like everybody man, you lost so much weight over the summer, you look so good. How do you feel? You look like, you feel great, you're so skinny. And then in gymnastics you know, the lighter you are, the more things that you can do or whatever, the higher up you can get thrown and stuff. And so I loved it and I was like, wow, the skinnier I am, the more people like me and the better clothes look on me. So this is great.
Speaker 2:And yeah, there's like so many other things I feel like that were going on at the same time that it's like so hard to like list all of it. But also at the same time, like I was really my dad and I had a horrible relationship at this point. Like we were just constantly bickering and fighting, like I couldn't stand him, like breathing next to me, like I just hated his existence, like I was just so angry at him and it was because I totally projected that he just rejected me and like how you said that thing about my dad earlier, like how you know he always he seemed like this gruff man, but on the inside he's kind of a teddy bear and everybody that knew my dad would say that about him. And I was like everybody is so wrong. He's not a teddy bear, he's horrible, he's just angry all the time.
Speaker 2:And really I was the angry one. I was so angry because he spent so much time with all these other students and I knew that because I was athletic. I could be really good at gymnastics if I was given like the time and the energy to be put into it, but he didn't want to show favoritism and so he wouldn't like set time aside to spend just with me. And so then I just felt like he is showing favoritism. It's just not to his daughter, it's to all these other people, and so I was so angry about that, and so at this time I was also, you know, of course, I jumped right into another relationship. So I'm dating somebody else and I'm finding a lot of validation from that, and validation because I'm so skinny, and validation because I'm doing all these different things and whatever. So, yeah, that was high school.
Speaker 1:Living your best life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything on the outside looked really good, yeah, but internally I was dying.
Speaker 1:The thing about high school is you're immature, but grown people act like high school kids. They just hide it better. I mean, there's maturity that comes along with it, and so you should. You learn how to hide it. But if you the feelings of validation unless you learn something, you grow or receive some truth you could be dealing with that till you die. You just can't hide it in high school. You're emotional.
Speaker 2:Oh, so emotional. Yeah, I was so emotional.
Speaker 1:So college was good. Were you looking forward to not being around your folks then?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and I think that there was a part of me too that was kind of intrigued by the world. What would it be like to go clubbing? That sounds really fun. Just to go dancing for hours, or alcohol, I think was kind of intriguing to me. I was open to trying that and I was open with my parents about that. It would be kind of cool to try these things, or I'm not opposed to dancing, so I was excited.
Speaker 1:You know why they used to be against premarital sex? Because it could lead to dancing. Oh my gosh, can't let those kids have sex, because then they might start dancing.
Speaker 2:God forbid.
Speaker 1:Then the end will come, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So since I was so into partying, that's why I wanted to go to union. I'm just kidding. Really.
Speaker 2:No, I just was excited to go to union because it seemed to me between union and southern, union had the impression of being less conservative and southern kind of really stepped into the conservative lane like they did. There was a lot more rules at southern than there was at union, like the curfew rule. Union was a lot later than southern was. So I was excited to go to union, I couldn't wait. And then my parents sat me down and did the whole thing again and we just said we're moving and I was so sad. I was sad because I'd built up this life for myself in Centralia and I had so many friends. My best friend lived like a mile down the road, so I was really sad to leave her. But there was also this like natural transition period that happened too right. So my parents moved to Asheville, north Carolina, to work at Mount Biscay Academy and I worked at summer camp and a heritage or a Nisoka.
Speaker 2:Akita oh never heard of it.
Speaker 2:Illinois, oh, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I went to work at Camp Akita and the guy that I was dating at the time also worked there and again, like kind of how I said, I was always really interested in being plugged in with these really cool people. And that summer, unfortunately and I don't think that this always happens but I was like the youngest person there working at this camp and it was kind of the summer camp of sex, if I'm just being honest, everybody was talking about sex and like when they lost their virginity and all these things, and that was just not me. But I felt really left out and I felt like they all knew something that I didn't know and I was this like innocent child and how embarrassing for me. And so I decided that I wanted to join this club and see what it was all about. So I did, and it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be, but again, I think that it just shows the power of the lie that I needed to be validated by the people around me to that extent of making decisions about my own body.
Speaker 2:Thank you, because of what I was believing. Sure.
Speaker 2:That's how summer camp went. Then I went to college and this guy that I was dating at the time followed me to Southern and I broke up with him. Within a couple months. I'm at Southern and I'm really enjoying it. I'm really glad that I'm in an Adventist education. Right around the time that I broke up with this guy, my mom called me on Skype. This is before the days of FaceTime.
Speaker 2:Basically, I don't really know how to word this, but sort of popped the bubble of Adventism that I had grown up in. My mom, essentially throughout all these years, was studying and doing all these different things. Ultimately, how she words it is, she studied her way out of Adventism and ultimately out of Christianity altogether. It wrecked me. I felt like the rug was taken out from under me. I didn't know which way was up. It really sucked. It was really hard. I didn't let her know that because my mom was my validation of my faith, which I didn't realize that really until recently. That faith was my own to some extent, but it was only really to the extent that my mom validated it.
Speaker 2:I think for me, my mom pops this bubble and now I'm at this southern where there's so many roles and I have to do all these things, and there's the Ellen White steps and all this stuff. I'm just angry. I just was angry During this time. Now I'm going to school and I'm going to all these classes where they're talking about Adventism, all this stuff, and I find myself just angry at what they're teaching and resentful that I'm here and that they're teaching me all this stuff that now I know is not true because my mom doesn't believe it anymore. So this cannot be right. I just was really mad. Shortly later I got into another relationship and it was really bad. It was about a year and a half long and it was really abusive, sexually and emotionally, super manipulative, and I found myself ultimately being really really isolated and losing all of my friends just from manipulation. I was doing stuff that I was stealing stuff and drinking, and I was only, I think, 18 at this point.
Speaker 1:What were you stealing? Why were you stealing?
Speaker 2:Because he worked at a sports and outdoor place and he just wanted to see what all we could steal, so we did. It was so dumb.
Speaker 1:You got a tent or something.
Speaker 2:Shoes and I don't even remember. I remember I stole a pair of sparrows that I wore for a long time and then later my conscience caught up with me and I donated them, which I don't know if that helps Someone's wearing a pair of stolen cheetah print sparrows out there, yeah, but just stuff that I never would have done. I just was like I very much stepped outside of who I am and all this stuff. Anyway, it got to be so bad that I was a really avid journal at this point, because nobody would really listen, because I didn't have anybody to talk to, so I would just journal constantly and I wasn't actively suicidal, I was not going to do anything to accelerate my own death, but I was very passively suicidal. At this point I would dream about what would it be like to walk out in front of a car.
Speaker 1:Just because you wanted out of this relationship.
Speaker 2:And I just was. So I was drowning there's really no other way to put it that resonates so deeply. I was just drowning, I didn't know what way was up, I didn't know who I was anymore, I didn't know what was important or what wasn't important, and there was nobody there for me to talk to. And obviously my parents hate this guy, but that doesn't help me. It just makes me feel further isolated. I'm at this school where they're doing all this stuff that I don't believe anymore and I don't even know what I believe anymore and I don't know what my own worth is. God doesn't even exist. All these crazy people who are just doing all this stupid stuff and wearing these long skirts and going to church on this day that they've dedicated as being holy is just so dumb and I just was angry. I was so angry, but then I was so alone and then I was so mentally manipulated in this relationship that I was just doing stuff that I never would have done and it got really, really dark for me and I remember I have this journal. I have this journal still from this time and it's really sad to read.
Speaker 2:But there was this journal entry where I wrote my options and I was like here are the three options for me in my life. Number one is I can stay in this relationship for the rest of my life and be completely and utterly miserable. So that's number one. Number two is I can leave the country. I can become an SM and I can leave the country and I can just go out, because that is the only way that I can end this relationship and it will stay.
Speaker 2:Ended Because I had tried to end it multiple times. I was cheated on constantly but I just kept back and it was just very much the cycle of abuse. So I just kept returning to it. But number three, the option was I could move home for the summer, which is just three hours away from this person, but it's just far enough that we could go on a break. We could go on a break for the summer and that felt safe. And so I wrote this journal entry out. And then I started to really think about it and I was so desperate that I decided I'm going to leave the country. And so I got completely ready. I got a friend of mine we were going to go to. I can't remember the name of the country because common knowledge it was a standard speaking country that started with the P. Does it go south? Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:Was it Puerto Rico?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Panama.
Speaker 2:No, peru. I sounded like Panama, though Maybe it was Panama, I don't know. I think it was Panama, it was something like that. Okay.
Speaker 2:Anyways. So I was going with friend. I literally got so close to going. I had my vaccinations. Only thing I hadn't done was bought the ticket. Like I had the people that was funding it were funding it. I had everything and I just couldn't buy the ticket. I couldn't do it and so I didn't and I backed out and my friend was so sad. I actually don't think we talked much after that. But I decided I was going to move home and my mom called me and she said hey, savannah, there's this guy that needs a singer at camp meeting this summer and he needs a vocalist. And I told him that you sing, he's really cute, but he has a girlfriend.
Speaker 1:But if you're interested, if you're interested in dating this guy, you can do this I know totally, and that's why I said I'm kind of wavering, I'm not interested.
Speaker 2:So I was like All right, I can sing, let him know I can sing. So it was decided I was going to go home. I got a job at the pool and I go.
Speaker 1:This is like between your sophomore and junior year.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've called it. Wow You're talking so well.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm locked in. This is what a podcaster does the death of life pocket Locked in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I go home for my sophomore year and the second I go home. It was the Sunday that camp meeting started and the second I go home. I texted this guy that I was dating and I said we need to go on a break. And he was so angry and he was sending me all these crazy texts and all this stuff and I called our cell phone carrier and I blocked him. And when I tell you, like do you remember those old Clareton commercials where, like there's this scene that's happening, but there's this really thick like blurry film over it, and then it's like use Clareton. And then they peel off right from the one corner of the screen to the other. They peel off this blurry film and suddenly you can see everything like crystal clear. Do?
Speaker 2:you want to talk to me.
Speaker 1:I'm feeling like this is what. I don't remember this, but this is what's happening, Wow.
Speaker 2:That is literally the most accurate way that I can describe. From the second that I sent that text and ended the relationship in that way, it was like I was coming out of my own grave and like suddenly I could see clearly. It was like I was this totally different person. And then I step out and I'm like, oh my gosh, and I could see up for up and, down for down, and like I understood exactly what had happened.
Speaker 1:And so I go to what did you understand that had happened? That you had been fooled by this guy, or what?
Speaker 2:That, that was not who I was. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I knew that was not who I was and like during that relationship, like I I had basically done everything but drop out of school.
Speaker 2:I was taking like eight credits just enough to still be enrolled, but like my plan was to drop out, I had all this stuff and like my whole life, like I had been really involved in things and super active and like outgoing and all this stuff, and then it was like this year and a half of my life where I was literally just this, like shell of a human, and then I ended and I step out into the other side and I'm like, oh, my goodness, who was that? It was like mind blowing and so, anyway, so then I go to camp meeting and I, you know, do this thing and I meet this person and his relationship ended pretty rapidly. My relationship was over and we started dating like two weeks later and we just liked, liked each other, like we just got along really well and again I'm like avidly journaling, I think. Within like two weeks I was like I'm marrying this guy a hundred percent, like I know it. Spoiler alert, I totally did.
Speaker 1:Let's go. I was worried. I was like I don't want more heartbreak. No, no more heartbreak, and this he was a musician for camp meeting yeah. Was he a singer?
Speaker 2:No, he played, played his electric guitar.
Speaker 1:There was like four of them hanging right here and it was super cool to start dating this guy. Yeah. And within two weeks, three weeks or like that's me totally and I'm like, wow.
Speaker 2:So now I'm analyzing this whole relationship, right, like, wow, I was really in this abusive relationship and up until that point, like my life had been really easy, like relatively. Um, you know my. I went to high school, I did well, I went to college, whatever. Everything was kind of handed to me, my parents were really supportive, I've got relationships with people, and so it's just like this year and a half of my life that was so different from everything else that I decided I want to be a therapist.
Speaker 2:Like I never understood people who get back together with their boyfriends after they break up with them. I never got it. I was always so judgmental of it Like, oh my gosh, come on, you broke up for a reason Like this is ridiculous. And then suddenly I experienced it and then out, everything is different. And then I'm dating this guy and we're like super in love and our parents are so supportive and it's so fun and I'm a lifeguard and he comes to visit me, and then the evenings we just sit on the swing outside and we talked until three in the morning and we're just talking about things constantly and it was just so fun.
Speaker 2:So I go to Southern my junior year and I changed my major to psychology, um, which remember I had kind of almost dropped out of college. So now I am so behind on credit hours that I was, but I was determined to graduate on time and basically my junior year I was like starting over. So in order to graduate on time I needed to take 26 to 28 hours per semester to graduate. So but I was going to do it.
Speaker 1:It's dumb. I remember taking 18 hours once and I was like mercy, 18 hours is a lot. Yeah, You're taking 28 hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. I was determined Um, but it was sponsored by.
Speaker 1:Adderall. Is this going to get a? But is this going to be a bad part of the story too?
Speaker 2:It's not going to be great. So I started taking Adderall, and man, that is an appetite suppressant, so that was great Cause now I get even thinner.
Speaker 1:What is okay? I don't want to hype up Adderall Total. What's it like?
Speaker 2:Okay, have you ever seen? Have you seen the movie Um oh shoot with Bradley Cooper and oh yeah?
Speaker 1:That one where he takes the pill and he's like, yeah, that's what it's like to be honest, that's what it feels like.
Speaker 2:It's like speed.
Speaker 1:So okay, we got to keep up with the story, cause I'm sure something negative is going to come out from Adderall, or maybe not. Maybe this is a PSA for Adderall.
Speaker 2:I just I just, yeah, no, don't take it, kids, it's not great. Yeah, no, I just took it for two years and I took it way too much, um, so I was like barely eating, but I was getting really good grades but I wasn't eating. And I was still like in this phase where I was still mad at God and I was still if he existed. I was mad at God and I was still mad at Southern, cause we're putting all these rules and now I really don't want to be here because my boyfriend lives three hours away, so I really just want to go stay with him, um, and go back home. So kind of like Southern for me, even though those last two years truly were really wonderful in the sense that I was actually stepping into like this field that I was really passionate about and I was really excited to study psychology, excited to be a therapist.
Speaker 2:I had so many friends now at this point cause the psychology department was really small and we were all really tight knit and super close. So I really enjoyed like that time and like some of those people I still talk to um and I'm really grateful for, but I also like just wanted to be out of the admin to system. Like I was really just sick of the system at this point cause it just felt like so many rules that were inhibiting me from living my life. So I take a million credits, I graduated on time and then, because of the stress that I had been living at for two years of my life, I was hospitalized that summer um, for a week because I just ran my body totally ragged.
Speaker 1:Um, and then isn't this like the most critical time of life? Yeah, we're like. Hey, your brain isn't mature, but learn everything. Decide what you're going to do forever.
Speaker 2:So much pressure.
Speaker 1:Uh, pick the person you're going to be with forever and all while, uh, you want affirmation from everybody and go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was what it was.
Speaker 1:Life, yeah.
Speaker 2:So then I moved home. I'm in the hospital for a week and then I got so skinny because now I'm in the hospital for a week so I think at the time, like I'm five, five I think when I got out of the hospital I weighed like 110 pounds. I was really skinny, Um, but I'm stoked about it. So now my goal is to see how close to that I can maintain. And I would wake up every morning and I would run upstairs to my parents' bathroom where the scale was and I would weigh myself and basically what that number said dictated whether or not I was going to have a good day and like what I was going to eat, Um, and so that kind of started at that Were you like getting up and getting um like dizzy when you would stand up.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I don't know, I don't think so. No, I mean post-hospital, yeah, post-hospital. I had to like relearn how to walk, almost because I just was. I was so frail.
Speaker 1:Cause it seems like you're at a caloric deficit at all times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was, but I was. I mean I was eating enough. But then I kind of got on these like different diet fads, right. So then I got really into eating all raw. So I would eat all raw vegetables and raw fruit and nothing else Was that good, was that cool.
Speaker 2:I mean I had a like I remember having decent energy. But I think the problem is when you become that extreme about anything, it's just not healthy. Like, how you view your food is going to impact how your body processes your food. So, like whether you're eating a burger, like eating a burger and being really excited about it and viewing it as a treat, your body's going to process that better than drinking a smoothie that you are specifically intaking for the purpose of losing weight Like that has a huge that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so your perception is huge and my perception was super unhealthy.
Speaker 1:Mercy yeah.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, then I go to my master's program and I'm in clinical mental health counseling and during this time I really wanted to be engaged, cause also, now you know, I have this boyfriend and I know we're going to get married, but all of my friends are getting married already. So I really want to be engaged. So then I start to do the whole pressure thing, which is always really good.
Speaker 1:No, that's a good way to do it, ladies. If you want to get married, guilt, condemnation and shame. Use motivators. Oh it'll, it hits the spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, yep. So yeah, I just wanted, I really wanted that. But I was also like a really jealous person, um, cause, like anytime he was talking to other women that were like really pretty or like prettier than me, I felt really jealous and needed to be validated. It's so sad, um, but yeah, anyway, I was a really good girlfriend, though. I would like make him breakfast and he would like swing by the house on his way to work and I'd make him breakfast. I was so ready to be the wifely role. I just needed it. I was ready, um, anyway.
Speaker 1:See this breakfast. This could be you, this could be us, but you are playing. That's right, and if you keep on playing, then I'm out of here, yeah.
Speaker 2:Um anyway. So in our relationship we had kind of gotten to a point where we were ready to be engaged, but there were other people, like family members, who didn't feel like they were as clued into that process, and so when there were sort of mumblings about us becoming engaged, there were some people that were less happy than others.
Speaker 1:Oh, when my sister got engaged. When my twin sister, when I found out she was planning on marrying my brother-in-law and no one had told me anything, I was angry. We're sitting there like what, like this is my twin sister, this is my best friend. I'm like y'all are going to get married and nobody's going to tell me anything. I've never really been mad at my sister as, like past high school, I was mad at her because I felt betrayed.
Speaker 2:Wow, I mean, yeah, that makes sense, and I think that some family members did feel that way.
Speaker 2:But for me, who wanted the validation, that felt like, again, ultimate betrayal and rejection. And so I positioned certain people in my family and my husband's family as not accepting me because they wanted to be clued in. And so those people requested that maybe we give it a little bit more time which we'd been dating for four years at this point. So I was like, how can you not know? But we waited a little bit longer. We got engaged and it was really hard, it was difficult for somebody who wanted the validation, and so I positioned some people and my husband's now now husband's family as not wanting me and that it wasn't about loving their son so much that they wanted to be intimately involved in like his life and the details of what's going on in his relationship. I viewed it as a personal attack on me and that sort of set myself up for having a difficult relationship internally with my in-laws. So then you know, fast forward, we get married by this guy named Eddie Córnejo, who had a lot of stuff going on at that time in his life.
Speaker 1:Wait, hold on. Eddie Córnejo married you guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, eddie and my husband were really close friends when my husband was going through high school.
Speaker 1:That's a curve ball into the story.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I guess I didn't really think to mention it. Yeah, eddie was working here with Jaila. Jaila was working with my dad actually, yeah, anyway, so Eddie married us.
Speaker 1:Did he have a good homily? Was it good?
Speaker 2:Man. He did like three different sets of vows. I do remember that, like, I remember him doing one vow and being like, yay, this is it. We get to kiss. And then he was like and now let's do another one. And I was like, okay, this is it. Now we get to kiss. And he's like, and one more. And I'm like, oh, my word, we're trying to get out of here. Yeah, no, but he did do.
Speaker 2:Well, obviously, he told our story and it was super fun and we got married outside and it was really low key and it was wonderful and I just couldn't wait. I couldn't wait to be a wife, because this is what I was made for, but also to be a psychologist. So we were going to move down to Florida so I could get my doctorate, because that's what people do, yeah. So then we moved to Florida and now I think I've like really stepped outside of the church entirely and I'm now on my own. So it's just me and this husband that we've.
Speaker 2:You know, this random man, my husband, were together and we're experiencing South Florida, which is entirely different than Asheville, north Carolina A little bit, and really wonderful in a lot of ways, like so much cultural diversity, it was so awesome. We got to meet so many different people from different backgrounds and we loved that part, but it also felt really isolating because we're away from our family. There were some really hard like transitions that way and I'm in this doctorate program I'm feeling huge imposter syndrome and, yeah, that part was really hard. Marriage was super easy, but being in Florida was like hard, and so I wanted to experience this relationship with God again that I used to have.
Speaker 2:But I could not envision having a relationship with this God that I experienced growing up because there was just too much baggage associated with it, and so this was kind of like the start for me of getting into like some new agey kind of things. So meditation became a big practice. Mindfulness and a lot of things have like a lot of Christian themes and there's some spiritual truths in these things, but I was getting like little bits and pieces, but there was a lot of benefit to this. To be honest, mindfulness was a huge practice of mine. I mean, jesus is like the teacher of mindfulness.
Speaker 1:And I describe that. So I don't. I don't know exactly what mindfulness is.
Speaker 2:So being fully clued into your present experience and being able to take in what is in front of you without being anywhere else.
Speaker 1:So is that like the power of now that got that book, the power of now like a card, or? Something like about mindfulness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so just being able to like fully experience your experience without like judging it or having like other voices in your head like get in the way, and so that was really helpful for me. And then meditation was really helpful for me because I was able to experience God in different ways. So like, for example, like I would have these experiences when I was meditating and it sounds so wackadoodle do, and I'm totally able to acknowledge that but where I would be meditating on who God is, and the only way I can possibly explain it is I felt like I was floating in a pool of love. That sounds so crazy, but like I would have goosebumps from the top of my head to my toes and be just weeping because I felt so loved, like so loved like life changing, life altering.
Speaker 2:There is absolutely nothing else I can possibly talk about or focus on in this moment other than how loved I am. Like it was just so powerful and I had never experienced that before in the world that I had grown up in. So it was like this other, very otherworldly, like mystical experience that felt very like sensational, like I was feeling it, you know, and it was really, really powerful and it started to change this view of this like really heavily. Like God is such a heavy word and like has a lot of baggage for a lot of people, but this was a way of like being reintroduced to a God that almost was different than what I had learned about or perceived, and so I was starting to focus on oh, my goodness, what if my life is actually a gift? Or what if, like, I'm actually like really loved and God is actually love and he's everywhere and he loves everybody, like what if that is who God is? And so I start to like think about all these things and I became like really excited about spirituality again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just think it was really good for me. During this time I started gaining weight because I was feeling happier. So then I started you know a million and one diet plans to try to get skinny, which is sort of this, but I did it and I just did it all the time. So that was a part of that part and I was like when you weren't dieting.
Speaker 1:Were you eating like normally?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so, just like your resting body weight, what would normally be out of a healthy diet you're just like nah son. We're going to back that off about 15 to 20 pounds.
Speaker 2:Totally, totally, yeah. Like my body was probably really happy around like 140 or 145 is probably like a really healthy weight for me and I strived to be 119. Like that was like a good day. And when I got married I remember waking up and weighing myself and I weighed like 123. And I remember thinking for the rest of my life I will know that I was not my smallest on my wedding day.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh, it's dark, it's so sad that you know what.
Speaker 2:there will be so many people that hear that and think, oh my gosh, me too it's so sad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a huge part of me, like my weight and how I looked was so important. And then it's so validated, like in culture and society it's so it's so normalized to talk about like, oh, what new diet plan are you doing now? Or you know, oh, you look so good. What have you done? You know it's like all people talk about. So I was validated for it. Anyway, yeah, I took so many before and after pictures and I thought, well, I took so many before pictures and it takes so many after pictures. So yeah, it was a constant thing for me and yeah, it was just a constant thing.
Speaker 1:I think Instagram is now a part of that Like, all the social media is a huge total. Yeah, you just scroll through there and you're just like you see it before and after and you're like, well, I guess this has got to be my life now. I got to go kill it in the gym.
Speaker 2:Totally. Yeah, I'm going to wake up at 3am and I'm going to work out for two hours every day, starting tomorrow, and every Monday was a new start. You know, oh man, it's Tuesday, it's Monday at 9am and I've already messed up. But next Monday, next Monday, right, it was like every week I was going to start over and be this like different person that suddenly had it all together. Yeah, anyway, but during this time, I was learning a lot about God in a different framework and that was really healthy for me and it was really good, and I had a lot of doubt about Christianity. Still, I think Like we went to different churches and tried different things and we had been really involved in our church back home in Asheville and when we moved to Florida, we went to this like mega church and we decided we were going to try out for music. Well, my husband is an incredible guitarist. He'll say he's not, but he is really good. He's done lessons like most of his life and he made it and I didn't. And I was pissed.
Speaker 2:And because I wanted the validation. But my husband got it and I didn't. Like they told me hey, we want to keep you guys together as a team so you can sing at some of like our smaller churches, but we don't want you to sing at the one that's live streamed across the country, which obviously I probably wouldn't have wanted that either. When it boiled down to it, but I felt rejected and so I was resentful that my husband made it and I didn't. And I remember telling him and I feel so bad about this we just talked about this the other day. I was so evil because I said you can play for that church if you want, but I don't want you to Dang.
Speaker 1:He's like you're joking, right? You're like I'm being dead serious, I'll kill you.
Speaker 2:Really, because then he would betray me too.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it's not wild when you think back at some of the stuff that was.
Speaker 2:Oh man, oh my goodness, yes, totally. And like that's in the same hand, like I appreciate it, because it just tells me how good God is.
Speaker 1:Praise the Lord.
Speaker 2:But like yeah, man, I was messed up. How long ago was this?
Speaker 1:Where are we at? It was last week. He's going to be live streamed.
Speaker 2:Babe, please don't listen to this. Yeah, no, it was probably like my first or second year in doctorate school.
Speaker 1:So what year?
Speaker 2:A couple of years into Florida. Oh, like year, year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like 2018, 14. I don't know how old you are.
Speaker 2:Like 2018, maybe, okay, 2017 or 18. We were in Florida until 2020. Okay, so, yeah. So then I kind of had that and then I was really hating myself because I just kept gaining weight, because I was happy and that's what happens.
Speaker 2:But I didn't want that to happen and I was like back and forth on whether or not I wanted to do doctoral school, because on one hand, I really enjoyed it and I liked what I was learning, but on the other hand, I didn't really know that I was this like super cerebral type that all these people were, and so I had a lot of imposter syndrome around that, because I felt like I should be this really genius person. But I'm like a third grade in common knowledge over here and I'm doing this doctorate school, so like apparently anybody could do it and I was good at it, like I was, you know, I had good therapy skills and I came in with my master, so I'd already had like far more experience than other people in the program. But I just was a little bit wishy washy and there were people there that were like really intelligent, like like nationally renowned psychologists, that were like teaching us and doing all these things, and so that was hard, so I kind of contemplated, like whether or not to leave the program. I ultimately decided just to stay. But I do think that there was some validation in that for me, because only 2% of the world has a doctorate degree.
Speaker 2:And so when you get your degree in psychology, people always ask oh, what are you planning to do with that? Because you can't do anything with a degree in psychology. And when I would tell people, oh, I'm going to be a psychologist, I'm going to go to doctorate school, it was so validated. And I remember my mom telling me that she told somebody I was going to go to doctorate school and they said good for her. Everybody always says that they're not going to do it or that they're going to do it, but then they don't end up doing it. So good for her that she's going to do it. And that was fuel for my fire. I'm going to be that person that goes and gets my doctorate. And so I did. Oh, the government's glad because I got a lot of lungs out. I did it Anyway. So I'm learning about God in these different ways at this time.
Speaker 2:And then we really wanted to move back to Asheville and so in 2020, we decided we were going to move back if I got an internship back in Asheville and so obviously, covid happened. But I got this place. I got my number one pick and the Lord like orchestrated it so perfectly. My husband got like his dream job at the time, like he only wanted one specific job at one specific place, and he got that job in like May of 2020, which is ridiculous. Like that didn't happen. And so he got it and we moved back to Asheville and we moved in with my in-laws to live there for just like a couple months until we got a house.
Speaker 2:And we got a house and now I'm like okay, check, I've done the doctorate thing. Check, I'm a wife. Now I want to be a mom. This is the next step. I want to be a mom and so I had done so much pressure on again let's have a baby. Come on, let's do it. It'd be so fun and I had very much you know this Instagram probably envisioning of what it's like to have a baby. You're in this bubble and everybody is always perfect and they look really cute and everything goes perfectly.
Speaker 1:That's what it's like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really is. So, yeah, so, in, you know, we had been married now at this point for five years, and so we decided this is, you know, a good time to start to start trying to have a baby. And we got pregnant within a couple months, like really quickly, and I was so excited. I was just so excited, yeah, I was just thrilled. And during this time I started to kind of think about, like man, how do you raise a kid? Like with religion, like I know how to raise an Adventist child because that's how I was raised, but I don't know how to raise a child that's not Adventist. Because, like, what does that look like? I have no idea. So I kind of started dabbling back in the Adventist world and like we'd moved back and you know, all of our friends here in our community is Adventist and we go to the Adventist church again. But now my relationship with it was a little bit different and I was kind of more curious of like, okay, what would this look like if I were to raise a baby in this? Like, do I actually believe this? I'm not really sure. And so, you know, fast forward, and I have my daughter, pepper, and it was so hard. Postpartum was so hard. I felt like I was hit by a train, like I was shook. It. That's how difficult Postpartum is like there's not a lot of education about it. Your body is wrecked when you don't know what you're doing and like you're nursing this baby if you choose to breastfeed, like every two hours, and that's super hard. Like everything about it was just difficult.
Speaker 2:And this is when I think I was at my most vulnerable physically. And this is when I think I started to become really resentful towards my husband. I like I was doing everything. To some extent. I was doing everything because I had to, because I have a baby, but I positioned him in this way that he like wasn't stepping up which is not true at all Like he worked full time so that I could stay home with this baby, but I was just like I could literally get you a laundry list of all the things that I'm doing I'm feeding the baby, I'm cleaning the house, I'm buying the groceries, I'm doing the meal planning, I'm doing the laundry, I'm doing everything and he just gets to sit in there and work. Like I had created this whole story and I wasn't like outwardly as evil as I'm like making myself sound, but inwardly I totally was Like I was just like tallying all of the things that he was doing versus all of the things that I was doing, and I was always coming out on top, and so that would come out in like these little ways of like.
Speaker 2:Like one time he got COVID and he was sick as a dog. He was so sick and I was so pissed. He just gets to lay there, he just gets to lay there and he'd watch TV if he wants. He wasn't because he was so sick, but how unfair. If I want to stick day, I don't get a stick day because this baby needs to nurse. It looks like this whole thing. So Garen goes back to work and one morning I went to go shower and I told, you know, very resentfully, I need 10 minutes, I just need 10 minutes to shower. Like, can you give me that? I need 10 minutes to shower? Can you do that? Can you watch pepper for 10 minutes? So I go shower.
Speaker 1:You idiot Watch for 10 minutes. Yeah, gum it. Yeah, you gotta be clean.
Speaker 2:Are you capable? Yeah, so I go shower and I'm like weeping in the shower and I'm crying and I think this was this was a breakthrough moment for me, because it was the first time I was really honest with God and I was like God, this sucks, this is not what it's supposed to feel like. Why do I feel so angry? I feel so overwhelmed. I feel like I'm doing everything. Nobody is here to support me. I just feel so over. I just am over it. I don't get it. Why did you create women to do this? Why are we carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders? This is so overwhelming. I heard from God for the first time as long as I could remember. I heard from the Holy Spirit my whole life. This was the first time that it changed my perspective. I heard so plainly God tell me, this is what I have for you. It was so simple, but it changed my perspective because suddenly, instead of being a victim, I recognize I've been given a gift. It changed it for me.
Speaker 2:Around this time I started talking to Eddie again. Eddie and Jaila and my husband and I had always kept in contact. That article came out about Eddie shortly after we had moved to Florida. I called Jaila and I was like dude, what is this about? We need to catch up. What's going on? They told us their testimony. I remember after that happened and this was I don't know 2016 or 2017, garen's saying there's always been something funny about Eddie. This was the first time that he seems different is what Garen said. He could tell there was a shift. After that we kept in contact with him and then we facetimed him again after Morgan got free. That next morning we facetimed him and Eddie was just pumped. He was like hey guys, it's so good to see you. What's going on? What lies are you believing? I was like dude, what is he on? We were like we just want to catch up with you. Do we have to talk about Jesus? It's kind of our approach to this.
Speaker 2:Read the room. Then, after Pepper was born, I think Eddie was asking us for pictures and stuff. I had started texting him more regularly and sending pictures, because everyone wants to hear about how cute your baby is. I would send pictures of Pepper and whatever. You just started saying these little things that I thought were curious about how I needed to die.
Speaker 1:I was like have you died?
Speaker 2:Yeah, have you died yet? I was curious. I didn't really know what all of it meant, but I was curious. Right around five months after my daughter was about five months, I started to feel a little bit more like myself. I was getting more into the routine. I felt a little bit better. Then I got pregnant again. I was devastated. I was absolutely devastated because I'd had this really horrible postpartum experience. That was just five months ago. Now I'm throwing myself back into it To make matters even worse. Richard, I was pregnant with a boy. Oh no.
Speaker 2:Who wants a boy for baby? The worst Not me, my poor, perfect son. Yeah, I was so sad. You didn't want a boy at all. You knew you didn't want a boy. No, I knew. I knew I was pregnant literally as soon as you could possibly know. You were pregnant, before I even was supposed to get my period. I knew I was pregnant and I knew it was a boy. I just had this mother's intuition. I was fully confident. Sure enough, it was a boy, and I was so sad. This is before I had this.
Speaker 1:What's his name? What's his name?
Speaker 2:Mazi Bear, he's so perfect.
Speaker 1:Hey, Mazi Bear, if you're listening to this, a few years later there were lies. You're good, she loves you dog.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, I love him so much. Oh my gosh, so much. Yeah, I was just so sad. There was a lot going on during this pregnancy too. I was studying for my licensure exam and I took it and I failed it. It was an $800 test, so then I had to retake it.
Speaker 2:My milk supply dropped because I was pregnant. My daughter was basically starving because she wouldn't take a bottle or anything. She got really, really skinny and that was really stressful because other people were telling me, hey, you need to try to up her caloric intake, but I couldn't. There was nothing I could do. I was trying. Anyways, blah, blah, blah, fast forward. My son was born in January and I was just wrapped on his finger from day one and so obsessed with him. Once my milk came in, my daughter continued to nurse, and so she gains back all of her weight, and so that was a huge blessing. But now my resentment towards my husband is kind of at a peak. What's so crazy is I was asked to be on another podcast and talk about the mental load of motherhood. If I could go back, I would never have done that.
Speaker 1:You went in.
Speaker 2:I talked about how nobody talks about how much we suffer. I just gave like I did. I gave the laundry and I said all the things that we're doing, the laundry and the blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I could just rattle it off.
Speaker 1:What was your solution or your encouragement?
Speaker 2:Just bringing awareness to the cause.
Speaker 1:I just like everybody to know out there that it sucks. Have a great day. Don't do this to yourself, I think the mental load.
Speaker 2:Just talking about the mental load and how it needs to be more fair, I guess I just really that was like my hell to die on, was like my rights, my rights. And yeah, it just made me position my husband in such a way that he could never live up to what I was expecting from him ever and I would make all these comments. He would go somewhere to go help out at the church, to go help, you know, do something that was important for the service the next day, and I would just immediately be like, oh my gosh, how nice that he just gets to leave on a whim and I have to stay here and take care of these kids. And I remember talking to Jaila about it and one of the things that she said that was actually the most helpful was she said, yeah, you're doing more, yep, and there was something about that that I was like, oh, yeah, like I'm doing more right now, and why am I fighting it so badly?
Speaker 2:But it was like I had created such a rift between my husband and I because in my head he wasn't doing anything, which is not true, but, man, I believed it and I also was now becoming more frustrated internally with my in-laws because they loved my kids, but I didn't feel like they loved me. And so how can you possibly love my children when they're half me? And you rejected me Again? Total lie, total story I was telling myself, but a hill that I was determined to die on. I need you to see me, I need you to validate my feelings, I need you to apologize for the way that you made me feel, and only then can I move on.
Speaker 2:I'm like just constantly looking for my cut to be filled from all these people like constantly, and it was just never enough. It was never enough. And then I'm mothering these two children. I'm physically exhausted, I'm nursing two babies, I'm keeping up with the house, like doing all these things. So I am working hard, but because of the mental load that I have created for myself and the lies that I'm believing, it was unbearable. And so at this point it's like I don't know, maybe last year, so 20,? What year is it? 23. 23.
Speaker 2:So it's 2023. And I've been talking to Eddie for a while. We've talked about some different things and I've talked to him about my in-laws and how I was feeling and talked to him about. I've talked to Jaila about my frustration with Garen and all this stuff, and they had come to visit us when I was pregnant with my son, and so we'd had some conversations then too, and I noticed that Eddie it's because I'm totally shading and I'm not but I noticed that Eddie slept in in the mornings and that Jaila would feed their kids with breakfast and then also homeschool them and not be mad at Eddie for sleeping in. And I thought that was weird, and so I asked Jaila about it and she was like, yeah, Eddie likes to sleep in and I get to give that to him. He can sleep in and I can watch the kids. And I was like, but what about your needs? Like I don't?
Speaker 1:You should listen to this podcast that I recorded.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Are you aware?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I was kind of curious about it, anyway. So then Eddie told me that I just needed to die, and obviously I had a little bit more of this like understanding, but then I learned that I was free from sin.
Speaker 1:How'd you learn that?
Speaker 2:And then I was like probably from Eddie. But then I was like, wait what? And I immediately understood it intellectually for what it meant Like I am free from sin. It resonated with me Like I got it.
Speaker 2:At this point it was entirely head knowledge and this was probably like two years before. This was probably when I was pregnant with my son, but I understood it in my head, I was really intrigued by it and, like my favorite song has always been as well as my song and you know, like my sin and other joy of this glorious thought my sin not in part, but the whole. So Eddie pointed that out to me and I was like, oh my gosh, that is so crazy that I've been singing that my entire life and been obsessed with that song. And it says that right there and I haven't gotten it. Like that's weird.
Speaker 2:And so then I'm kind of, I was like kind of obsessed with this idea and I remember that for three days it was all I could think about and I like couldn't even sleep. I was waking up in the middle of the night thinking about like, oh my gosh, what if that's true? What if that like that aligns with who I believe is, if that God was in. The like what I've experienced in these past several years, like that actually makes sense about who God is, and so then what is it that he would actually free you, or what?
Speaker 1:what is it?
Speaker 2:like that is what, like the love that I've experienced, the loving God that I've experienced, that makes sense. That he would do that, that he would free me from sin, not when I'm dead, but now. They're like I get to walk in a reality that is consistent with what he wants for me now, not when I'm dead. There was just something about that that I knew was true and so I was just obsessed with it and I kept like wrestling with it in my head and like turning it over and thinking about it and again, completely cerebral at this point, like it's not like really heart knowledge yet, but I'm like it's really close, like I'm getting there. So then I get pregnant with my son. Blah, blah, blah. I have him.
Speaker 2:I talked to Eddie on the phone and he does that whole like death ceremony thing. You know where he's like let the spirit talk, like what's your lie? And I thought it was just doubt, because that's what I thought I kept hearing and I was. I still wasn't quite getting it, like there was just like it. I just wasn't quite getting it. And so then he said to listen to Dan Moller, and so I was like okay, and I would take my babies on a lot of walks, and so I started listening to his podcast and within the first 10 minutes of the first day in the large room I had ever heard, I got it, and it moved from being head knowledge to being heart knowledge.
Speaker 1:What was it?
Speaker 2:He said there is nobody on this planet whose life purpose is to fill your cup and there is nobody who was born with the life plan to meet your needs. And so if you are looking for somebody to do that for you, you will always be looking, but until you realize that Christ and God have met all of your needs, you're just living in death. And I never heard that my whole life. And I suddenly got it and like I was literally on a walk with my kids and I was like mind blown, like absolutely Like I was like on a different planet. I was so like just out of body experience. I called Eddie and I was like, oh my gosh, I am so loved that I can just overflow to other people without expectation. And he was like, yeah, like you got it. And then my life was never the same.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're going to take a quick break right now and I'm going to bring in my brother, Nate. Nate quick question how long have you been rocking with the gospel? How many years has it been?
Speaker 4:I think a couple, if not three, somewhere in there it's been a little bit.
Speaker 1:Round three. What has the gospel done in changing your life, Would you say Nate?
Speaker 4:Wow, that's a big question. It's done everything not to be too vague, but it's done a great work in my marriage and, first and foremost, me realizing I'm a son and how much God loves me. More hand, I didn't know that before understanding the gospel. So it changes my routines during the day, changes how I am at work, how I am with my wife, believing truth over the lies, I mean. The list really goes on and on, but that's the starting point.
Speaker 1:That's a big starting point. Let me ask you this you have given of your time, your finances, your energy to keep this thing moving forward. Why is that important to you?
Speaker 4:Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is from the Bible, the Great Commission, right, I mean, we are here on earth, I believe, to spread the word of how much God loves everybody, and death to life is a really good vehicle to do that, from an online source, so you don't have to physically be there and buy a plane ticket and all that good stuff and it's testimonies. It's not based around theology, which theology has its place, and I love theology personally, but you can argue theology sometimes in testimonies, or I mean it's a life lived it's not really arguable. So I just I get behind this thing 100% and I love it. Give me some more of it.
Speaker 1:Man, praise the Lord. If you're listening to this and you want to partner with us moving forward, you can go to loverealityorg slash give. That's loverealityorg slash give, and every dollar you donate goes to keep this thing moving forward, this message getting out there so people can hear that they have been set free from sin. So you'll be joining Nate and I and many other people that want the world to hear this message. So that's loverealityorg slash give man. Thanks a lot, nate. I appreciate you, dog. Thank you, brother Rich. Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:And so I got it and then, like those next three days this sounds so dramatic and maybe you'll know what I mean, but like, I lived those days perfectly. I wasn't angry, I wasn't resentful, I was, so I was walking on cloud nine. I couldn't wait to serve my husband in ways that he needed to be served, like watching the kids when he needed to run to the church to get something or go help his mom put a light bulb in, or whatever. I couldn't wait for the opportunity to show him that I am so loved. And now I just get to love you and I'm not going to ask you for a thing, I'm not going to ask you for 10 minutes to shower because I can just keep the kids and it's fine, I'm not mad about it.
Speaker 2:In those three days I experienced a reality that I had only dreamt about, and so that was like the beginning of like really experiencing the fact that like this is real, and I think I kind of needed those days to like root myself in. And then, since then, it's just been growing in the spirit and like uncovering all of these lies and having these like experiences that I can only be, that can only be explained by Christ living in me and nothing else. Like not the old me, it is a hundred percent God living in me, like the fullness of God. The fullness, the fullness of God lives in me. Like what it's so crazy.
Speaker 2:Like I have had experiences where I have been so pulled to like do something that I never would have done before and it's like it's like my spirit is moving 10 feet in front of my body and I'm just like following it. But I'm doing it because God is calling me to do it and I know it, and Jesus is living in me and he wants to do it and so he's going to do it and so my body will follow. Like I just am, like I'm living in the spirit and I'm not angry anymore. I'm like I can't wait to love on my husband and serve him in the way that he needs to be served. I can't wait to love on my kids and tell them how beautiful they are, and I expect nothing back, nothing. It is my greatest joy and my greatest privilege to love my family in the way that I have been loved.
Speaker 1:That is amazing, I know, and that most people will never be able to live this Like. People want to love but they're incapable of loving because they don't know how they've been loved. They're waiting to be loved and they want it and people are sincere and they love God in the way that they can with the capability that they have, but it's very small if they don't actually understand what has happened. So all that stuff like that Dan is saying if you don't know what's happened, it's just wishful thinking.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, when I resonated on that for a long time. Well, so then obviously I started reading the Bible and I was shocked that all of this stuff was in there. I'm like, wait, why have you not heard this stuff? I grew up reading the Bible and I realized that I had always kind of taken in knowledge from the speakers or the preachers or whatever. And so now I obviously heard, like through Eddie and different people's testimonies in the podcast and whatever, like hearing different things.
Speaker 2:But when I sat down to read it, it literally says, like you are dead to sin. It doesn't say you will be One day, you will be when Jesus returns. You will be dead to sin. It says you are dead to sin, consumption of yourself, dead to sin. Christ lives in you. It is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me. I'm dead and if I can't resurrect myself which I can't thank God then it can't be me who lives. It has to be Christ who lives. And then anything that is outside of the picture, who Christ is is not from me, it's something from the outside that's trying to get in. So why would I want that to get in? Because I've been there and I've done that and dude it sucked so like I'm out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when you started joining the Bible studies, I remember the first time I saw you I was like oh word, oh, I didn't know. Is that the Savannah that I know? Is that Savannah Seale? I didn't know your last name. I was like. And then I'm like how, why is she here? What is going on?
Speaker 2:You called me out. The first night that I joined the internet church, you called me out.
Speaker 1:What did I say? What are you doing here?
Speaker 2:You're like sorry, who are you? As this is your first time, and I was like I'm friends with Eddie and I actually changing you from high school and you're like wait, savannah Seale. And I was like, wow, yeah, that was like a year ago now. But yeah, and then you just joined the Bible studies and, yeah, learning so much, and originally, like when I first started getting into it, you know, I joined all the Bible studies and I just wanted to learn so much and like, whatever, like kind of just get grounded right.
Speaker 2:A lot of knowledge, yeah, and I've tapered off of that now and I just have like certain ones that I go to and then I steep in it and I spend time in secret place and the spirit talks to me and I'm learning how, like even earlier today, as someone who is seeking valid or was seeking validation, like thinking about doing this podcast right, like this is like kind of a big deal, like it's my story and so all week I've been thinking about it.
Speaker 2:And then I was washing dishes at a friend's house tonight and I was just like enjoying my time washing dishes without like seeking the validation that hey, good job, you're doing that. And I was talking to the spirit and I was like so that podcast is tonight and I heard the spirit say I'm so proud of you, like because I've always thought other people's validation and for the first time I don't need it. And even further than that, to be honest, I don't want it. So it was like God is proud of me and I get to just sit here and tell my story without fear of what so and so is going to say or so and so, like I just get to tell my story because I'm so loved and I'm walking in this newness of life that I didn't even know was possible, and I just can't wait to talk about it and for other people to hear it, so that they can get it too, because it's so good, oh, it's so good.
Speaker 1:It's the best.
Speaker 2:It's the best. And like I didn't, my life wasn't hard. Like obviously I gave you the behind the scenes, so internally it was hard but in reality it wasn't that hard. But then now, looking back, like man, I was living in so much death and I didn't even know it. And life now I realize how heavy that burden was because I don't have it anymore. So it's like a whole different thing.
Speaker 1:Man alive. Where are we going? We're going to the root, right. We're going all the way back to this beautiful family that had lost this sweet, sweet baby and the lie that came out from there. If you could I don't think that girl even realized that she believed that lie or anything. But if you get a hold of her sometime where she's angry, right I don't know what age, and you get to pull her aside and just take her to Dairy Queen, get her an ice cream cone and say I want to tell you something. What would you try to pour into her?
Speaker 2:I think I always had this ability to hear from the spirit and I would just encourage myself to continue to listen to that voice. You are so loved and you are here for a purpose and you are not even going to believe the things that you get to do. But all of that is just icing on the cake because you are so loved. You are so loved and you get to spend the rest of your life both receiving that love and then living out of an outpouring for all the other people that you have the privilege to be around, and even more than that. One day you get to tell your story to Richard Young, the big rip.
Speaker 2:That really cool guy at Union.
Speaker 1:It is the privilege of my life to hear your story and to hear all these stories.
Speaker 2:You're so nice, you kill it. You do such a good job.
Speaker 1:It is like we used to joke like in season one no, this story is going to be heard all over the world. Okay, it's going to be heard all over the world and it's going to be a blessing, and it has blessed me tonight. So, thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you, absolutely Wow.
Speaker 1:If you are not at that place where you're just not interested in laying your life down, the only reason is because you don't know him like you could. The only reason we don't love is we don't know him like we could, because God is love, and so let's see him, let's know him. If that's your experience, this is for you, this prayer is for you. Father in heaven, I want to love, I want to know you more. I have a hard time laying it all down, but that can only mean that I don't know you, and so thank you for revealing yourself in a way that I can't ignore, so that I can see the truth and become the thing that you always had in mind for me. Thank you for doing it. I believe you will, because I'm praying in Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 1:Guys, join the Bible study Wednesday mornings, 9.30, central. It's called Made New, and if you're not going to join me in new, join the Good Good on Sundays with Justin Koo, or just get involved with the gospel Bible studies. Somehow, some way, you're going to be blessed by it. Love y'all, appreciate y'all. Three more sessions.