Sarah's journey from a strict Adventist upbringing to finding her intrinsic worth through trials like bullying and a tumultuous relationship showcases the transformative power of faith and self-discovery. Through her story, we witness the resilience, revelation, and renewal that lead her to embrace her connection with God, emphasizing the enduring value of divine love over fleeting romantic pursuits.
12:12 - Navigating Childhood Challenges and Resilience
19:25 - Growing Up
37:59 - Journey Through Adolescence and Faith
53:07 - Stalking, Self-Worth, and Spiritual Guidance
1:00:29 - Navigating Relationships and Self-Discovery
1:16:16 - Finding God Beyond Tinder
1:24:50 - Journey to Finding Faith
1:31:03 - Discovering Worth Through Gospel Revelation
1:45:43 - Reality of Love
💰 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
Sarah's journey from a strict Adventist upbringing to finding her intrinsic worth through trials like bullying and a tumultuous relationship showcases the transformative power of faith and self-discovery. Through her story, we witness the resilience, revelation, and renewal that lead her to embrace her connection with God, emphasizing the enduring value of divine love over fleeting romantic pursuits.
12:12 - Navigating Childhood Challenges and Resilience
19:25 - Growing Up
37:59 - Journey Through Adolescence and Faith
53:07 - Stalking, Self-Worth, and Spiritual Guidance
1:00:29 - Navigating Relationships and Self-Discovery
1:16:16 - Finding God Beyond Tinder
1:24:50 - Journey to Finding Faith
1:31:03 - Discovering Worth Through Gospel Revelation
1:45:43 - Reality of Love
💰 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:True virginity is to be one in yourself, to not compromise to anyone, and I definitely didn't have that like. Long before I had intercourse with someone, I had given up my wholeness and completeness and like, because I never had it, no one ever told me you are worthy and good enough in yourself. You don't have to speak this elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Yo, welcome to the death of life podcast. My name is Richard Young. Today's episode is I think it's been three years in the making is with Sarah, and Sarah she was the. She was at the original pvc love reality tour and, uh, but leading up to that there was a whole lot of lies in her life, a whole lot of deception, a whole lot of pain and, uh, I love her heart, I love her testimony. I think you guys are going to be super blessed by it, and so I'm kind of jealous that she got to be at the original uh, on YouTube at least the love reality. So this is Sarah Buckle Up, strap in Love. Y'all, appreciate y'all. So where are we going back? Take us back to the beginning, sarah. Where is the beginning when it comes to your spiritual experience?
Speaker 2:to your spiritual experience. The beginning for me was definitely, I think I could start at like age nine, but that was when my parents got divorced. But I think to understand how that affected my life I'd have to go back a little bit further and say, like, maybe age five, like my first memories, um, when we we lived like out in the middle of nowhere and we were part of the Adventist church, but it was a. It was a church like that didn't belong to the conference because they have some pretty, um, extreme views, I think, about what you should wear and what you should eat or not eat, and it was very focused on in times like preparation and separating ourselves from the world or at least that's how I experienced it, and it was pretty fear-inducing for me as a tiny child. I was terrified of helicopters because I thought that they were gonna drop biological warfare on us and that was going to be part of the revelation in terms thing that was happening.
Speaker 2:Um, and my parents got they.
Speaker 2:They had a history of not really having great models for parents, like my dad's parents were. They had nine kids and he was the last one, so his siblings raised him and my mom's parents were very abusive, and so in raising their kids, they relied a lot on the books about parenting and child raising from Ellen White and they interpreted those pretty literally. The way I grew up, or the way I saw myself growing up as a little kid, was I have this very dark nature, like I'm just kind of a sinful little being, and their parenting was to attempt to guide that. And I don't think that that's how they saw it, because I've talked to my parents and and they're lovely people and they loved me, but that was definitely a message that I received was that when I did something wrong, I needed to be corrected in the form of physical discipline, consequences to help me understand what was right and what was wrong, because they believed that I didn't know what was right and so I had you know that experience and I think do you have any?
Speaker 2:brothers or sisters yeah, I have, uh, three younger brothers, two that I grew up with so you were the oldest one what what part of the country you're living in uh western north carolina western north carolina in the mountains.
Speaker 1:So your first memories are you're kind of in this extreme group and your parents are pretty strict on following Ellen White. Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 2:It was well-intentioned because they loved us and they didn't know. Like as a parent, now I understand where they're coming from, because not knowing, not being a parent before I look for advice right person doesn't grow up with loving parents or involved intentional parents. Then when you become a parent, it's very hard to know exactly how to do it and I am glad that they, that they were intentional in the sense that they they were looking for advice and wisdom. They were seeking wisdom because they did. They did the best with it, what they had and what they found at the time, and I'm really grateful for that because it totally affected how I grew up and helped me go on.
Speaker 1:So what happened?
Speaker 2:What happened was, I don't think they had really dealt with their own issues, and so it sort of exploded. Our little world that we were living in kind of just went away all at once whenever I was nine, and I guess it had been happening over time. But I wasn't aware of that. I was just aware of the fact that my life was one way and then it was another way, and I was scrambling emotionally to understand it and cope with it.
Speaker 1:when I was nine, emotionally, to like understand it and cope with it.
Speaker 2:When I was nine, where did uh, did you end up going with your mom or your dad or do you wonder why they were splitting up, or you're just like they're splitting up I don't think I was fully aware of why they were splitting up at the time. I knew that we had a friend of my dad to live with us for a year and a half prior to them splitting up and I knew that my parents were trying to work on their marriage, like they went on like a 10 year wedding anniversary trip to sort of reconnect, but whenever everything split, I just I didn't actually remember the moment when I became aware that things were going to change, but I think it was when we were visiting my grandmother and my mom was sort of having a an emotional breakdown and I got really scared.
Speaker 2:And then whenever we came back home she left and I stayed with my dad for like the first maybe year and a half, I don't know exactly how long and that was really hard for me. There was like a moment when my mom was leaving and she gave me this telephone to like my own landline, because this was 2000. And she said you can call me anytime you need me, I'll pick up, because she knew I was having trouble with the fact that she wasn't going to be there all the time and I really latched onto that. But that very same day my dad's legal counsel had advised him to file for temporary emergency custody because they were going through a custody disagreement, and so that very same day she gave me the telephone to call her to stay in touch. So that very same day she gave me the telephone to call her to stay in touch, my dad whisked us away to a small town where he had some friends and we stayed with them for several days and I freaked out.
Speaker 2:I think that was the first time I really freaked out about everything, because my mom had said I'm going to call you today at 6 pm and I wasn't going to be there. And so I fought, kicking and screaming, and usually I was like a pretty compliant, perfectionistic first child, like I was really eager to please. But that day I just lost my cool and I kicked and screamed like behind my dad's seat in the car all the way to his friend's house. So it was like very emotionally difficult for me at that time so what ended up happening with that whole situation?
Speaker 2:um, my mom lived in a shelter for a while I don't remember exactly how long and my dad and I my I had been homeschooled prior to that for the first couple of years of my school age.
Speaker 2:So they decided to put me in church school, in Adventist church school, and I was excited about that because I'd never gone to school and I liked to learn, and so I ended up testing into third grade even though I was fourth grade age, and um went there for a year. But I got bullied pretty bad at the school because I wore dresses which is weird apparently if you're a mainstream Adventist and I was very like like I had never worn anything but dresses and I had never seen any movies. And I was very like like I had never worn anything but dresses and I had never seen any movies and I had never listened to any popular music. We listened to scripture songs and hymns and classical music. So I was weird. I was weird to my peers and they didn't take it well in third grade Um was that sad finding out that you were weird I had.
Speaker 2:I don't think I had an awareness of that at the time. I was just I felt wounded because these I really wanted to be friends with these girls, these like third and fourth grade cool girls that I thought they were so awesome and they didn't want to be my friend, and that was really rough. I remember hiding under the tire swing and like I made a couple of friends, but they weren't the cool friends, they were just regular people in my mind and so I took that like rejection from the people I perceived to be on the top of the social piping order really hard.
Speaker 1:We all just want to have cool friends.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:And so okay, keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my mom eventually was able to establish herself in a a trailer, her own like place to live, and that was probably close to the end of my first year in school, um, and at that point my parents gave me the choice of do you want to live with your mom or your dad, do you want to go to church school or do you want to go to public school? And I'm glad that they did that. Like, even as a nine-year-old or 10-year-old, they were trying to give me agency in something that was very scary, and so I appreciate that they gave me that choice, because I was immediately like I want to live with my mom and I want to go to public school, like I'm done with this nonsense and this church school, and I guess I didn't realize that things don't be good in public school either, um, because I still got bullied, but it was better because it seemed like there was more people, and so there was like more of a range of people expressing themselves in different ways, and I was able, more than anything, um, and this is a thing that I definitely want to to point out is that I was able to find one close friend in my public school and I didn't feel that way about the people that I met from church school and what I've learned in my subsequent research, because I'm very, very interested in why do people experience wounding in the way that they do, and how do we foster resilience? How can I, as a person, support others in fostering resilience? And I realized that just having one close friend, one person that you feel like you can connect to and share struggles with, is enough to sort of buffer all of the other stuff that happened, because there are boys chasing you around the playground yelling horrible things at me, because I did things as a fourth grader that are socially unacceptable, like taking my nose and everybody picks their nose okay, but not everybody does it in public or like where it can be seen yeah, that's my and yeah, so like they saw me doing it and and they, they called me gold digger all year long because of that and uh, it wasn't it.
Speaker 2:It was not a great experience, but also I felt okay because I had my friend sheree and she and I were like us against the world man, I'm mad about this.
Speaker 1:My most embarrassing moment in my life is as an adult, when someone found out that I was picking my nose, so I am triggered right now. I'm glad that I don't live with a fence, but uh, that's mortifying and it was continual.
Speaker 2:It wasn't one time, like they found out, I did that and then they used that against me for an entire year kids are the worst.
Speaker 2:They're the best and the worst yeah so you had your friend Cherie yeah, she was awesome and just talking to her really supported me, because there's still a lot of stuff going on at home too.
Speaker 2:Um, I was like you know, I had never been exposed to anything in the world and nobody had ever talked to me about, um, consent or safety or what's appropriate between adults and children, and so I just didn't know and I was taken advantage of by my mom's boyfriend because of that, and I remember that I would like it only happened a couple of times, but it just gives me an appreciation for how much um it doesn't really take much to to create a lot of damage in a person's mind and heart and body, because I remember I would just stand in my mirror or in my room and look at myself in the mirror and just waves of self-hatred and shame would just wash over me. And I didn't realize when I was that age that that was because of the thing that was happening to me. I made no connection, I just thought it was because I was like 10 years old and entering my awkward phase, which it probably didn't help, but, um, yeah, I'm sorry and I was also like being exposed to media for the first time.
Speaker 2:I mean, I remember being terrified by ursula, the Witch from the Little Mermaid and terrified even more.
Speaker 1:so Are we the same person Because kicking my nose and Ursula the Sea Witch when I saw Ursula at the end where she becomes huge in the water like that was the scariest movie of my life.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I still don't watch it.
Speaker 2:I still don't watch it either.
Speaker 1:Maybe there's healing somewhere and we can watch it.
Speaker 2:I have found that to be the case. I went back there was about four or five movies from that time in my life that really affected me deeply because I was emotionally, I was vulnerable and I had never been exposed. So that combination of like being in an emotional vulnerable spot because your parents are divorcing and also having never been exposed to story arcs and movies, it was a winning combination for a lot, of a lot of what were the movies?
Speaker 2:Milo and Otis, because there's themes of abandonment and loss. So like the little cat and dog lose each other and they spend the whole movie trying to find each other again. No, yeah, and then like napoleon, which is about a puppy who, um, accidentally gets into a hot air balloon at his birthday party and floats into the outback and like loses his home and his mom, and uh, and then the matrix.
Speaker 2:I saw the matrix and the little mermaid at the same time the matrix yes, I still cannot watch that scene where the little bug goes into neo's belly like it freaked me out as a kid.
Speaker 1:I saw the Matrix when I was old and it was still intense.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, my mom was not being super intentional about what I was watching at that time, which probably could have been better.
Speaker 1:So you're growing up. You're seeing some of these things abuse. You're still living in North Carolina.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. Yeah, my mom and dad lived not very far away from each other, so it was, and they had worked out joint custody by that point, so we would go to my dad's on the weekends and go to church with him. He had changed churches like immediately or right before, maybe a year before they split up. We started going to a different church than the one I had grown up in, and and so I think my dad continued to go to that church and my mom just stopped going to church and I, like, very unconsciously, started to take out what was happening to me emotionally and physically on my brothers, which I still to this day deeply regret, because like I didn't know how to process it, I guess.
Speaker 1:So I was like acting it out, you know oh, and that's kind of abuse, kind of in the how you had been abused yeah, well, I was emotionally hurting, so I like projected that onto my youngest brother and I just treated him really badly.
Speaker 2:I was like being bullied, so I became the bully, essentially, and with my other brother, I just like was. I was like what is this thing that's happening to me? I'm curious, I like want to experiment with it. You know, and my brother was so yeah, very sad, so yeah, keep going.
Speaker 2:Um, fortunately for me, my mom moved and sort of broke up with that boyfriend the next year. So like I can think of my, my growing up years in terms of like my grades, because something different happened every year. Um, so fifth grade, we moved about 45 or 50 minutes away, um, from where we had been living and, uh, I went to a new school. And that was such a blessing, such a grace, because I was able to reinvent myself. Every time I would leave and go to new school I would reinvent myself. So in fourth grade I started wearing pants because I got bullied for wearing dresses. In third grade and then in fifth grade I stopped picking my nose in public because I got the next step for me.
Speaker 1:I'm 40.
Speaker 2:Richard in freedom. I have embraced my nose picking and I just do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're free. How do you get that stuff out of your nose? Anyway? Sorry, just kidding guys, we don't do that. Okay, so fifth grade keep going. You're growing up, You're understanding the social mores of the day.
Speaker 2:Making friends At least two friends. So I went from zero friends to one friend to two friends in my third school and I was really. I took my desire to please and my need to be perfect. I believe it was rooted in my beliefs about myself and God and the discipline that I experienced as a young child and I took that to school and I was like, okay, this is the one place that I have control over. I'm going to be an awesome student, and I was.
Speaker 2:I loved school because I grew up with an idea of myself and of God and this discipline, way that I was disciplined. I really internalized like I need to be perfect, like that is my thing, and so, because I couldn't control any other aspects of my life, I, I was gonna be perfect at school and I loved. So I and I was very and I think you would say like I was in the AG program by this point in fifth grade, which is like academically gifted or whatever, and I don't. I don't love that. Now that I'm an educator, I don't love that sort of like tracking, labeling, but that's what they put me in. So I began to develop this idea myself that I'm very good at something I'm good at school and smart, and I loved it.
Speaker 2:I liked the projects and assignments, so I did that purpose it gave me purpose and control agency and then at home I was full-time living with my mom all of us kids were. I think we had chosen that yeah and um the guy she had been dating in my fourth grade year when the abuse happened. They had broke up and she was dating a new person, a different person, but the other guy would still come around as like a friend, her friend, and so I remember feeling like very, very deep feelings of dread whenever this person would come around, and that was the only way I had to explain that something bad had happened, because I didn't actually know anything about what's appropriate, what's not appropriate. So I just knew that when he was there, I began to like develop these very deeply dread, dreading feelings and so I started to like avoid him so you just hide out from this guy I think before that he had been like this very friendly person who would always play with us kids.
Speaker 2:And so after I started to know, like I don't actually want to play with you, I'm going to go over here and I'm going to sit in the corner and scowl at you. I don't know if I was like that obvious about it. I really don't know how it was perceived. But internally I was like if you're here, I do not want to be anywhere near you.
Speaker 1:And you really didn't understand it.
Speaker 2:No, I had no idea what was going on. Okay. Raw emotion. Absolutely, absolutely. And then? So what would be the next thing? Let me look here. So I think it's important to talk about who God was to me like when I was a kid, that's my question.
Speaker 1:Who was God tell me about that?
Speaker 2:um, I projected, uh, all of the stuff I was learning at church. So, like you can't read any fiction books because they're lies, you can only read the bible, or ellen wyatt, or like biographies, etc. You can't wear pants, that's wrong, you can't listen to secular music, music, watch movies, like all these things you can't do. And then, of course, there were the 10 commandments you have to keep the sabbath, and I interpreted that through the lens of, like how I was being disciplined. So if you do make a mistake, if I do make a mistake, I am gonna be disciplined. I'll be, you know, physically disciplined or I'll have a consequence that's supposed to teach me that, not to transgress that. And so that's really. I think that's where I got my picture of God. I projected what was happening to me onto God and said, well, that must be how God is, because I'm learning all these rules in church and my parents are getting these ideas from church, which is where we talk about God.
Speaker 2:But I love to sing. I loved to sing and so I think I felt very connected to God through music and through nature. I remember when I was like maybe 10 or 11, I was starting to ask those like deeper questions like about the universe and God and creation and Bible and stuff. And I remember we would always go on a walk after church on Saturday with my dad and I would ask him all these questions about God. I really loved those conversations because it helped me start to develop an actual picture of God rather than this like fabricated picture that I was projecting.
Speaker 1:It was very incomplete, but at least it was a start. Yeah, that's the biggest problem with taking the Lord's name in vain right, which is carrying the name of the Lord or doing evil or projecting a false God as God, Because then it hurts people from seeing who God actually is. Right.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And so I had these two different experiences and I thought they were the same experience. I thought that my projection of God was God, because that was what I was learning about in church. That was not my parents were teaching me, that was how I was being parented by them, right, um. But then I was also experiencing God through music. Like I love to sing in church I love to sing the hymns and I loved to I wrote my first poem, and it was about Jesus, when I was like seven or something. I wish I could still find it. It was adorable. So like I was feeling god emotionally and spiritually. I would feel god in nature and through that sort of creativity that I had of expressing myself in poetry and singing.
Speaker 1:So I felt that presence, I think but that didn't feel like the God that you had been kind of understanding from all this other stuff.
Speaker 2:I put all these things about God into like a soup pot and I stirred them all together and I was like that's God, my felt sense of the presence of God in poetry and music and creativity from this projection of God that I was seeing in church and that my parents were sort of showing me. Right.
Speaker 1:So how long did you feel this way about God, or when did this start changing as you're growing up, or did it just kind of get more ingrained?
Speaker 2:I think that's a good question. So I was watching my my parents a lot because they were my models, they were my adults in my life and I had these two very different pictures that were forming. My dad went to church every week and I could ask him questions about the universe and about God and we can have really good conversations about it. But his life didn't from my child perspective or teenage, adolescent perspective. His life did not really show anything like. It didn't bear fruit in my eyes.
Speaker 2:And my mom, on the other hand, stopped going to church entirely for maybe a year because she because she had had some, some hurt there, um, some people she really wanted to do ministry and people were like not interested in having her lead out, and so she left and, um, she went back about a year later to a different, a different church, still adventist, but in in the place where we were living, the different place when we had moved. She went back about a year later to a different, a different church, still Adventist, but in in the place where we were living, the different place when we had moved, and that was where I, we, they had a like evangelistic series at that church and I remember like feeling what you know, going to these meetings and feeling the pull of the Holy Spirit, like really wanting to give my heart to Jesus and get baptized. At this point I was 11. And so, yeah, so I did.
Speaker 2:I did that. I got baptized when I was 11. And it was directly in response to this. Like you know, they do the altar call. I'm like, do you want to give your heart to Jesus? And I felt that I had an emotional response to that what did you think was taking place?
Speaker 2:I have. No, I don't think I knew fully. I mean, I knew that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and I knew that I have developed this belief from being bullied that I was worse than everybody else, and so I was like I need help. I am worse than everyone else, so Jesus can help me. I can't do it on my own. That was a core belief, which is not a bad thing. I think that was the Holy Spirit. Like the Holy Spirit took this belief that I was worse than everybody else and and just pivoted it slightly and was like you can't do this on your own.
Speaker 1:So keep going. How did uh? How did high school go?
Speaker 2:Well, I wanted to. Just we were talking about how my mom and my dad like live their lives. Talking about how my mom and my dad like live their lives. So my mom was in church and she was like seeking wisdom, trying to recover from her traumatic childhood, trying to really um change for the better, like transform, um, and my dad was kind of just going to church and and then, like, as time progressed, my mom would like experiment more and more with different spiritual traditions and idea ideologies. But it was, I always felt from her like this very sincere desire to be a better person, like to take what she believed and put it into practice. And for my dad, I just didn't see that and so I was.
Speaker 2:I was growing up, I was like, well, my dad goes to church, he's very steady. My mom has like lots of ups and downs and is experimenting with lots of different things, but like I can see her process and I like respected that. So I started sort of like, I guess, had some contempt for my dad, which I sort of, looking back, I know now that he was just extremely experiencing some dissociation and and really struggling in his own way with depression and things like that. I just couldn't see it, you know. Oh, your kid.
Speaker 2:So, um, that's important because I think, like, how my parents process their spirituality really affected me. Until I had my own understanding, like until I got my own feet under me, all I could do was look at what they were doing. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, kind of my mom going on with the chronology of the story I stayed in the same school district for, uh, three, four years, so we, we, we stayed in that area. I went to fifth grade and then transferred to sixth, seventh and eighth with the same group of people and, uh, that was middle school is where I think the, the affirmation seeking and work and the way that I was starting to seek worthiness from boys started to show up as it does. And I that same belief like I'm unworthy, I'm going to be rejected, I'm worse than everybody else, I'm not going to be chosen was really showing up there. Boys that I liked none of them were like me and I had these very deep crushes that lasted like years and years. I had a crush from third grade that was still continuing in my late teens, because I really cared deeply, I guess't know.
Speaker 2:I think I was just yeah, I do, yeah, yeah and so, um, I'm sure that caused a lot of heartache it hurt a lot because, um, I was not chosen by even one of these crushes that I had such deep feelings for um, and then we get to, uh, sort of entering into high school age, my mom was dating another guy she had gone through I four maybe at that point and this person was like an ROTC instructor, junior ROTC, air Force, junior ROTC, and there were lots of boys in ROTC, and he took my mom one of their first dates. He took her to the military ball and they took me with them and I had this very romantic dance with a Latino gentleman at this ball and I just like I was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do in high school, I'm going to be very focused on ROTC. And I told myself it was about ROTC and I think I definitely loved that for its structure. It really spoke to the perfectionist in me and the like role follower. Um, it was a place I could excel. The rules were very clear, everything was very black and white and there were lots of boys there, so that was fun for me.
Speaker 2:I in middle school I had done band. This is something that I wish that was different. In middle school I played clarinet and I loved it and I did all county band. I was, like you know, trying to be the best, of course, at everything I was doing Right. And in high school I gave that up completely. I was like, well, I don't really like marching and playing the clarinet because I'm not very courtly then and so that's too much for me and there's boys in ROTC and it conflicts with the schedule for concert or orchestra band. So I was like, well, I just am not going to play the clarinet anymore. That's sad yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm also sad about the fact that I was too much of a perfectionist to persevere with piano lessons for more than a year. I could not stand being bad about it being bad at piano and practicing, so I just wouldn't do it. I stopped, and I'm sad about that.
Speaker 1:So keep going. Your, your crushes are debilitating. You're growing older, you're in high school. What happened?
Speaker 2:Um, I Met this boy in 10th grade who was like the first person, I guess, who had ever liked me back as sad as that.
Speaker 3:so and I was like I think we're gonna get married.
Speaker 2:I mean, like I had dated a couple of guys prior to that, but I didn't really like them because I had this belief that like I'm not good enough, so I just gotta settle for what I can get.
Speaker 2:But then I would be like I don't really like these people, so I would date them for a little while, like a week or two, and then break up with them. Um, and then I met this guy and I did like him, at least more than the others, and so we dated for three and a half years. How did that? Um, not well, because very soon after, like quickly in our relationship it, this dynamic developed or revealed itself that he had super messed up ideas about consent, like he thought that it was okay to tell me things like well, I need physical stuff, so you, you don't let like, unless you give me this thing that I want, you don't actually love me. So he, it started off not like, not spoken, it was more of like an implied thing, because he would, he would push my boundaries further and further and further, just silently, you know, with body language. And then whenever I would push back, he, he started to say things like well, I need this.
Speaker 2:And that was really awful because I had, I had a very clear idea in my head from my upbringing that it was wrong to have sex before marriage and I wanted to wait and I wasn't ready. So I had no interest in in going beyond actually, that guy, that I went, that I danced with at the military ball. Um, he wanted to date me, but he was also pushing my boundaries right away, and so I broke up with him. And then I proceeded to obsess over him for two more years, cause I still did like him. So the next time that I met a person I was like well, this is just how guys are, I'm going to have to just deal with it or I'm going to be alone. So when he pushed my boundaries, I just uncomfortably went with it, until the point when I was 18 and I was giving up my innocence to him, going all the way I'm not going to say giving up my virginity, because I don't like that terminology, but went all the way when I didn't. Why don't?
Speaker 2:you like the terminology because I've come to understand that, like, our understanding of virginity is pretty messed up in in in the culture, that, like my understanding of how people view virginity is kind of messed up, which is that like it's it's if you have or have not had intercourse with a man, you're a virgin, right. But the truth is that true virginity is to be one in yourself, to not compromise to anyone, and I definitely didn't have that. Like, long before I had intercourse with someone, I had given up my wholeness and completeness and like, because I never had it, no one ever told me you are worthy and good enough in yourself, you don't have to seek this elsewhere and good enough in yourself.
Speaker 1:You don't have to seek this elsewhere. So when you started being intimate? Did guilt, condemnation, shame, come in? Or were you like kind of like, nah, like I got to put that to the side.
Speaker 2:No, super, super, guilt, condemnation, shame. It was awful I think I was, and it also played into the childhood sexual trauma that I had too, because I started to dissociate Like I couldn't, because he said he needed it and I believed him. I was trapped between. This is my source of identity, this relationship. I'm going to marry my high school sweetheart and we're going to be together, so that was like a thing I couldn't give up, and yet he was asking something of me that I couldn't do, like I couldn't authentically enter into a sexual relationship with him because I wasn't ready, I didn't want it, and so I just dissociated yeah and so after three years, you were just like I
Speaker 2:can't, we're not gonna do this that was the first time god really showed up in my life. It that I was aware of, because god was there all along for sure and was protecting me and was, you know, shepherding, parenting, loving on me.
Speaker 2:But, um, when so to? I felt god's presence in the, in the fact that he that god provided for me to go to college, because nobody in my life had saved up a college fund for me. But that was my thing. I was going to go to college, I was going to be the first person in my family to graduate from college, but I had no money for it. And then God provided this amazing full-ride scholarship to UNC Chapel Hill.
Speaker 1:The Tar Heels, the Tar Heels.
Speaker 2:The Tar Heel.
Speaker 1:So you went to Chapel Hill.
Speaker 2:I went to Chapel Hill.
Speaker 1:You don't remember who was on the basketball team at this point, do you?
Speaker 2:Richard, I have watched a total of three basketball games in my life, and it's always been UNC versus Duke.
Speaker 1:I hope.
Speaker 2:UNC won yeah. Let's go. The most recent one was really fun. It was like a buzzer beater.
Speaker 1:Let's go Anybody but Duke. So you're going to Chapel Hill. A lot of kids there. What'd you think about that?
Speaker 2:Well, so I was, I. I it was a dream come true. I had toured a couple of colleges, but I only seriously considered unc because the campus was beautiful and and that was important to me um, beauty is such a healing bomb for for pain and suffering, and so I was always very attracted to nature and beauty, and chapel hills camp campus is just unparalleled in that way, and so I was like living my dream. But I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I took a lot of classes that I didn't end up needing, but I'm very confused about my future.
Speaker 2:I was still dating that guy who, at this point in the relationship, I was very unhappy to be with him because it had all sort of come out in the wash.
Speaker 2:His character was revealed before me in the sense that, like he had no ambition, he graduated from high school and was working at Best Buy, and that was the extent of what he was interested in doing, and I was like what do you? I mean, what are we doing? Like why? Why can't we both be ambitious and excited about college and going on to the bigger and better thing? And so his response to my sort of frustration with that was to lie to me and tell me that he was starting school at NC State when in reality he was not. And I knew a person from nc who, like somebody we graduated with, who went to nc state and it all turned out that he he went so far as to send me a fake schedule of his classes and I looked at it and I was like this like I know what my connect carolina looks like my schedule page. This doesn't look like a legit thing.
Speaker 1:So underwater basket weaving at nine o'clock lunch.
Speaker 2:The. The URL on the screenshot was UNC State dot org. It was just like you know, it wasn't a nested site, it wasn't the student portal. That was what really cued me up. But I really wanted to believe that he was not lying, because I had a very pure heart and so I wanted confirmation. So I checked with our friend. I'm like can you show me your schedule? Because I'm pretty sure I'm being lied to and sure enough, it was a lie and I just thank God that that situation happened. I think that God's hand was in it, because I was incredibly unhappy and had no ability because my identity was so fully sold out to this person. I had no, I know, ability to to escape or like to leave. So God was like hey, I know what would be a deal breaker for you If someone blatantly lies to you praise the Lord.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So how did that conversation go? Was that tough?
Speaker 2:Um, actually I just texted him the night before and he'd already gone to bed, and so I didn't receive a response for a while, and then, after he did respond, there was like six months of really messy nastiness that culminated in him coming over to my house where I was living with my dad and letting the air out of my tire, not even popping the tire just every day for a week, richard.
Speaker 1:Oh, he did it, okay. So I thought for one day that that's not going to get it, but every day for a week, so you didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what was going on. I kept taking my tire into the tire shop and going there's a leak, there's a leak, will you help me? And then finally, like the third time I went in there, they said honey, I think someone is messing with you. When I was like, really, I couldn't even imagine that, because they're like I thought he was dumb.
Speaker 1:Now I think he's a genius.
Speaker 2:That is genius mental warfare no, I went home and I was like dad, we have to catch, we have to catch him doing this. So we staked out my car in the night and we did end up catching. My dad caught him doing it and then he was trying to break into our house. He was like actually, cutting.
Speaker 1:What did he say? When your dad caught him doing it, what did he say?
Speaker 2:Well, my dad was up in our house and he was down in the street so they weren't talking to each other. But he came around the back of our house and my dad went down. He's like why is he? Came around the back of our house and my dad went down and he's like why is he going around to our house? And it turns out my ex was trying to cut a hole in our tree porch to get into our house and my dad asked him why you were doing that and he said I just wanted to see who she was texting, like he was really struggling with the fact that I was over it.
Speaker 1:What did he say about the tires?
Speaker 2:I don't think he said anything, but he did get arrested and spent the night in jail and he didn't stop. I got a restraining order, but I still was so pure-hearted I thought that it was fine and so I let it go on. I just let it expire and he continued to stalk me for the rest of the summer. Poor guy so moving on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I worked my way through college and I had I had a pretty good time. After that relationship was over immediately met somebody who was way better than him and I think that that person was just a gift from God to help build my somewhat non-existent self respect and the way I viewed myself. Um, because I was just, I had no self worth whatsoever, um, and so, meaning that person, who was very respectful and very, very everything I wanted funny, funny, cute, you name it, um it, it planted this idea in my head that, oh, I actually like I'm at least worthy of this person's attention dated that guy for three years, about halfway into our relationship, or we set off with the idea of you know, staying away from the thing, the intimacy or whatever the physical stuff, and immediately broke that vow to myself because I was young and careless or whatever.
Speaker 2:And so, um, I felt a lot of guilt, guilt, shame and condemnation about that. And then, um, about a year and a half into our relationship, it that that feeling had built up to the point that I told him about it and said, look, I just, I'm just feeling really not, I don't want to, I don't feel good about this because I broke this promise to myself. And he said, well, if you want to stop, we can just stop and wait until we get married. And I was like what, what do you mean? Because I just had no, I had no idea that a person would be that way, like that they would just accept what I asked. So we did, we, we backtracked and spent the rest of our relationship celibate, and that was really healing for me I bet you were able to be grow like friendship then probably actually maybe not I mean, we were great friends, like we're amazing friends the whole time.
Speaker 2:I mean, it was just, it was seamless, um, I think what, I don't know what happened. I don't really understand why it all, why it all didn't work out, but basically he broke up with me, um out of the blue, and I found out that he had been like having an emotional affair with a coworker. Um, but sort of to fast forward to that point, um, we had been dating about three years. I was almost graduating from college and, um, we were looking at rings and talking engagement and had actually bought a ring, bought a ring, and I, throughout college, had been developing a relationship with God on my own because I started going to no.
Speaker 1:What is that?
Speaker 2:It's like a college ministry for Adventist Christian fellowship. Okay. And so I had been going to their vespers and their retreats and getting closer to God through that, and so I thought God should have a say in who.
Speaker 2:I married basically, and who I married basically? And because my mom, one of the things she had experimented with her, with her spiritual life, was vision questing, which is like you go out into the woods and you pray for a vision you like, pray for God to tell you about your life. I think it has its roots in Native American spirituality, and so I was like I know just the thing. I'll do a vision quest around this and should I get married to this person that I wanted?
Speaker 2:to get married to, and I did. And I sat out there in this lady's backyard for three days and I read the book of Job and watched the animals come and go and for the first time in my whole life, I felt like God very clearly spoke to me and said no, not right now, not this, not right now. And I'm getting like chills thinking about it.
Speaker 2:So my response was to return to my life after that experience with the intention of completely ignoring that. That um voice just heard the voice of god for the first time and I'm like absolutely not. I know it was you and I'm not going to listen.
Speaker 1:You were out there for three days and he gives you the answer and you're like pass.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So I go back and my ex broke up with me like on the spot and I was like, oh God, I guess you're not gonna just let me totally ignore your, your.
Speaker 1:What year is this?
Speaker 2:20, I want to say, yeah, 2015. I had just graduated from college. I had lined up to go to a language exchange program in Seoul, south Korea or not Seoul, south Korea, but in South Korea and that was going to happen in the summer. And then so, between graduation and me leaving for that, I did this vision quest and my boyfriend broke up with me. I think God laid it on his heart. Well, I mean to be fair. When I went on my vision quest, I opened the floor to him and said we're both. We should both be thinking about our relationship during this time, because I'm going to be praying about it. And so he thought about it and came back and was like, well, I actually want to be with this other girl. And I was shocked. I was, oh, he said he wanted to be with another girl. No, no, no, no. But at the he just broke up with me, but later on I found out that he was already involved emotionally with this other person.
Speaker 1:Mercy. So then you go to South Korea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went to South Korea and I was shattered because I did not expect him to. There was no sign in our relationship that he was about to break up with me, so I was shattered, and being shattered in a foreign country is I don't recommend it.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No, no, I was very loose-ganging and I had a temporary fling with my language instructor because I was just all over the place. Richard, it was ugly.
Speaker 1:How long were you there?
Speaker 2:Eight weeks I came back to the US and I got a job, working night shift at a hotel. I don't know if you're familiar with the Grove Park Inn in Nashville.
Speaker 1:Is it a big inn or something?
Speaker 2:It's like a big historical place. When the presidents go to visit Asheville, they stay there because they think it's cool.
Speaker 1:And you got the night shift.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started working nights there at the front desk which, given the fact that I was dealing with massive anxiety from all of my relationships failing and my worth was tied to those relationships. Um, working nights is not great for your mental health in general and for me struggling with all of that stuff, it was not. It was extra, not great.
Speaker 1:So, after all of this, you're still talking to God. You're hiding out for three days talking to him. Is he different now that you've experienced all this stuff and this heartache? Or who is he?
Speaker 2:I think I was very wrapped up in my pain. So I was, I had this like moment with God. I was sort of growing a relationship with him in college, and then the heart, the, the breakup happened and I was plunged into so much, so much emotional pain that my awareness of God was pretty distant and I and I was. I started to seek alleviation of that pain in tender.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, yeah, that's the move I hear. I think that's going to be.
Speaker 2:I think it's going to work out. You have to understand. I wasn't hooking up with people, I was just going on really awkward, horrible coffee dates Like three to five a week, which is a lot, but you got to do it.
Speaker 2:I had to do it. It was the only thing, and I was also so. The roots of my eating disorder started in middle school. I forgot to mention that whenever I was sort of coming into my realization of my adolescent body and some of that shame got triggered around that, and so I would like go to school and then come home, or like go to school and not eat all day and then come home and eat a lot because I was starving. And then I started to get into the boys and that behavior eased off and I didn't notice that anymore. But fast forwarding to the fall of 2015,. Right, yeah, I think we're at fall of 2015. Um, I, I no longer had a relationship to alleviate my anxiety and my shame, and so the eating behaviors resurfaced as a way to manage my anxiety and it was just uh kind of just starving yourself well it was.
Speaker 2:For me it was more like overeating, like emotional overeating, and then feeling extra shame because of that, and then like starving or fasting is what I would call it to um to alleviate the shame. So he got into that cycle of restrict and binge. Restrict and binge. I told my mom I was pretty self-aware even at this time. I told my mom. I was pretty self-aware even at this time. I told my mom. So one of two things is going to happen I'm either going to get a boyfriend or I'm going to get fat.
Speaker 1:That's the solution to all your problems At the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I got a boyfriend.
Speaker 1:How did that go?
Speaker 2:It was bad. God was speaking to me through these boyfriends, because after the college boyfriend that really actually did build my self-worth and helped me to see myself as more worthy of relationship After that, it was like God was saying okay, you know that you're somewhat worthy now, so now every relationship after this is going to be worse and worse and worse, like each relationship you get into is going to be less of what you're looking for, because you've already seen a taste of what you're looking for, like. I was in a relationship that was respectful and consensual and emotionally satisfying, right, and then that ended and God was like I really want you to my, I want you to myself now, and so I'm just gonna send you misses. I'm just going to send you misses. I'm just going to keep sending you people who are not going to fulfill what you're looking for. I would really like you for myself, more interested in having a relationship with you than me chasing all these boys so that didn't go well.
Speaker 1:How long did that last?
Speaker 2:A year. It ended whenever I went to. Well, it ended shortly after I got a teaching assistant position in South Korea for the year from 2016 to 2017. So I left in June of 2016, and this boy happened to solve his relationship problems by anger, like getting angry at his partner and picking fights and telling me everything was wrong with me. Um, so he picked a fight. Instead of telling me that he would miss me, he picked a fight with me and I got on the plane with just this feeling in my stomach, like this is not gonna.
Speaker 2:I see the writing on the wall this is not gonna continue very much longer so you guys broke up while you were over there then yeah, and about like october of that year.
Speaker 2:But I'm grateful for that relationship because at this point I think I was 24 years old and it gave me the chance to. I guess I decided to just dump the shame I had, some of the shame I had around my sexuality. I was like, look, I'm 24 years old. I think it's about time I just acknowledge the fact that I'm not going to wait until I get married. I already haven't twice. So like I just need to accept the fact that I have a sexual dimension to my personhood and stop dissociating from it. And that was really healing for me, actually in that moment.
Speaker 1:So then you just uh, how did it go? Then you're, uh, we're still in the death portion. Feels like there's a lot of lies leading around, worth value, body image, uh, a lot of misunderstanding about who God is. Can't make sense of that, and you just really want to be loved yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I went um. I was so in safaria. That's like probably where things got the one of the darkest times because, um, at least when I was in at home, I had some, some roots under me. I knew if I met somebody there I could get married to them, like I could logically see myself getting married to them. But in South Korea at the time I felt very rootless. I felt like all these relationships that I'm forming are at best temporary and at worst I'm being objectified for being a white girl in South Korea, and so I had nothing to fall back on in terms of dealing with my anxiety.
Speaker 2:So I did a lot of running 20 flights of stairs in the morning before school to try to relieve the anxiety, relieve the pressure, and it was one of those times when I was running those flights of stairs that I heard the voice of God very clearly say this is why you're a Christian, because you're not actually able to solve any of your problems with exercise, yoga, meditation. I had been trying all those things and it wasn't working. I was like, oh, you're right, I'm a Christian. That makes so much sense. So I started going to the Adventist church in the place where I was at in Korea and I found a lot of comfort there because I felt like a puzzle piece had clicked for me, but I was still doing the compulsive dating and the eating behaviors were just getting worse and worse and worse and my anxiety was horrifying. I couldn't speak Korean very well and I was in the countryside and I'm a pretty verbally expressive person, and so I felt like I couldn't even be myself. I couldn't express myself.
Speaker 1:How long were you there?
Speaker 2:A year.
Speaker 1:When you got back, how was the anxiety?
Speaker 2:It was better. It was, it was better. So, um, I decided to use my free plane ticket home to fly to Montana to see my dad's half of the family, who I only got to see a couple of times growing up, but mostly to to hike the mountains in Western Montana, because that was like a special source of God's presence for me was in those mountains. It was very, very clear. And so I went there and I thought, as bad as things could possibly get, at least I can speak the language, at least I don't have to navigate a foreign bus system or train system sounds like a nightmare it was for me in the anxiety that I was feeling and so it was better I was.
Speaker 2:I had family. Um, I didn't move to montana intending to stay there. I thought I was gonna be there a year and then move back to north carolina.
Speaker 2:Well, initially I thought I was gonna be there a year and then move back to North Carolina. Well, initially I thought I was gonna be there for the summer, but then I got a job there, so I was like, oh, I'll just hang out for a year and see how I like it. I've already lived out of suitcases for one year, and then I loved it so much that I was planning to stay there permanently, and I also was like starting grad school. You look so confused.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at your pictures on Facebook oh, thank you, and I'm like where are we? And I'm at this this. Where was I? Because I'm trying to keep up with where we're at. We're past korean mountains, hiking korea. Now we're in land of the sky, glacier nation, nation.
Speaker 2:Slash the enchantments yeah, the instruments happened later, but yeah so you're in grad school?
Speaker 1:for what?
Speaker 2:um, well, so I got a. Let me let me explain a little bit about my like job. So what made me stay in montana was I got a job as a teaching assistant in a preschool montessori classroom and I loved it. I was so excited and the reason I had pursued that job was because I had an interest in education in college. But I also had a lot of anxiety about being in charge of kids out and just finished my degree in East Asian studies and so I went. But I had been exposed to alternative education in my methods class and so I was very curious about Montessori and I ended up getting that job in the classroom, in the preschool classroom, and then I went to grad school for ultimately went to grad school for education, because I was like, absolutely this is awesome. Being in the classroom and seeing the way that they teach montessori just confirmed for me that I really enjoyed it and wanted to do that. So I started grad school in Spokane in 20.
Speaker 1:Are you still waiting for the Lord to bring a man to change your life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was dating on the Tinders in Montana and the same story was happening. God was bringing me less and less of what I was looking for.
Speaker 1:Was it perhaps that Tinder was bringing you less and less?
Speaker 2:Tinder was bringing less and less. But I say God because I do think that, that I see how God was present, and not that he didn't want, like not that God didn't want good things for me, but that if I had just found what I was looking for in all the places I was looking, then I wouldn't have found God.
Speaker 2:But so it was almost like he was just putting a safety gate at the end of a lot of roads. I was going down hey, I don't think this is it, and um, yeah so. But I also was still looking for community and I met this girl at my work one of my jobs in montana and she and I started doing a Bible study together, and the I think it was the first one that we did together was called seeking God, and the whole premise of the study was do you even want to seek God? Because that's an important thing to clarify if we're going to do Bible study. And I guess nobody had asked me that before and I was like, wow, I actually do want to seek God.
Speaker 2:And so I decided after that study I was just going to do one concrete action that would represent my desire to seek God in relationship. So I picked up the Desire of Ages and I started reading it and it took me out of all of my eating disorder or all my binge eating behaviors that I was using to cope with my sadness, just took it away for like three months. It was like the presence of Jesus just came in and replaced all of that anxiety for a period of time, so that I could have some rest and so that I could see like taste and see that the Lord is good. Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so this is uh, um, you're going after at least this missing aspect. That has been a part you know it's just been gone and you're starting to see some results.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started to be like, oh, god is giving me exactly what I was looking for in all these relationships, and I also had this realization that I've been looking for these things in all the wrong places. I've been seeking worthiness in all of these places that I'm not finding it, and yet here God is all along, just waiting to shower grace on me.
Speaker 1:And so you're getting those realizations. What happens next?
Speaker 2:I started my grad school program in the summer of 2017, no 2018. And I also decided that if I was going to train to be an elementary teacher which is what I wanted to do I should probably be working in an elementary classroom, and so I started. I looked and found a job teaching or as a teacher assistant in elementary classroom, but it was in Portland Oregon.
Speaker 1:Portland, oregon.
Speaker 2:Good things there, yeah so I moved to Portland, oregon, in the fall of 2018 what happened in Portland um, I started to do more tinder dating because I thought it's a new city, why would it be more of the same? Um and I. I found a place to live with this woman who was willing to give me a discount on rent. But it also turned out she was. She had some real issues with alcoholism as well, so that turned out to be really a hard place to live.
Speaker 2:But I had been told by a friend in Spokane where I was in grad school, I had mentioned I was moving to Portland and that friend was like you should check out PVC Pleasant Valley. They have a young adult group there that's pretty active. And she knew that I was looking for friends, looking for community, and so I joined the Facebook page. But I didn't actually go to anything. I just lurked on the Facebook page and I sort of introduced myself, but I didn't actually show up to any events. And Pastor Greg Phillips noticed that I was lurking on the Facebook page and he DMed me.
Speaker 2:He's like hey, we'd really like to see you show up and, you know, come see us sometime. And so I thought, okay, well, maybe I will. I showed up for, uh, a vespers that was at one of the people's house, and then I went on a tinder date and got really scared because this guy was really scary um person. And then the next morning, after being up all night dealing with that, I went, I went to church.
Speaker 1:What would you say at this point to anyone who's interested in dating through Tinder?
Speaker 2:I don't want to paint it very black and white, because I know people have found really beautiful relationships on Tinder. Beautiful relationships on Tinder. For me, personally, it was not going to be where I found what I was looking for, and the last person that I went on a date with was almost a message from God to me telling me hey, just so you know, this isn't it Because I had this belief that it was because the people on tinder were Adventist. That was the reason why I was having all this problem. Um, and this guy messaged me on tinder. He's like hi, I'm Adventist. And I was like wow, I'm interested. And so I met up with him and he was really scary like. He had a very dark energy and he said things like well, I was raised as an and I really think it's a beautiful like world view. I don't believe it, but I want to raise my kids in it. And then I was like, oh well, interesting yeah interesting, yeah, cool story, yeah.
Speaker 2:so after that it was like god was like hey, so you thought it was about adventism, not about adventism. Even if you meet an adventist on this app, I'm still gonna send you all the misses because I'm looking for you like I'm pursuing you, like I'm the one who wants to have a relationship with you, and I'm not on that app. In case you haven't realized that, God is not on Tinder.
Speaker 1:That's the theme of this episode so far. So you go to church the next day.
Speaker 2:The next day. What happened? So you, you go to church the next day, stay, and, uh well, I had already experienced at the vespers. I was like these are my people, like this is what I've been looking for all along, just like the amazing friend, friendliness, and I don't even know how to explain it. It was just like a very deep sense that this was gonna be my home, these were gonna be my people, and so I felt that. And then I went on that date and then I went to church the next morning and it just confirmed it.
Speaker 2:We went on a hike up the church together in Mount Hood National Forest and a couple of weeks later I did go with them to the Enchantments, which was like the highlight of my life so far, almost. I think it was just so beautiful and I was working my job and developing relationships in the community. At one point I told greg how bad my housing situation was and he put me in touch with my good friend, penny and her husband, who took me in. Like they gave me a place to live in their camper, trailer, travel trailer, motorhome thing, and that was a huge blessing because I needed to get out of that lady's house, and that was in December. January I moved over there and a lot was going on with my mom.
Speaker 2:At the time she had been um struggling with her mental health and wasn't um didn't have a secure like home to live in at the time. She was experiencing some homelessness, and that really affected me, and so I, I like, came unraveled in a big way. When I moved to Ray and Penny's house, my anxiety got really bad that I couldn't get out of bed and I was still having a lot of these eating behaviors that were really painful, and so I basically told God I'm going to just fast for 40 days. Jesus fasted for 40 days. I'm going to fast for 40 days.
Speaker 1:So what happened. I'm going to fast for 40 days.
Speaker 2:So what happened? Well, I think the reason why I did that was because I couldn't make my mom safe. I couldn't find her a place to live that was safe or prevent bad things from happening to her. I couldn't control any of that, but I felt like maybe I could control my body, like I could like get rid of this extra weight that I had gained from binge eating, and so I thought, well, if I just fast, then that's what I can control and it and also fasting would lessen, it helped my anxiety. So, maybe because I was trying to control something, I don't know.
Speaker 2:So I was fasting for like nine days and I think Penny and Ray knew, but they were being really gentle about it. They weren't like confronting me about it, um, gentle about it. They weren't like confronting me about it and, um, they got together with pastor greg and his family and decided they were gonna pray over me and anoint me and just like, have a little little moment to help me out. Um, and penny put together this beautiful handmade like scrapbook of pictures, quotes, love letters from god, anything that she felt would be encouraging or comforting to me at the time, took pictures for my Facebook and pasted them on and wrote things like you are wanted, you are welcome, or something like that, and it just wrecked me. It wrecked me in such a beautiful way. They they sang over me and prayed over me.
Speaker 2:At that point I think I had been um fasting for nine days, yeah, and I heard the holy spirit in that moment just saying to me like you need to surrender this, like I can take care of you, like you're loved, you're safe. It's safe to like let go, and sarah's, you know. Okay, but I didn't have any tools. I still didn't really have a very correct idea about myself, or god, um, so it was a week later that jonathan came to pvc did you go to the first meeting?
Speaker 2:I don't know if I went to the first meeting, but I know that I went to. I know that I went to most of them and the whole time my friend Danny kept saying like you're free, you're free. I was like what do you mean? I don't get it, I do not understand.
Speaker 1:When you were hearing him preach, were you feeling like you? What were you understanding? What were you picking up?
Speaker 2:the first, the first time you heard it a lot of. There was some things that definitely stood out to me the story of the, the baby that the two women are fighting over, and Solomon's like, well, let's just cut it in half. And the true mother says, no, like she can have it, she can just raise it. I would rather lose my child and have my child raised by this woman who's going to tell her all kinds of lies and poison her against me. Then I would, then I would have my child be killed. That hit for me because I felt like, wow, I'm the child, like I've been raised under this false parent my whole life and poisoned against the god who loves me.
Speaker 2:And that hit really hard. And it also hit whenever he was talking about the children of Israel leaving Egypt and like at what point were they free? Right, the answer is they were always free. They were free from the beginning, Like were they free when they got to the.
Speaker 1:Red Sea. I think that hit me the first time I saw it. I wish I could remember all of it, but that first idea is that being free from the blood on the door, you know, from Passover, when the angel yes, exactly that was the part I was trying to remember just now as I was describing.
Speaker 2:And then it really hit me about the prodigal son too, Like the whole time. The prodigal son, he was son. He was never not a son, even when he was in the pigsty so that week's going on, you're mulling over these things.
Speaker 1:Your buddy's like you're free. You're like what does that even mean?
Speaker 2:yeah, exactly, and I had just had this profound experience of like surrendering this element, this area of my life that I felt like I needed to control, and so I was like there is something here, there's something really important that I want to understand. What is it?
Speaker 1:I think I felt the same way. I'm this is? This is deep and I don't get it but, it's provocative yeah, and it was offensive.
Speaker 2:I felt my like, you know, I felt my internal experience not matching up with what I was hearing and I was like, offended by that Right. The gospel is offensive because of that.
Speaker 1:It's a scandal, it's scandalous, and a scandal is something that draws you in and repels you at the same time. I just recently learned this, and so it's drawing you in, but it's also like no, I don't, I don't know that's why it's called the scandal of grace.
Speaker 2:The cross was scandalous no, I think it's because it it's. It's the idea of the double-edged sword too. The truth cuts both ways and it's magnetic, it pulls at you, but it's designed that way so that it forces you to make a decision. You go along and at some point you have to decide, and that happened, I, I think, for me.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't exactly know what moment it was, but I know that james I believe it's james too that talks about a double-minded person being unstable in all their ways, like if you believe two realities, you're gonna be blown and tossed by the winds. And I was like that's how I feel. I feel blown and tossed. I feel like this, this tension that I that doesn't feel good, feels like frustrating, and so I realized I think from James too that I needed to, I needed to make a decision, I needed to decide. I'd been presented with a new reality, a new way of seeing God and myself, and I could say yes or I could say no, and at the same time, I couldn't force that moment to happen. I don't think anybody can force a moment where they go from death to life. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. So I was just like going along in this tension that was very like fractious in my heart.
Speaker 2:But I was like Holy Spirit, spirit, are you gonna? Like? Are you gonna do anything? Like, is this for me, like? Am I gonna have a moment?
Speaker 1:okay, because I was seeing people have these moments where they're like I get it after the meetings, or was this like on the online community or something where you're seeing this?
Speaker 2:no, it, it was still during that week. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was during the week and I was seeing people like having these moments of getting it and and changing their minds and identifying with the gospel and um. So I think it was on Saturday at the end of the week, when I had realized this thing about James too and being double minded and identified myself as being double minded and I also didn't feel like I could force myself into just don't believe it, just muscle it up, um. So I was like sort of waiting on the holy spirit. I was like I want to, I want a special moment with you, holy spirit.
Speaker 2:um, and it happened during the the end, I believe the end, when they were. Hold Me Now like in the hands that created the heavens Whole Heart by Hillsong.
Speaker 1:Oh I know, we sang it two nights ago Nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think God knows my heart and he knows that one of the ways that I've always connected deeply, beyond words, with God is through music, and through those words of that song God was able, the Holy Spirit was able, to just draw out my heart's cry and also simultaneously affirm to me my freedom and my healing, and the chains were broken, you know warm so, on that saturday, what did you?
Speaker 1:what did you know?
Speaker 2:for sure then, I knew for sure that I'm a child, I'm a daughter, I'm a righteous daughter, I'm worthy, I'm worthy of love and I'm beloved. Because it was, it was the idea of Christ on the cross, christ giving up his ultimate sacrifice, that convinced me like I'm worthy, like you're worth. What, in our sort of capitalist understanding of the world, where worth is defined by money or exchange of goods? Right, I can be understood as worthy based on how much someone's willing to give for me. And Christ was willing to give everything, like it was very life for me, and so I was like, okay, well, that's irrefutable, I'm worthy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can rest in my father's love as he fulfills my heart's desires for a husband. I learned that I've been made a new creation in Christ, completely healed and restored, even as I learned what that means. And I learned that the sin that I bear in and on my body and for me that felt like actual extra pounds that I had gained from eating been eating that I am. In my father's eyes, in Christ's eyes, I'm as if I had never sinned, as if I had never done any of those things, and that goes for both the sexual experiences that I had had, the eating disorder, all of it. I was just as if I'd never sinned. That was really important for me.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're going to take a quick break from this episode. Rich, can I jump in? Yeah, justin Koo, I guess you can jump in.
Speaker 4:This is normally the part of the show where you talk to someone about how they're sacrificing and choosing to partner with this ministry, but I have it on good authority that you too, also partner with this ministry and support as well. You already know. Yeah, absolutely, man. I was actually listening back to the old log of the first couple of episodes and I just totally forgot how you started this podcast while working nights as an Amazon warehouse worker. I laughed a little inside, but I love it, man, because it shows your heart that from the beginning, it was never an influence play, Although this podcast has God is blessed has reached quite a large number of people. But that's not why you started. You started because this thing had changed your life and you wanted more people to know, and so I guess the people want to know. Is there anything else beyond that? Is it literally that simple that the gospel changes lives? Is that why you invest not only your time, influence and energy, but also your money to support the creation of resources like these?
Speaker 1:Man, I didn't know how good I had it. I really did not know how good I had it in Jesus Christ. And now that I know, as Paul is praying, that our eyes are open to the inheritance that we have in the saints, as I've seen, the inheritance that I have it's Jesus Christ and all that comes with him, which includes every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. That's enough to radically change the way you think about things. And because I think about things differently, it changed my marriage, changed what I feel about like where I'm going to work, what I'm going to do, my purpose in life. And so, yeah, people were like you should start a podcast. And I was like that's the least I can do. I want to get on top of a mountain and yell at somebody, but maybe we can do this podcast thing. So, yeah, and we donate to the ministry because we care, we want people to hear this message, because we know we just know that if they see it they'll never go back. That it's just too good, I love it.
Speaker 4:You know a lot of podcasts will say something to the effect of man. This show could not help, could not happen without supporters like y'all that are listening and, truth be told, that's not true for us, Because even if no one gave, I reckon you'd still be doing the podcast, so we would be doing the.
Speaker 1:I mean, man, the purpose for the finances is it's a numbers game, right, it's like we don't want to think of it as a numbers game, Like, oh, we've got to get this many people, but also we want to get a lot of people to hear this message. Yeah, we care about each individual because, I mean, that's what this podcast is all about Is when that individual hears the message and it changes their life. Yeah, so we care. We want it to get as widespread as possible.
Speaker 4:So if you're listening and you also care and also want to empower more good ministry, shoot. We could still do the podcast without the support, but there's a real sense in which we couldn't be doing all the other shows Bible study groups, internet church, all the other things that are happening. And so if you'd like to partner and to support this mission of telling everyone who's willing to listen that they are in fact in Christ by faith, free from sin, you can head over to loverealityorg slash give. That's loverealityorg slash give.
Speaker 1:I first met you probably during the pandemic, when we were all on Zoom and you were coming to the Zoom meetings. I didn't I think. I was like, oh, are you new to this message or something? And you're like no, I actually went to PVC and heard Jonathan preach it and I was like, oh, sorry, and you've been, you've really wanted to share, like you've really really wanted to share. What is it about this that you kind of learning this thing and when Jonathan came to PVC, that you know, five years later you know we're a month past that, five years later, you're still wanting to share your it's still changing your life. You're still a part of the community. What is it that about this thing that you're just like, no, like this, is it?
Speaker 2:The Holy spirit. I was praying last night what do I say? Because I get so lost in the weeds. I think you can kind of see that in our discussion. I'm like what details are important. And the Holy Spirit said to me last night out beyond all the words, there's a field of love. Just meet me there. What.
Speaker 2:Say that again. So this is what he said to me, out beyond all the words there's a field of love. Meet me there, because that's what happened. That's that's what happened to me and it makes sense to me in a poetic way, but I understand, not everybody has like a poetic mind, so I guess what I mean is that the whole reality of my life before was pain and suffering and what had happened to me and what I had seen happen to other people or what I'd seen other people do to each other, and it formed. It formed who I was, it formed my idea of the world, my idea of God.
Speaker 2:And in the Bible it says God is love, and in the bible it says god is love. And so, like when I, when I first heard that it was the love reality tour coming to pvc, I was like what does that mean? That sounds like such a confusing title for something. And then you, after the whole experience that I had, I realized it couldn't have been called anything else, because that is what we are talking about the reality of love. The ground on which we stand is love. If that foundation is there, then the transformation can only continue to happen, can only continue because we were made for love.
Speaker 2:It's why we get stuck. I get stuck when I forget that I am made for love and I am being loved. Like the relational piece of it is so important, like I get worried about what words to say when most of the time I should just be loving people, like most of the time I should just be sitting next to somebody, put my arm around them and say nothing, because the love reality speaks for itself. The gospel the gospel is good news because it is the reality of love in our hearts, in our lives, in our relationships, and there's agreement in love. So all of my relationships have been transformed by that love, and my relationship to myself and my relationship to the past, present, future, my relationship to my son. I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1:Do we want to be right or do we want to be love? You know, we certainly don't want to get wrong theology because it kills. But even if we had the right ones and we weren't loved, we didn't read it. Well, we need to go back and read it again 1 Corinthians 13,.
Speaker 2:If I have all understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I give my body to be burned and give everything I have to the poor but have not love, then I'm just a clanging cymbal. I'm a loud, annoying, empty thing.
Speaker 1:Nursing. So where are we going to go back? We're going to go back and find Sarah, swiping left, swiping right. You run into that girl. You have a chance to put your arm around her. What are you going to minister to her?
Speaker 2:I've thought a lot about this because I'm learning. The Holy Spirit is teaching me right now. Current events in my life are that Holy Spirit is teaching me that I probably wouldn't say anything. I probably would just put my arm around that person. I would put my arm around that little girl that's five years old and got sent to her room without dinner for eating between meals, and I would say it's okay to make mistakes.
Speaker 1:I love you that's powerful out beyond where the words are yeah, there's a field of love, field called love. Just meet me there thank you so much, sarah. I appreciate you coming on. Thanks, richard.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you having me. I Thanks, Richard. I appreciate you having me. I know we've gone back and forth about this.
Speaker 1:It was the right time.
Speaker 2:I think it's inaccurate to say that I wanted to be on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Did I say you wanted to be on the podcast?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't want to be on the podcast.
Speaker 1:I said you wanted to share.
Speaker 2:I wanted to share I think that's sort of inaccurate, because I didn't even. I don't even. So, I have a desire to have a daughter. Right, that's my desire. It's very deeply rooted desire that doesn't feel the same as my desire to share. It's like the other one was grafted into me by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit just said one day like hey, maybe if somebody hears your story they'll be encouraged, they will feel less alone, they will something. Whatever they need. Maybe you can, you can serve that. And I was like okay, that's it.
Speaker 1:Well, when we first started talking about this I don't know how long it was two or three years ago, it might be that long ago it was, it was three years. I'll tell you what I've grown since then, and I know you've grown since then, and God is just guiding us, yeah, and teaching us, and my motives have been needed to be checked by God. I'm sure your motives have been needed to be checked by God.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And we're going to keep stewarding our motives from truth and our ministry, just what you just said about just putting your arm around that person. Certainly, there is a time to minister and to speak life, but there's also a time to shut up and just sit in the silence with somebody as they're grieving, mourning, and that whole idea is just powerful.
Speaker 2:I think that's what I'm really journeying in is Holy Spirit, please, right now, in every moment, tell me whether I need to be present. Just the presence of god, as as um lived out through me, is what they need, or if they need something that has to do with words, because we do communicate with words. To be pursued in conversation is a part of love. It's one thing I'm learning. It's how I become friends with my husband, friends with my son, friends with my family, friends with my friends. It's how we become closer in relationship. So it is definitely important. It's part of love. But I think we sometimes I, sometimes I definitely get this backwards a lot where I think that it is love and it is not. It is love and it is not. The presence of God is love, and that does not require words. It sometimes will, but not it doesn't need it. So if I'm unsure, throw it away. If I'm unsure, if I need words, I can just be quiet.
Speaker 1:Thank you, sarah, appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Appreciate you, Richard.
Speaker 1:Wow, what she said at the end there was so powerful to me. Sometimes we think we have to have all of the answers, but then sometimes we just need to be loved in the way that we're just in the presence of God. And if you're struggling with that, if you're trying to figure out the secret place, this is for you, this prayer, father in heaven. Sometimes I just I'm waiting and waiting and waiting to hear a word from you. But I know that, even in the silence that you're there with me, know that, even in the silence that you're there with me, and so thank you for giving me peace and joy with just being able to sit with you in silence and to know that you love me and that I can move in that same love for other people. And yeah, if I need to say something, you'll give me that. But you have given me your presence so I can be present with others, and we thank you for guiding us and leading us to all truth. In Jesus's name, amen.
Speaker 1:You can join the Worthy of Everything Circle Bible Study. That is a great one. Check that out on loverealityorg. Check out Worthy of Everything with Jadra and Michaela. They're the best and I love their podcast. I love their Bible study. You should go check that out. Thank you so much. Love you all. Appreciate y'all. Bye. Thanks for watching.