Embarking on a profound journey through life's challenges, my brother TJ shares stories of resilience. He reflects on his childhood in a split family, touched by the warmth of two father figures. TJ's narrative delves into rebellion, high school experiences, spiritual growth, and finding solace in the gospel. His journey involves wrestling with panic and anxiety, celebrating transformation through faith. Join TJ as he witnesses the gospel's transformative power, inviting listeners to find solace in their journey towards freedom.
12:23 - Life's Journey With Religion and Family
25:15 - Journey Through Loss and Healing
29:25 - Life Transitions and Philosophical Pursuits
33:10 - MTV Reality Show and Skateboarding Passion
37:03 - Youthful Influences and Inner Convictions
40:15 - Struggles With Smoking and Drinking
45:55 - Breakdown of Senior Year Party Life
1:00:05 - Lost Touch With Spiritual Reality
1:03:46 - Spiraling Into Conspiracy Theories and Panic
1:19:56 - Journey Towards Legalism and Judgment
1:35:34 - Journey of Faith and Growth
1:46:39 - Misunderstanding and Finding Stability
1:54:22 - Journey to Embracing the Gospel
2:08:02 - Transformation Through the Gospel
2:13:08 - Power of the Gospel
2:26:40 - Freedom in Christ Through Faith
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📚 LEARN more at our site: lovereality.org
Embarking on a profound journey through life's challenges, my brother TJ shares stories of resilience. He reflects on his childhood in a split family, touched by the warmth of two father figures. TJ's narrative delves into rebellion, high school experiences, spiritual growth, and finding solace in the gospel. His journey involves wrestling with panic and anxiety, celebrating transformation through faith. Join TJ as he witnesses the gospel's transformative power, inviting listeners to find solace in their journey towards freedom.
12:23 - Life's Journey With Religion and Family
25:15 - Journey Through Loss and Healing
29:25 - Life Transitions and Philosophical Pursuits
33:10 - MTV Reality Show and Skateboarding Passion
37:03 - Youthful Influences and Inner Convictions
40:15 - Struggles With Smoking and Drinking
45:55 - Breakdown of Senior Year Party Life
1:00:05 - Lost Touch With Spiritual Reality
1:03:46 - Spiraling Into Conspiracy Theories and Panic
1:19:56 - Journey Towards Legalism and Judgment
1:35:34 - Journey of Faith and Growth
1:46:39 - Misunderstanding and Finding Stability
1:54:22 - Journey to Embracing the Gospel
2:08:02 - Transformation Through the Gospel
2:13:08 - Power of the Gospel
2:26:40 - Freedom in Christ Through Faith
💰 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.
Speaker 2:This is Death to Life so it was just a continued downward spiral, running from my problems and and running to alcohol, running to parties, running to drugs, running to the relationships that I still had. And then I don't remember how exactly it happened I went down the deep, deep rabbit hole of like conspiracy theories, like crazy conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1:Yo, welcome to the death to life podcast. My name is Rich and today's episode is with my brother, tj. This episode was recorded live. It was so much fun to do it in person. I wish we could do all of them in person, but TJ's story is wild and if you ever wanted to know about TJ, you're about to hear it all. So buckle up, strap in. This is tj, my brother. Love y'all. Appreciate y'all. What's up dude, what's up bro? So, uh, this is I don't know if this is the might be the fourth or fifth live podcast like that we I've done in person, uh, but it's the number. The first that I've done in the velvet lounge, yeah, and the first that I've done with the, with the studio audience, uh, but uh, yeah, man, how are you feeling today?
Speaker 2:oh, there's, there's heaviness, but I know by the end of this it's gonna be light. No, no, no. It's just like this story is heavy and like I've spent a lot of the past few days I've really been processing things and going back over and thinking about instances that I haven't thought about in a long time and realizing that, in light of the gospel, some of these stories that I haven't thought about since before I received the gospel, I'm seeing them completely different, like I'm seeing God's fingerprints on them. So it's cool, but it's also I've been a bundle of emotions. We'll get into that A glass case of emotions.
Speaker 1:All right, well, where, where, where are you taking us? Where are we starting this thing?
Speaker 2:I mean we just got to start from the beginning.
Speaker 1:That's what everyone says. That's what everyone says. That's where you got to start it. Where's the beginning?
Speaker 2:October 6, 1987. I was born.
Speaker 1:In Tuscaloosa Alabama, no, no, no, not yet Under Bear Bryant's grave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was born, and I was born into a connected home, and my mom and my dad were together, and within two years they were not together, so I experienced divorce before I could know what was going on or process anything. Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2:And so I grew up thinking that was normal. You know, like I lived with my mom for most of my life. I didn't. I lived with my dad, eventually like moved in with him, and it wasn't until my senior year, senior year in high school. And so I grew up with with my mom and then was visiting my dad and when we lived in the same place, in the same state, it was every other weekend I'd get to see my dad. But I moved a lot when I was a kid and so then there were times where I was only seeing him, like you know, at Christmas time and then summertime, but I thought it was normal. Once I got a little bit older I started to realize, like wait a second, okay, I got friends and they got mom and dad in the same house and they're not traveling to go see someone else. But I will say that what the enemy meant for evil, god used for good. What the enemy meant for evil, god used for good.
Speaker 2:Because I can honestly, with all of my heart, say that I have two fathers that love me, that care for me, that raised me, that mentored me, that nurtured me when I was I think I was six by the time my mom got remarried to my stepdad and he's he's just been a second father to me, and so I know that there's that trope of like the wicked step parent Sure, and I had some of those experiences on my dad's side.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're not my mom, yeah exactly Exactly, but never even to this day with my stepdad like he. He is just like I do. I view it that way. I have two dads and that's not a slight to my quote, unquote real father, um. It's more of a testament to my stepdad and just the man that he is and he doesn't have kids, but like he has me and he views me as his son.
Speaker 1:He has my brother, my older brother, who's a half brother, um views him as as his son I think there's like some kind of fear, I don't know, a fear about being a stepdad or a stepmom, like you're coming into that situation and you're like, oh, I don't know, and what a blessing you could be. Yeah, what a blessing you could be to those kids If, if you're walking in freedom, if you see the truth, if you're just like, yeah, this is about I'm gonna love, I'm gonna love this kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what a blessing you could be, and and he was that blessing and and I. I imagine that my brother David would say the same thing. And so, yeah, my, my brother David, is 11 years older than me and same mom, different dad, and so my my mom got pregnant in high school, 17, dropped out of high school, had a baby Not long after. That was a single mom. I never met my brother's dad, but he was, so she was.
Speaker 1:She got married to your dad and then that didn't work out and then she got married again and you're and your brother are 11 years no other way around my brother's, 11 years older okay yeah.
Speaker 2:So she, she got pregnant with my brother at 17, dropped out of high school, had him um didn't work out with, with my brother's dad. He was an alcoholic and I I think there was some some abuse there too. And then, you know, fast forward to really around the time. Not too long after my stepdad came into the picture, my brother was living with his dad and his dad died. His dad was like I don't know the exact age, but like late forties, early fifties, like really young and um, so my brother then came back to live with us and so, yeah, for my stepdad it's like he's got this little you know 17 year old boy in the home and like he just he handled it with so much grace and so, yeah, I'm just, I'm so, I'm so grateful for that and I've I've never had a moment in my life where I I doubted whether my dad, my stepdad or my mom loved me.
Speaker 1:Oh praise God man.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, that that, yeah, that's been a tremendous blessing. It was also around this time I believe I was around six we were in Georgia visiting some family and I was out on a dock with my great uncle, who ended up within a year of that passing away from cancer. But we were just chatting and he told me, he looked at me, he was like you're going to be a pastor one day, and then you know, like we came, in yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And then you know, like we came in yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I don't know what I said that day, but obviously I was, I was saying stuff or act in a certain way, and he just he picked up on it and I remember it like. I remember being out on that dock with him and I remember everybody else like piling on, like when we came in the house and I don't know if it was him or me that you know made that comment again of what he had said. And then you know everyone's like yeah, you would be such a great pastor.
Speaker 1:And what was the faith background? What, what were you?
Speaker 2:I grew up in the seventh Adventist church and as far back as I can remember I was going to go into Adventist church, going to Sabbath school, and my brother and I are very different. My brother is, is very shy, very quiet. He's kind of come out of his shell as, as he's gotten a little bit older. Shout out to my brother David, like I, just I love him so much and he is, he is such an example of Christ to me and so many people. But my mom would always joke that she she couldn't get my brother to go up front and sit with the other kids for the children's story and she was like, and TJ would go up there and tell the children's story and so, like I was just this outgoing kid and I was all about my Bible.
Speaker 2:I had so many Bibles when I was a kid because I'd just wear them out and I'd always memorize my memory verse for Sabbath school, I'd get my little gold star and I had all these Jesus cassette tapes, eventually Jesus VHS tapes, and, like you know, I was always watching those things, listening to those things, thinking about God, talking about God, and it was. It was good. Everything I remember from back then. It was good. Like I, I have a different understanding now. I see things differently now, like I understand the toxic things that can happen in church and the legalism that creeps into church, especially our particular denomination. It happens and it happens often, but I didn't really encounter that when I was younger, or God just shielded me from really comprehending it.
Speaker 1:Now, what a blessing. Yeah, like that foundation on religion or who God is that. I mean, you hear it on the podcast people. That's why I'm always asking that question who was God to you? Because if God is this taskmaster, who's like keep this or you die. Yeah, that's fear from from this, or you die. Yeah, that's fear from the jump right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me God was good, god was loving, god was kind, god was my friend, god was my protector.
Speaker 1:Let's go.
Speaker 2:That's how I felt and, as I said, we moved a lot. I lived with my mom and my stepdad. My stepdad was a just just a gifted leader, a gifted manager, and he was in general manager positions with restaurants and it was one of those things where we were constantly on the move because he would be brought in to a certain restaurant to either open a restaurant or to help save a failing restaurant. Were these like different chains, or was it the same company, different chains?
Speaker 2:I kind of know right off the top of my head. Have you ever been to Destin Florida?
Speaker 1:I can't. Maybe what's the restaurant?
Speaker 2:Okay, mcguire's Irish Pub. It's a big old restaurant and it's one of those places where you write your name on a dollar bill and they staple it to the ceiling. Oh, that sounds cool. And so they have hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra insurance taken out in case the building burns down, because there's literally like there's money in the banana stand. There's there's money on the ceiling. Um, but anyways, yeah, he built that thing and um Outback Steakhouse. There's this place. I vaguely remember, when I was a little fat Tuesdays, Is that?
Speaker 1:sounds familiar. I think that was beverage, though I think that's an alcoholic beverage.
Speaker 2:I think that was when we were in South Carolina and so, yeah, we moved a lot. It was, it was a lot of time in Florida, different cities in Florida, and then there was a year in Spartanburg, south Carolina.
Speaker 1:Spartanburg, south Carolina shout out to Ross Is that where? Um? The left-handed basketball player who plays for the Pelicans, zion Williamson, is from Spartanburg. Oh, maybe.
Speaker 2:I know there's a pastor Ross who is I can't remember now he's either currently pastor or used to pastor in that church that I grew up in, or at least for that year of my life, and I went to the church school, but, yeah, so we moved a lot and it was constant. It was if we were somewhere for two years, like that was a long time, but I was an outgoing kid, so it was. You know, it was tough, but I always made friends really easy, and so eventually there in Destin that was when I was in third grade I ended up getting baptized. Third grade, yeah, third grade, and pretty young. I came to my mom asking for it and it wasn't because I was being pressured into it or anybody else brought it up Like I'd seen it happen one day at church, and I was like I want that, I want that. And so you were a sincere, sweet kid. I was a sincere, sweet kid, I really was.
Speaker 2:I was a class clown, though, yeah, I was always in trouble in school and my mom always laughs about it when she talks about it now because she's like these teachers they would always they call me into the office, they'd call me into their classroom and they'd start going on and on about, like you know, all these things that TJ was doing, how he's disrupting the class and he's just the class clown, but it was always prefaced with like, but we love him so much and he is funny and it's hard for us because we want to laugh too and we can't because we're the teacher and we got to lay down the law and so, but I did, I liked attention, I liked the attention, I liked people to like me, and that is going to come up over and over throughout this story. But no, I was, I was sincere and I and I, I, I cared, I cared about people, I loved people and I loved the Lord. And so the pastor at the time, you know, he he kind of had the same reaction as you like third grade, that's young and so he did. He did some studies with me. He like came to my home once a week and I still remember this, and we go through these studies and he'd asked me these questions and and we go through the Bible and by the end of it, like you know, he told my mom. He's like I it's up to you, but I personally and he said this in front of me he's like I personally would struggle with telling this boy no. And so, yeah, I got baptized. I remember, I remember the day and my mom was there, my stepdad was there, my, my grandparents, mimi and pop-up, they were there. I remember pop and my mom was there, my stepdad was there, my, my grandparents, mimi and pop-up, they were there. I remember pop-up was so proud and, yeah, it was just, it was great, it was awesome, I loved it.
Speaker 2:And that was one of the few years that I was at a public school. We moved a lot, yes, but my, my mom and my stepdad thought it was very important and always just sacrificed to make it happen so that I could attend Christian schools. But that year I was at Destin Elementary School, but even then I was excited to get to school on Monday and tell all my classmates that I got baptized. And so it was. It was good. It was good and it was. It was fast forward a little bit.
Speaker 2:When I was in fifth grade, we moved to Alabama, and so I was. I was born in Florida, but you know, when people ask, like I, always you know where's home for you, where are you from? I always say Alabama Roll. So I was. I was born in Florida, but you know, when people ask, like I, always you know where's home for you, where are you from? I always say Alabama Roll, tide, roll, tide, roll, tide. That's where my heart is, that's where so many of my friends are, that's where my roots were really set down, that's where I still got family there, and so Alabama is home to me.
Speaker 1:That's the same thing for me. I grew up in Atlanta, but Kansas City. I got there in the fifth grade, I think. Those middle school years and then going into high school that's what you're yourself.
Speaker 2:And I was there. I was in Alabama from fifth grade until I went to college. I went to Swahoo and I was a late bloomer and we'll get into that. So I was in Alabama, I think for 13 years like solid, like in a row Sure Longest I've ever lived anywhere and part of the state Birmingham.
Speaker 1:Hoover.
Speaker 2:Specifically what?
Speaker 1:when were you in fifth grade? What year is that? Was it before 1995?
Speaker 2:No, it was after.
Speaker 1:I was going to say, cause we were going back, were going back, my family would go back and forth from atlanta to uh birmingham. And I'm thinking, did we ever cross paths? Because, uh, my uncle and aunt lived in uh in, uh, what's that little neighborhood in uh birmingham? But yeah, and I know, that mountain brook. They live in mountain bro, and so we would go to the Birmingham first church all the time and uh, yeah, so we didn't. I'm a little too old. We didn't cross paths.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I know, I know your, your aunt and uncle. Your uncle was actually the first person to teach me, show me, that Swahoo existed. I didn't even know it existed Southwestern Adventist university, and it was. It was your Daniel Young, it was, it was Daniel Young.
Speaker 1:Strong personality. Love him.
Speaker 2:If you're listening to this, uncle Dan, he pulled me aside and was like have you ever considered Southwestern Adventist University? You'd get a good education there.
Speaker 1:I'm like what he's a convincing guy too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it was there. It was at the Birmingham First Church, it was in the sanctuary and he kind of pulled me aside and had me backed up to a pew.
Speaker 1:And my uncle. He's formidable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and and so yeah, I know, I know your cousin.
Speaker 1:Love, love, yeah. So you grew up in in Birmingham. Yeah, the main adolescence there in Birmingham, the main adolescence there, yeah, what was that like?
Speaker 2:Man, it was great. So much of it was great until it wasn't but no, it was just. I lived again. Can't say enough good things about my mom and my stepdad, but they got to a point where they realized this is a struggle for this young boy. We cannot keep moving all the time. And some of the times that we moved we would move into a neighborhood and there'd be like no kids and then I'd be at some little private school, sometimes driving 30, 45 minutes to get there.
Speaker 2:So it was. It was. It was tough. I made it work. I was talking to someone recently about how crazy it is looking back on it now because, specifically I remember times in South Carolina where there weren't many kids in the neighborhood. There was one boy who lived down the street but he was all into sports and extracurricular activities so he was never home and so I would just go through the neighborhood and I made friends with adults and I remember there was this old man and like I would go up in his house and like play video games on his computer, eat his food and stuff, and like you can't do that now.
Speaker 1:No, you can't do that now, Like in the 90s, like it wasn't. I'm trying to think was it a scare? I think parents are way more protective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think if my mom knew a lot of it because I was just like I'm at- Big Jim over here and we're playing Mario. Yeah, I'd be like. You know, I'm going out to play. That's what I always said. But then there was this other like Sorry Mom, this is a nightmare.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I think I've talked to her about some of this since then. But then there was this, their house too, and like I'd go in the backyard and play with their puppy, um, but anyways, you know, my mom and my stepdad decided, like when we moved to Alabama, we're going to settle, we're going to stay. And that's when my stepdad got with Outback Steakhouse and he did he's, he settled, he stayed.
Speaker 1:He's like I found this blooming onion. It's a delicious appetizer. We're not leaving, and that brown bread.
Speaker 2:And they also decided we are, we're going to pick a neighborhood that has a lot of kids. And so we moved in this neighborhood called Russet Woods and sometimes we refer to it as Russet World because it's just massive, like you can get lost in that place and every few houses there's a kid. And so I had just so many friends just on my street and it was amazing. And so I was going to the little church school there at the Birmingham first Seventh-day Adventist church and I went there from fifth through eighth grade and it was during that time that a big, something big happened in my life, like a transformative experience happened, and that was my, my grandfather, my pop up that I'd mentioned. He got cancer and died real quick.
Speaker 2:It was they were living in a Montgomery at the time, about an hour and a half from us in Birmingham, so like we saw them all the time, all the time and I was just always close to Mimi and Pop-Pop and he. They went, they went on a family trip out to California and while they were there he developed this cough and kept coughing and just wouldn't go away. So he came back home and he went to the doctor and they did some scans and thought that, like you know, they saw some spots on his lungs and they thought it was like this fungus or something. Like this fungus or something. And they had this little bird that they'd gotten named buddy and they assume, like, well, maybe it has something to do with, you know, dander or something from the bird. So they got rid of the bird.
Speaker 2:He was in the hospital for a little while, then got out. Wasn't much improvement Eventually. It just kept getting worse. Then went down to atlanta and um, that's where he ended up dying uh, from from the. If I remember correctly the time that we got the, the cancer diagnosis, to the time that he died, like it was only like two or three weeks oh mercy and I remember we were.
Speaker 2:We were at outback Steakhouse eating with family. I don't even remember who all was there I think maybe my brother and my sister-in-law were there, but I know my mom was there and so my mom got a phone call on her cell phone. And we're sitting there in the restaurant, like in the booth, and then she just like burst into tears, just crying, just like melting into the booth and just like inconsolable and we're just like what is going on. And so it was rough, man, and we went, we went up to Atlanta and I saw him in the hospital and you know, I had, I had that time with him and got to say the goodbyes, but it was just like.
Speaker 2:It was rough because, like this was like a, like a big, strong man and he had just, you know, in a matter of weeks just became skin and bones and it just it broke my heart and I couldn't handle it. And it got to the point where, like the last week of his life, like I wasn't there and I didn't see him, I was like I got to go back home. I can't, I don't want this to be my last memory of him. And so he passed away like I got to go back home. I can't, I don't want this to be my last memory of him and um, so he passed away and just our whole family, like we were just wrecked, just distraught, and um, you know, I was when my mom was up there in Atlanta while he was dying, I was staying with my brother and um sister-in-law she was pregnant with their first child and um, anyways, going back to the buddy thing, their bird, I remember this, this one thing that pop-up said there in the hospital as he was dying, um still had his sense of humor, he he kind of chuckled and he was like buddy got a bad rap because like they got rid of this bird, thinking he was the problem and it was cancer, you know, and I'll never forget that.
Speaker 2:But anyway, so I was, I was with my brother and just like I was so distraught and like every night I was throwing up and I I am what many people might label like an empath, like I just I feel I feel emotional, dude, yeah, and I feel things strong and I feel my own emotions very strong, but I feel other people's emotions very strong and that has been a a continual thing throughout my life. But this is that moment where, like it really took over and um, so yeah, I just, I remember being at my brother's and just throwing up every night and like, cause, I was just so upset and um, eventually, you know that that got passed and um, it was not too long after he passed away, that April my sister-in-law had had her baby. In April my sister-in-law had her baby and my nephew Drew was born and like, he's a grown man now and it's just like, oh, it's so crazy. Love, love, love him. I can't, I want to call him a kid, but he's not a kid anymore, he's taller than me. But yeah, that was it.
Speaker 2:Was it helped with the healing?
Speaker 2:Sure, you know, to have this little baby come and um, you know, that was the first, the first for for my mom and my stepdad like to be, you know, grandparents and um, so that that helped with the healing.
Speaker 2:But I, I started now I know what it is, but at the time I didn't recognize it Um started experiencing a little bit with like anxiety and um, I think it was because I would feel emotion so strongly that the negative emotions like I wouldn't want to process them, like I'd run from them, I'd stuff them down, I'd hide from them, and because I was stuffing down my emotions, my brain took over and so this was really a pivot in my life, like I'd always loved scripture and I'd always loved knowledge and science and all of that sort of stuff. But it was strengthened at this point in my life because the emotions that I was feeling a lot of were hurtful and I didn't want that. So I was like, all right, well, I'm going to make a shift and I'm going to be all about knowledge, all about thinking, all about theology and philosophy.
Speaker 1:And so even then were you at this point?
Speaker 2:Um, I don't know. Probably I think I was 12 maybe when pop-up yeah, I think it's like I was just.
Speaker 1:I'm emotional, you're emotional, my son is super emotional. When our dog died, my son, I think, started experiencing anxiety in a big way and it's because it's like I don't think he understood it until we came home. You're like, no, but he's like he's not coming back and it's just like these traumatic moments and you don't know how to deal with it. Yeah, and then you're gonna go in one direction or something. Yeah, yeah, and like I think, yeah, it gets kind of heavy yeah, and that then created its own problems.
Speaker 2:No, and my mom still brings this up, but there were many times where, like late at night, middle of the night, I would like come into her bedroom crying because I was thinking so much and I'd be crying and be like like what?
Speaker 4:What is eternity? Like how, how, why, what, why, what I'm going to be? I'm going to get bored Like I'm going to have done everything fun that's possible a million times and it's going to be boring by then.
Speaker 2:And then I'm going to be stuck with boredom for eternity and like, just you know just going off and you know so my mom would, you know, do her best to try to calm me down. But yeah, it was just, I was going more and more into my head and I was always thinking about things and pursuing answers. Like I felt there was a level of power there that I can ask questions that a lot of other people aren't asking and I can find answers to those questions and that gives me power, that gives me comfort, that gives me authority, which that's going to play a part in the story later. But yeah, so pop up, dying was, was, was a shift and I then I went into was, going into high school, and I decided at that point, like I don't want to be in a private school anymore, I'm going to go to a public school.
Speaker 2:And I'd been going to that little church school from fifth to eighth grade, but it was small, like my graduating eighth grade class. There were four of us and yeah, shout out to Jonathan, justin and Ebony, if y'all are listening, appreciate you guys, love y'all. But yeah, I was just, I was ready, I was ready for the big time and I'd also at this, you know, over the years I'd built more and more relationships with kids in the neighborhood, and so you know they were going to public school, so they were going to be going to this public high school or they were, you know, going to be there in the next year or two, you know, depending on the age. And so is this a Hoover.
Speaker 1:Is this the public high school or high school? This is where Jameis Winston went to school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Crab legs and all. Oh wait, no, no, no, not Jameis Winston, not Jameis Winston, that's FSU.
Speaker 1:No, but he's from Birmingham, isn't he?
Speaker 2:I don't think he's from Birmingham. Jameis is from Birmingham, it wasn't Hoover.
Speaker 1:It means nothing. Sorry to the listener, keep going.
Speaker 2:But when I was there all four years my school they were 6A state champs in football. We a an mtv reality show was filmed there called two a days at at hoover high school. Really, um, I think that the biggest name at the time was chad jackson, I think was his name. He was a. He was a wide receiver, he was a senior when I was a freshman and he went on to I think he was. He was drafted by the Patriots. Um, didn't, you know, didn't last too long in the NFL. But since then, like, yeah, there've been so many um athletes from Hoover that have gone on to Alabama Hueytown. Is that near Hueytown? Is that near Hoover, hueytown? Yeah, it's not too far.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's where James went.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, and so it was. It was. It was wild, bro, like having MTV film a reality show in your high school. That would be wild. Like going to parties and having cameras there. Like I'll, I'll get to that, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta work up to that. So before before parties, I did. I eventually I went to Hoover high school and so I went from a school that had like 35 kids total age you know from grades kindergarten to eight to a school with, you know, like 2,500 students in four grades.
Speaker 2:What was that like, bro? It was crazy, but I loved it again. It's just like I make friends. You want to be where the people are. I want to be where the people are, and I was one of those people that, like I was. I was like a skater kid, but I didn't just hang out with the skater kids. Like I was friends with cheerleaders, I was friends with football players. I was friends with the, you know, AP biology nerds.
Speaker 1:I know I asked this question all the time and some people don't like it on the podcast. I don't care. What kind of music were you listening to at this point?
Speaker 2:Oh, at the time I would have said punk rock, but like what is really pop punk, you know? Like my chemical romance or something like that Eventually, but no, before that I like I was huge in Blink-182. Big Blink-182 fan, Specifically their older stuff like Dude Ranch. I was always cranking that out On the way to school, on the bus, I was listening to them. And then I listened to some heavier stuff too and I liked HUWK yeah, Limp Bizkit. Sadly that was like middle school.
Speaker 4:I did not need to be listening to Limp Bizkit in middle school.
Speaker 1:No one needs to listen to that music, and you were listening to it in middle school.
Speaker 2:But I was, yeah, but no, music was. It was a big part of my life and it was, it was shaping me. And so, because I was listening to that pop, punk music, I was. I was drawn to the, the, the skate scene, sure, and so I, you know, I got my skateboard and I was horrible. You got to try, right, I got to try. And I had some friends that were good, like really good, like they're going to get sponsored by Vans, yeah, and some of them were getting sponsorships, and so I, I learned pretty quickly, within a year of my skating journey, like I'm not a skater, they're surpassing me, but I love to be on this board and someone needs to have a camera. Ooh, so I got, I was, I was the, the, the video camera guy.
Speaker 1:Right behind in the board.
Speaker 2:Just yeah, yeah, and I, I loved it. And so all through high school, after high school, I mean I mean I have, I have bags and bags of like high eight cassette tapes of skateboarding yeah, just parties and stupid stuff but then also like little movies that we would make. I was real big into that and and at that point, all through high school, like I was, I'm going to film school. I'm going to film school and if I don't get to film school then I'm going to culinary school as a back, uh, culinary school as a backup.
Speaker 1:What? Who was your favorite director? Like what were you really in the film like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um George Romero, John Carpenter, Really Uh, I thought you were going to be like Spielberg, or something? No, no, no no, no, like, I like the thing.
Speaker 2:Horror, horror, Like I just horror.
Speaker 1:Horror was my my vibe, George Romero like that's the zombie movies, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Night of the Living Dead, dawn of the Dead, day of the Dead. Yeah, so George Romero was a big hero of mine. John Carpenter big hero of mine. Halloween, favorite movie, the Fog, probably second favorite movie, so it was more of a— Don't watch these movies.
Speaker 1:if you're listening, don't watch these movies.
Speaker 2:if you're listening, don't watch them. It was more of like an indie vibe that I liked and you know I'd watch the big movies, the Spielberg movies and the Nolan movies and stuff. But I like that indie vibe a little bit more and so, yeah, that's what I wanted to do. And it's funny because one of my best friends shout out to Mark he did, he went to Alabama and studied film. And did?
Speaker 2:he went to alabama and studied film and then he went to use usc film school, yeah and now he's like he's working in hollywood, he's, he's a dp, he's, he's behind that camera and he says, bro, all those stupid videos, those stupid movies we made in high school, like you, are the reason why I fell in love with film and this is my career and he's doing okay out there, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So high school it was fun, freshman year, sophomore year into junior year like I was just having fun, you know, and I was. I was making friends and um meeting girls, meeting girls that was with the ladies, was it was. It was it time for the ladies, it was time for the ladies, and I was like I was obsessed, but like I was loyal. Like if I had a girl sincere, sweet kid, yeah. And if I had a girlfriend, like I am, I'm yours. Like you have all of me.
Speaker 1:You're very romantic too, aren't you? Yeah, some of my romancing at at that time, though I'm sure it was lacking, I know. But just like the way you think everything's flowery and like, yeah, yeah, I'm devoted to you, like that's what I mean by romantic, like a hopeless romantic, yeah, yes 100, so my heart was constantly broken in high school, sad just constantly broken, I'm giving it all up for you yeah exactly
Speaker 2:baiting the quarterback now, okay, um, but up until my second semester of junior year I was still like just say no when it came to drugs, when it came to alcohol, like, and I I'd go to certain parties, that where that stuff was happening, I had friends that were doing that stuff. But like I would never do that and that stuff was happening, I had friends that were doing that stuff, but like I would never do that and and I was cool with it.
Speaker 1:So when you're in like Christian school or you know private school you tell me if I'm wrong you think that people who do drugs are like the bad guys on TV. And then when you get around like normal society, you realize like everybody's doing drugs. Right yeah, when that hit you were, were you like. Then it became more of a little option because you're not, you don't have to be a bad person to do drugs yeah, for sure, it was always an option and I wasn't terrified of it, but it was.
Speaker 2:It was a conviction, like I. Really I can honestly say that I felt, you know this conviction from God that like you don't need that, you don't have to do that. And there was a little bit to my growing up, my dad smoked cigarettes and then a lot of the ladies that he dated, and then this one lady who was my stepmom for a number of years. Um, you know, they smoked a lot of cigarettes and they'd like smoke in the car and stuff and so and I hated it, the smell of cigarettes makes me nauseous still to this day. And it's funny like I can be very stubborn and hard-headed and that is something I've consistently been stubborn and hard-headed about, because we'll get into all these drugs that I've never smoked a cigarette.
Speaker 1:I've never smoked a cigarette, but it reminds me of Arrowhead stadium, so when I smell it I'm like the chiefs are winning or something like that, so it's not a bad idea for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, for me it makes me nauseous and, like it was, it was a thing too like again with girls like I could. I could meet this girl that, like I, was super attracted to and then I found out she smoked cigarettes, like nah, and and she would she'd, she'd like drop down on the scale in my mind and, um, I was just I. I realize it now, but at the time I didn't know specifically. But yeah, it's just because, like I hated that my dad smoked cigarettes, because I hated the smell. It made me nauseous and I understood like the health impact on it and like, yeah, I thought it was just completely stupid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I knew like if I ever dated a girl who smoked cigarettes and I found out, I'm like oh, that's a deal breaker, that's done. Yeah, or even alcohol or anything like that, and uh, I wasn't there.
Speaker 2:Like alcohol, yeah, if you want to drink, that's fine. Which became a nightmare eventually with some of the girls that I dated, because, like, when you're in high school and you're starting to drink alcohol, like there's no self-control. For the most part, for most, for most kids, there's no self-control and so it's like it's drinking until you can't walk, it's drinking until you're puking, it's drinking until you're just like so out of it and um, yeah, so it was a struggle. Um, for whatever reason, I I never got that way, even once I started drinking. So junior year, second semester, junior year, I started drinking like recreationally the first time you was it?
Speaker 1:did you feel pretty bad about it or were you just like ah, who cares?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, at that point it was just like no, this is fun, I'm with my friends, no big deal. And again, I think that there's something to be said for the fact that I, I was raised in private school and then I got into public school and it took a few years, but a lot of those convictions that I had, a lot of the foundation that was built, started to crumble, and so it was easier for me to to brush off these convictions that I had. And so, no, I I can't say I felt guilt. There was the in the back of my mind, like my mom cannot find out about this, right, but there wasn't guilt, it was really. It was probably about this time that I truly believe that I was. I was muting the Holy Spirit's voice in my life. And so Changes started happening in my life, in my mind, and, yeah, I started.
Speaker 2:I started looking at girls a little bit differently and by that point, like my heart had been broken a couple of times and so I was like in this, like I'm going to get mine, sure, you know. And so I was less of a hopeless romantic and more of a like let's have some fun. And it became kind of like a game, and I'd still get my heart broken because, like, even in the midst of like the game, I was still loyal, like loyal to a fault. But I had a lot of girls that you know weren't loyal in that way, and so I'd get my heart broken. And um, it was just like this constant up and down thing with girls. But then the drinking started picking up, the partying started picking up and eventually it got to this place where my junior prom I was dating this girl we went to prom.
Speaker 2:At prom, we went, we like, we, we. A limo was rented, like multiple parents got together and rented this limo, and so there were like three couples that went in this limo. One of them was one of my buddies and the girl that he brought, which I was, you know, I knew her, we had had class together and there was this one point where we had stopped somewhere in the limo and everybody had got out to like go to the bathroom or whatever, and me and this other girl stayed in the limo and there she told me like you know, I've liked you like ever since I knew you like why have we never gotten together? And I, I took that to heart and so I went, I went through prom, went with my date, all of that, and then it was like we are all, we're going our separate ways, going home, get changed out of our prom outfits, and then we're going to this party. So I take this girl home and I drop her off and I'm just like yeah, so this ain't working out.
Speaker 2:So like I dumped my girlfriend on prom night.
Speaker 1:What a jerk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly, I was a jerk Mercy. Thankfully I had the opportunity years later to like, reconcile and like. Let her know. Like, hey, I'm sorry, I know. I was a jerk Because the girl in the limo sorry well, and it was completely apparent to her that that's what it was.
Speaker 1:So, all night, you were just mailing it in, you weren't actually locked in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, locked into the prom and then I went to this party with this other girl and then eventually started dating her and then we dated for like a year and a half. So, like it was, there was no surprise in terms of you know, my girlfriend, that I dumped, why it happened and that I was just jumping right that interesting.
Speaker 1:Before she said that in the limo were you like attracted to her or like even thought about it. And then she says this thing in the limo, yeah, I guess I'll just change my life.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I like I'd always thought she was cute and she was fun and stuff like that, but she'd she'd been dating this guy you know for years, like pretty much all of high school to that point and so, like you know, I it's one of the they're always together, they'll always be together.
Speaker 2:And then they broke up, Um, but I was already dating this other girl, so I didn't think much at it, but then that was said and I just went for it. So just I just share that to to give you the idea of where, where my heart and my mind was and how it had changed. Because I was loyal to a fault in terms of like I'm not going to cheat on you, but I wasn't loyal enough that, like I'm not going to break your heart on prom based on nothing that you have done and just my selfish desires. And so, like the loyalty was starting to break down as well, the loyalty and just my convictions, my heart, my mindset. And so then my senior year was, like you know, going to parties a lot and stuff like that. And then it was graduation night, graduated high school, we went to a party, and it was eight nights in a row of just partying, just just getting so drunk.
Speaker 1:This, this is like a movie for me, like I've never experienced this, like you were really going after it that hard. I went hard. Does your, your mom and stepdad do they know?
Speaker 2:Oh, they know now.
Speaker 1:But like, were they, did they care? Or I mean, I guess they didn't know in the moment.
Speaker 2:Cause it was. You know, I just lie. Well, no, I take that back. Senior year I moved in with my dad. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:My dad and my of my mom have very different philosophies and so my mom is very much like you will not do this. These are the rules, like be safe. Yeah, my dad's like make some mistakes and learn from them, and so, yeah, it was kind of uh, just whatever with my dad and and my dad at this point like he's single, and so I moved in with him in this house nice four bedroom house, I think it was yeah, four bedroom house, and he worked out of town.
Speaker 2:So he would be there on a weekend and then Sunday he would go out of town. He'd be gone that whole week. He'd be gone that next weekend, the whole week, and then come back in town on Friday and be there.
Speaker 1:You were at the house for two weeks by yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for years.
Speaker 1:That's not good.
Speaker 2:So that house became the party house. Yeah, it did so. Yeah, graduated high school, eight nights in a row just pandemonium. And I eventually I then, not too long into that summer, I broke up with this girl that I'd been dating since, you know, junior prom. And then, like I just went buck wild, like I just I just it was just nine nights in a row of partying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like that's all me and my friends group, that's what we thought about. It's like where are we going to party tonight? Yeah, like that's all me and my friends group, that's what we thought about. It's like, where are we going to party tonight? And it was that summer, too, that I decided like let's, let's open the door to other drugs, not just alcohol. And so I started smoking weed. And then that led into pills, abusing prescription drugs, not knowing the dangers of mixing alcohol and prescription drugs. And I just decided that I was going to be the life of the party and I was Like everybody loved me. I'd show up and like people would cheer because they knew like I was like everybody loved me. I'd show up and like people would cheer because they knew like I was going to do something crazy.
Speaker 2:I was going to do something funny crazy do something crazy and there God is so good. It's funny, Like even in the midst of all that, even in the midst of the craziness, I always ended up like I could be so drunk. But I was that guy at the party like helping take care of people that were sick, helping take care of people that weren't feeling well and like so, like my heart my heart was still there for people like that sweetness.
Speaker 2:It was still there, but it was. It was hidden under a lot of other selfish desires at that point, Absolutely. And so more, more and more drugs, drugs and more drugs. And it just kept ramping up and ramping up and I'm not proud of this and I've talked to my dad about it. But it got to the point where, like I stole drugs from my dad, my dad had this arm surgery and his doctor gave him a prescription to hydrocodone and I started taking them and then I was like giving some to friends and I was like I'm just going to take this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just going to take this whole bottle.
Speaker 2:And so I did and I blamed it. My dad eventually realized it and I blamed it. My dad eventually realized it and I blamed it on my friends. I was like, well, you know, I've had these parties, so somebody must have come in here and stole it. Yeah, it was me, it was your son, it was your son that stole it. Like I said, he knows now, but at the time, just shift the blame, just shift the blame. But that bottle of pills, it almost killed me. I OD'd. One night I went to a party. One of my friends' apartment was drinking, just drinking heavily, just just shots beer, shots beer. Um, it was one of my friend's birthdays that night and I was already just goners, I, I, I needed to chill and she like pulled me into the bathroom with her and she was like, hey, like it's my birthday, will you take some extra birthday shots with me? And she had like a like a high end liquor that she was keep, she kept it hidden from the rest of the party. Good stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so she's like take some shots with me. And so I did, and I'd already take a couple of these pills and it really it wasn't too long. It was within probably 20 minutes of that, those last shots that like the world was spinning and I was just like so hot I was just profusely sweating. And so I went outside and it was like 20 degrees outside and I'm out there in flip flops and shorts, no shirt. I'd taken my shirt off and I was just like leaned up against the side of the like, sat down back against the side of the apartment and just like just leaning over, just vomiting, just projectile vomiting, just over and over and over.
Speaker 2:And, um, like I I didn't realize it at the time, but like I know now like I OD'd, like I should have died, and what I did was I'd planned to spend the night at this apartment and so like I had a big comforter that I had in my car that I was gonna bring in and like sleep on the floor or the couch or wherever I could find. So I went down to my car and I like crawled into the passenger seat and just covered myself up with the blanket and just like pass out, so like I could have like died in my car and nobody would have known. Knew, yeah, right, Like. And the next day there were like I. The next morning, when I did wake up, I went back into the apartment like where were you, we were all looking for you.
Speaker 2:You were here and then you were gone and that day was horrible, Like I was so hung over and just dehydrated. I remember one of my buddies who just passed away last year. Um, he, he was going to the gas station and he was picking up, you know, snacks and drinks for people and I was like, get me a Gatorade AM. Like I need, I need electrolytes. And I remember like I couldn't even keep it down. I was just in the shower, like taking little sips and just throwing it up and, um, this is the death portion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was, it was, it was real death.
Speaker 2:And again, like I should be dead, I should be dead. And like it's only by the grace of God I'm not mercy. I believe that with all my heart and um. So that kind of woke me up, just just a little bit, but then I just kept on sleeping in terms of what was going on in my life. Um, but it did. I did shift. I shifted away from the pills and I started to experiment with psychedelics.
Speaker 1:I started taking LSD, you weren't scared of taking LSD.
Speaker 2:A little bit. There was a little trepidation, but after I did it the first time, I loved it.
Speaker 1:I don't understand drugs man, because for me I'm like don't do that. Yeah. That'll mess with your mind and everyone's like, but I would like my mind to be messed with, and so I don't.
Speaker 2:Well, that's how I felt about like meth and crack and cocaine, like I never did any of those hard drugs, but like so I was. I was dropping acid and one of my buddies was growing hallucinogenic mushrooms in his bedroom at his parents house. Naturally, yeah, and like they. They just thought, like he loved fungus, he loved mushrooms.
Speaker 4:Like I remember one of his people, one of his graduation gifts.
Speaker 2:They got him a book about mushrooms here. Here you go, son. And so anyways, we were. You know he was growing these shrooms and we were taking these shrooms and you know, most of the time we were having these hallucinogenic trips at my dad's house while he was out of town, and you know this was going on intermittently for about a year. But there was this one trip that I had. You know, you've probably heard the term of like a bad trip. I had a horrible trip. I remember we we'd upped the dosage naturally.
Speaker 2:And and on top of that we done our research, you know. So we saw. The last time that we did it we made like shroom tea and we read that like we'll gather the shrooms from that and put them in a little ziploc and freeze it, and the next time you make shroom tea with fresh shrooms, add that in and you'll get a little bit of extra psilocybin as you do, yeah and so we did that.
Speaker 2:we upped the dosage and added the last bit, and apparently there's something with vitamin C and the way that it reacts and it can heighten your trip. So we squirted all this lemon juice in this tea and we broke open all of these vitamin C tablets and was putting them in there.
Speaker 1:What's the goal was putting them in there and like what's the goal? Is the goal to be like like tripping for longer, or the trip is just like so intense that your like face melts off?
Speaker 2:yeah, more intense the trip doesn't really last longer. Like it lasts long with, with, with lsd, like you're pretty much like you're tripping for 12 hours, oh really, with shrooms it's like six to eight hours. So it was not not so much elongating the trip but making it more intense nor mcdonald's.
Speaker 1:Like lsd, you get more bang for your drug buck yeah yeah, because it's just a little bit.
Speaker 2:It's literally like the, the, the blotter. It's blotter paper is what it's called. It's just like a little square of paper, teeny, tiny, like smaller than your fingernail, and it's just a drop of this liquid on that and you put it on your tongue and then within an hour, it starts and um so anyways, with with this shroom trip, we wanted, we, we wanted to lose touch with reality and I did, and it was horrifying. Um, I didn't know who I was, I didn't know what I was like. It was really like these, just these crazy thoughts, all these voices in my head all at once. It was like a million different questions were being asked all at once and I didn't have any answers. I couldn't even grasp, like some of these questions that were being asked. And I remember the example of a question that was asked example of a question that was asked.
Speaker 2:No, like it was so confusing, um, but it was. It was just like about about life and spirit and eternity and and history and just all sorts of stuff, like we were listening to this music that was. It was essentially like in a tribal, african sort of music with a lot of drums and chanting, and I remember like, as I was starting to come up on this drug, I was listening to that and I was under my comforter with my eyes closed, and I felt like I was some Aboriginal tribal person and that I was walking through this cave. Again, I'm laying there on my bed under the covers, but I I felt like I was literally walking through this dark cave. And as I got deeper into the cave, there were these cave paintings on the wall, but they were moving, they were shifting, it was like a, a movie almost, and then it was all these bright colors and splashes, and then I don't know how else to describe it other than like I was seeing colors that don't exist. And then I was like tasting the colors and hearing the colors and it's just like you, you can't describe it. It was just, it was. It was insanity and all of this was happening and it kept getting stronger and stronger, and then the voices, and so then then I thought that I was in like a very dark tent and the rest of my tribe were chanting and dancing around the outside of it, and so like I felt like I was supposed to be having some experience, but I didn't know what it was, and I was just, I was, I was just freaked out.
Speaker 2:Your buddy was there, yeah, and I did I. I was like, could you tell that your buddy was there? Yeah, and I did I. I had all these things I wanted to ask him and what I wanted to say was like this is too much. I really can't handle this. I need some sort of grounding. Are you feeling this too? But what? I said to him was do you feel weird?
Speaker 2:And so of course he had nothing for me, and that was the other thing. He didn't say anything and for like a couple more hours on this trip he wouldn't say anything. And he told me later like I couldn't, I couldn't respond. And then there were times he's like I thought I was responding.
Speaker 1:Have you heard the Paul McCartney story where he's so high on drugs that he figures out the answer to life yeah, and he writes it down. And then he wakes up later and he goes to see what he wrote down. And he wrote down there are seven levels. Yeah. That's it. That's the answer.
Speaker 4:But in the moment, in the moment there were all these other pieces Like there's seven levels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I have that. I still. I still have this journal where I did, I made all these crazy drawings while I was tripping on acid and shrooms and yeah, just, it looks like. It looks like an insane person wrote, drew this, wrote this.
Speaker 1:Was this a moment where, after you come out of this thing, or are you like I don't know about all this stuff?
Speaker 2:Yes and no. So again, my friend wasn't talking. That was freaking me out more. Like I needed him to be there with me and I felt like I was alone. Plus, it eventually got to the point where, like I didn't know who he was. He was a stranger in my house and when I looked at his face it was as if his face was blurred, smeared. It's kind of like a Photoshop tool where you can just like, smear some image.
Speaker 1:I don't like any of this. That's what he looked like I don't like this.
Speaker 2:And then I had this moment. I was pacing around my house and I didn't know where I was and I was just pacing and pacing and pacing. I went out on the back deck and I laid down on the deck and I had like an out of body experience Like I. I was floating up in the air like up in the trees, looking down at my body curled up in the fetal position on the porch, and I thought I died. But I was also like okay with it. Like at that point I was like, well, at least this hell has ended. But then, from that point I started to come down a little bit grasped reality. One of my buddies texted me and said something about work. The next day I was like, oh, I have a life, I have a job, I'm TJ, I'm a human, like it's just like you know, all these things that we take for granted.
Speaker 2:Like it came flooding back to me, but it was rough man Like. I was kind of in a daze for a few days after that and I was questioning a lot about life, lot about life and, um, I, I realized at that point that I had lost touch with the, this, the spiritual aspect of my life. Yeah, at this point, God is just like nature. Essentially, that's really where I was. God is this spirit and he's all around us. He's, he's, he's in us, and not the way that we talk about, about like you know, the Holy Spirit is in us. It's more of like I'm a God, you're a God. That bookshelf is a God, that tree is a God. God speaks through us, through nature, when I talk to this tree.
Speaker 1:So the God of the Bible was not really a thing anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at that point I'd started questioning the Bible and the history of the Bible and the creation of the Bible and like, oh, these just man's thoughts and desire to control the masses, and you know those sorts of arguments were coming in. I didn't not believe in God. I never, I've never, been to a point where, like I'd be, like I'm an atheist, but my concept of God had shifted so much from the Christian perspective that I was raised with. So I wanted to touch back with that spiritual side of things. I felt like that was missing.
Speaker 2:But because I was doing so many hallucinogenic drugs and my friends were, and we were listening to these like I don't know, like new age prophets, essentially, um, I, I went pretty deep into that, like new age spirituality, and it was essentially the concept that there is no truth, because it's all truth. And the way that I looked at it is like if you go through a buffet and there's all these different options but you get to choose what you put on your plate. And so the world of religion, whether it's Christianity, whether it's Islam, whether it's it's Hinduism, I went through the line and I took what I like and put it on my plate. So I went through the line and I took what I like and put it on my plate, and what I didn't like I left behind. So I sort of, you know, built my own religious system, my own spirituality. Nice, yeah, I thought so at the time Like I thought I was brilliant. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thought I had all the answers, but it eventually it led nowhere. Good. Good, it led to more confusion. It led to more shakiness in the foundations of my life and I was, I, pulled away from a lot of my friends too. Like there was a small group of friends that were sort of in the same mindset as me and doing these same particular drugs and um, but a lot of my other friends I'd I'd pulled away from. I was dating a girl at this time too and we'd we'd been dating for a year, year and a half or so at this point and she was kind of going down that similar path as me, but not as hardcore. Um, but then I just like I was running. I was running from these questions because of the you know, yes, they're all the just crazy questions when I was tripping, but when I was more sober I wasn't ever actually sober, like I was always high on something. But like when I was more sober I would have these questions about life and my past and my foundation and Jesus and God and eternity and all this stuff. But I was like, no, this is good, this spirit. You know, let me grab this crystal, let me hug this tree, like I'm good with that.
Speaker 2:But I was running, I was running from a lot of things and eventually again with the breakdown of a lot of my friendships in the area and starting to break down relationships with my family, and not because of anything they did, but because of me. Like my, my dad saw some of this and he let my mom in on some of it, so she was reaching out and so, like some of my, my family knew and they were questioning me and asking me about stuff and wanting you know, wanting what's best for me. But I took all that as an attack and so I was like I don't want to have this conversation and so I ran and I ran to Tuscaloosa, ran to T-Town my, my good friend at the time was was going there to go to school. My girlfriend at the time was going to Alabama to go to school, and so I was like I'll move to Tuscaloosa. You know, be close to my girlfriend, be able to be just going to get a job out there.
Speaker 1:You weren't planning on going to school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so at this time I was working for a special events lighting company and it was centered outside of Birmingham, so it was just like I'm just going to travel back and forth.
Speaker 2:Most of the work was like on the weekends, um, most of the work was like on the weekends and um, so, yeah, I was, I was doing that and, and my, my buddy, who became my roommate, he was also working there, so you know, we'd ride up together and um, but that time in Tuscaloosa, man, it was rough, continue doing drugs, continue drinking heavily and it, you know, it's a college town, it's a party town, everything, anything that you want from this world, it's available and it's readily available.
Speaker 2:And so, like I mean, I'm not going to say names or anything, but, like you know, I remember times like going to friend's house and drinking and smoking and doing drugs with, with running to parties, running to drugs, running to the relationships that I still had, and then I don't remember how exactly it happened, I don't remember it. Actually, it started to happen before I got to Tuscaloosa, but then, when it got to Tuscaloosa, got worse. I went down the deep, deep rabbit hole of like conspiracy theories, like crazy conspiracy theories like or like flat earther type stuff, or even deeper than that.
Speaker 2:Like that stuff, Not that particular thing. I never. That wasn't a big thing.
Speaker 1:The wildest one, or what was the one that you were the most convinced like? Like that 9-11 was an inside job. I'm glad you didn't make me say it.
Speaker 2:Yes, that was. That was the big one, but it grew from there. Once you question something big like that, You're like I took the red pill.
Speaker 1:All you other guys are just in the matrix, like that. You're like I took the red pill, all you other guys are just in the matrix. Yes, I, I guess you guys just don't you're just not thinkers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, that's what it was yeah and so we're just all being lied to. We're all just sheep. We're sheeple, yeah, and the, the governments of the world, are controlling everything, and maybe you didn't think we landed on the moon? No, we didn't land on the moon. Um jfk was shot by his driver. Um a lot of these people in these high positions. Maybe they aren't even human, maybe they're like reptilians, like I mean it was. It was deep and insane, it was just crazy, but that led to so much paranoia, so much fear.
Speaker 2:I lived in a constant state of fear like the reptilians are coming to get you, boy, yeah me personally, I I remember nights like just being like just just real high, just smoking weed, being in my room alone watching these conspiracy videos on my computer and getting so paranoid that like I'm looking out my window in this little, like you know apartment complex in Tuscaloosa and thinking that like military vehicles are going to pull up in the bus Helicopters yeah, come get me, because I'm watching these things, because I know this stuff now, and so like they're bugging me, they're bugging my phone, they're, they're, they're keeping tabs on me. There's chemtrails in the sky, and they're, they're poisoning all of us. And there's fluoride in the water, and they're poisoning all of us. They're, they're breaking down our ability to fight, they're breaking down our will to fight, they're breaking down our ability to process and learn.
Speaker 1:It's like much more simple than that. Like that, the way that the enemy is attacking the world is on like obvious things like sex trafficking and poverty and just the destruction of the family.
Speaker 2:I know this now, but I at the time I was like, nah, that's not deep enough.
Speaker 1:You're not good, that's the inside information?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so this is where there had been times in my life I can recall my when my papa passed away but there were times in my life where, like, I'd experienced some anxiety. But this is where it really like just took over and was controlling my life, and I didn't know what it was at the time, but I started to have panic attacks. And I would have these crippling panic attacks, often not when I'm alone, but like I'd be at a party, I'd be with my friends, I'd be, quote unquote having the time of my life, having fun, partying, being with the people that I love, and then this just feeling of impending doom would come over me. My chest would tighten up, my throat would feel like it's closing up, I feel like I couldn't breathe. My heart is racing, my hands are sweating.
Speaker 2:And I remember this one time being at a party and my buddy, mark was there with me, the guy who's now working in Hollywood and I came up to him and I was like I need to go home. Like, can you take, can you take me home? He's like what? We're just like. This party's just getting started. And I was like I need to go home and like, and he's told me since then, like he saw, like he saw it in my face, he was like you were terrified and I didn't know why. But like so he took me home and I remember laying in the back seat of his car, just like hyperventilating, just freaking out, like I thought I was dying, like that's what I thought. I thought I was dying. And every time I'd have these successive panic attacks I didn't know what they were, why they were happening, I thought I was dying and um so after some time, so after some time of these experiences, I just really I had to admit to myself like something is missing in my life. Something is missing in my life and I need to find what that is.
Speaker 2:And so I started researching all of the world's religions not all of them, but, you know, like the main ones and I kept coming back to Christianity, like it, just like it kept speaking to me, like I found truth there. I found I found Christianity was offering things that none of the other ones offered. Now, obviously, there's crossover in all religions. There are certain things that you're going to find in all of them, but I was captivated by Jesus. There is a religion that teaches that there is a God of love. And this God of love became a human and died for humanity. Like what other religion can you show me where the God of that religion lowered themselves and died? For most religions, like, that's blasphemy. What God can't die, that's a weak God. But for me, like I was, I was captivated by that and I, and again, like you've touched on it, I think it was that sweetness in my heart, you know.
Speaker 2:And so I kept coming back to Christianity and then from there I remember, so Papa passed away and and my grandma, mimi, she ended up getting remarried and she remarried this. This guy named Al and um. Al was a retired Adventist pastor. Al is from Maine and I had never met anybody like Al in my life. I still never met anybody like Al in my life. He is so unique and so just just out there, like he's just, he is such a character and anyways. But like I love this guy, like I liked this guy, and I can always talk with this guy and and I could say crazy stuff to him and he wouldn't agree with it, but he never made me feel crazy and I knew in the back of my mind that I was being crazy.
Speaker 1:You're like because of the reptilians and I was like interesting theory.
Speaker 2:So I'd come back to Christianity. I decided I want to give this thing a go again. So I called him and I'm talking to him. Want to give this thing a go again. So I called him and I'm talking to him and I start going off on all these conspiracy theories about the mark of the beast and like, oh there, it's going to be this RFID chip and they're going to put it in your hand or put it in our head, and like the government's going to do this and like you know, and he's like whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you talking about? Mark of the beast RFID chip did shit. What you, you, you know the, the. The Bible presents a different concept of what the mark of the beast is. Right, I'm like well, I don't. I don't remember that long story short. He sent me a book. I'm not going to name the book, I don't want to throw anybody under the bus.
Speaker 1:What was the book? Cut this bus. What was the book? Cut this out? What was the book?
Speaker 2:It's a book called End Time Delusions by Steve Wahlberg.
Speaker 1:Okay, I've never heard of it. Keep going.
Speaker 2:So I got this book and I mean you can keep it in, I don't care, I'm just, I'm sharing.
Speaker 1:For those of you who are listening, my own experience. Just keep going.
Speaker 2:But I got this book and at the time it really spoke to me because it was speaking about a lot of these things that I had created all of these conspiracy theories about, and it was speaking to them from a more biblical perspective. I was like, okay, wait, a second, hold up. Then I got online and I pulled up a prophecy seminar by a brother named Mark Finley.
Speaker 1:Brother Mark.
Speaker 2:Discoveries 08 is what it was and the opening of like. Before he would preach, there'd these talks about like ancient egypt and going to like all this history and all these ancient artifacts and like I just you know you're like the pyramids weren't built by the egyptians.
Speaker 2:Mark yeah, yeah, exactly, but again it was like it was. It was grounding me in some like actual history, some actual facts, and it was chipping away at some of the craziness, some of the conspiracies that I'd had held on to, but they were still there. And so at this point I got connected with the pastor of the Birmingham First Church at the time, pastor Carl Dorner, and I emailed him and I started going back and forth but like I was testing him because I had to make sure he wasn't a Jesuit, but like I was testing him because I had to make sure he wasn't a Jesuit I had to make sure that he wasn't an infiltrator.
Speaker 2:Because, like, when I swing, I swing hard. So like it's like, well, if I'm going to get back into this Adventism thing, then like, let's, let's see what it's really about, what's going on behind the scenes. So there are conspiracy theories within Adventism. Really yeah.
Speaker 2:So Pastor Carl bless his soul. He wanted to meet me where I was at and obviously I'm here now. So you know, God knows what he's doing, but I'd imagine that Pastor Carl might do things differently nowadays. But what he did was he's like I'm going to reach this kid where he's at, I'm going to draw him in, speak his own language. So he sent me a bunch of videos by this brother named Walter Veith and essentially he's this he's a preacher, but he there's a lot of conspiracy theories in his preaching.
Speaker 2:He brings all that stuff in and a lot of the stuff that I was already believing. I'm like, oh, we can believe this stuff and still be a Christian. We can believe this stuff and still be an Adventist and like, make it fit. I admit now you got a really ham fisted to make it fit. But at the time it spoke to me and it drew me in and I was like, okay, this pastor, if he's sending me this, this brother's cool, yeah, he must know some things. So my time in Tuscaloosa had come to an end. I realized that if I was going to really make these changes, how old were you at this point 21.
Speaker 1:So this is what? 2005? I don't know. Eight 2009. 2008? 2009? Okay, 2009. Maybe Not too long ago.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably 2009-ish, maybe into 10. Okay. And so I moved back home. Shout out to my brother David. My brother took me in, let me live in the basement. It was a Finnish basement. I like to say that I like to mess with him. Took me in, let me live in the basement. It was a finished basement, so you know I just I like to say that I like to mess with them.
Speaker 2:But no, it was. You know, I had a bedroom. I had a little kitchenette area, little living area, back porch, and, um, you know, my, my brother told me that, like I, I was real with him and I let him know where I was. And like I'm still drinking, I'm still smoking. He was like, ok, you know, if, if you smoke, you can smoke here, but like you need to, you need to do it on the back porch and you don't need to do it anywhere else, inside or out.
Speaker 1:And this is just weed, not just. We never smoke yeah.
Speaker 2:Never smoked cigarettes, Still got that badge. So I moved in with my brother and it was a good thing, it was good, it was good to reconnect with family. And the other good thing was like I started attending the Birmingham first church again. You know this church that I hadn't been to in years, this church that in a lot of ways like I grew up in, and Pastor Carl, just he's a saint. He took me under his wing.
Speaker 1:Let's go.
Speaker 2:And he just loved on me and he was so patient with me because I was a lot, like I was a lot, I was a handful. Some would have said you were a little extra, I was very extra and you know, I'd, I'd, I'd find a way to turn any conversation into conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1:You were doing the most when it came to conspiracy theories, some would say people needed to know, you got to know the truth, don't be a sheeple, yeah, um, and, and I would have said, like, the truth will set you free.
Speaker 2:But that quote-unquote truth I had was just, it wasn't the way it was changed. It was, yeah, it was chains. And so time went on and I, I, I was given opportunities. I was given opportunities from pastor Carl to like teach a Sabbath school class, to teach his uh to, to, to lead out in prayer meeting.
Speaker 1:What are you teaching at this point in Sabbath school class Like? What is your angle that you're going at scripture with?
Speaker 2:So at this point I had I'd leveled out a bit Um, it wasn't. It wasn't the conspiracy stuff, it was, it was doctrine, it was doctrine. So now you're hard correcting yes, I hard corrected. So I I swung out of complete lawlessness into like the law is everything and so, instead of conspiracy theories, it was correcting heavy emphasis on the history of the, the quote unquote change of the Sabbath and and how Sunday worship became a thing.
Speaker 1:And that just hits your brain when you find out something that somebody else doesn't know, and it just feels good in there yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, same same mentality, just different verbiage, really different content in a way. But again, I was leveling out, I was learning some love, I was learning a little bit of grace, and but not the gospel, not the gospel yet. But then I was starting to receive opportunities to preach, to preach at different places, and these were mostly like small churches and you know there was a lot of that conspiracy.
Speaker 1:So the main message you're showing up to that church with is the Sabbath got changed, the law is good.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot, a lot of that. Um, what happens when you die? Um, can the Bible be trusted? What kind of stuff were you die? Can the Bible be trusted?
Speaker 1:What kind of stuff were you?
Speaker 2:reading. I was reading a lot of the Bible, king James Version, of course, only one that could be trusted I was. I wasn't reading a lot actually at this time. I wasn't reading a lot actually at this time. I was watching a lot of sermons and a lot of seminars and a lot of presentations, and they were of a very what I would say legalistic variety. They were very focused on behavior and it was something where it was kind of like a self-flagellation, where I knew that I was messing up in certain ways and I was scared. There was a level of like fear in terms of my salvation, but then at least I was being given direction. I was being told that I was bad, I was naughty, I was a horrible Christian, I was a sinner. But here, these are things you can do, these are behaviors you can practice in, these are ways that you can act that will help you, and so it hurt in some ways, but it was comforting in other ways and it turned me into a Pharisee.
Speaker 2:Like I became a jerk. I was a huge jerk, I was in your face, I was rude.
Speaker 1:Give me an example of like something that would happen, that would trigger you and you would jump into your shtick or your yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was all about reform. I was about reforming the church and so, whether it was diet reform, whether it was dress reform, whether it was entertainment choices reforming in those areas. It's like if it's not Christian music, you shouldn't be listening to it. If it's got drums in it, you shouldn't be listening to it. If it's got a certain timescale, you shouldn't be listening to it. If it's got a certain time scale, you shouldn't be listening to it. If your clothing is too tight, that's not healthy. If your clothing is too loose, that's not healthy. If your diet is not strictly plant-based, mostly raw, then you are actively sinning because you are giving into the flesh, the desires of the flesh.
Speaker 1:How are you doing with all that stuff? Were you keeping disciplined with all that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was trying, I was trying, I was working at it and when I'd mess up I'd feel real bad about it. But I just try harder. But when I saw other people, you know, if I saw somebody sit down and like they're, you know they, they got meat on their plate, like I would go at them about that. If somebody is, you know, was wearing a belt and set of suspenders, I'd be like, hey man, you know, like that you're, you're, you're taxing your system there. Like why are you doing that? Like wait, you have a football logo on your hat. Like who are you advertising for? Why are you, why are you wearing that thing? That's so worldly. What you're listening to, you know Christian, contemporary Christian music. Why are you listening to that? That rep, that repetitive stuff. You sound terrible. I was horrible. I was a nightmare. I was a nightmare.
Speaker 1:I would have made a beeline away from yeah and a lot of people did, and I'd come chasing after you.
Speaker 2:You better put on some suspenders. Yep, I'd hit you. I have a Bible and I'd hit you with it until you submitted.
Speaker 1:I don't think you'd be hitting me with the Bible. It might have been something else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were other books, but I'd use the Bible too. Yeah, Because you know I was twisting it all. Sure, sure, sure. And so, yeah, I was. Just, I was a jerk. If you invited me over to your house for a meal. Like you know, church go to church on Sabbath and you meet this young guy. He seems pretty passionate, so you want to invite him over for a meal, I'll go.
Speaker 1:But I'm going to be looking in your cupboards at like food labels you're like is that cheese in that salad?
Speaker 2:uh-huh, yep, mercy. So it was rough. It was rough. I burned a lot of bridges. Um, I, I went to a christian youth conference and it was speaking a lot of that same language. It was, it was, it was meeting me and those desires that I had to do better, to try harder and to judge others. That's really that's. That's a lot of what it was, um, and so I met a lot of other people like that, and so then it's just like Ooh, we got accountability partners. Um, you know, we all we had the best intentions. We really did. We wanted to live for God, but we wanted to prove it to him and to others.
Speaker 1:So you feel?
Speaker 2:like did you ever convince anybody? A couple people, that felt good, but it didn't last. Yeah, it felt good.
Speaker 1:I felt like I was doing the Lord's work, but it didn't last.
Speaker 2:No, most of the people that I convinced to do the same things I was doing, it wasn't long before like they completely left the church, completely left God Mercy. So, anyways, around this same time, and you know, pastor Carl, he's just, he's just, he's just loving on me, he's mentoring me, he's doing the best he can, and I decided, like I wanted to be rebaptized. And by this point, like you know, I, I, I quit the drinking, I quit the smoking, and so I wanted, I wanted to rededicate my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would hope so If there's no cheese in the salad. But you're outside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, devil's lettuce, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:No, that, that, that, that stuff, that stuff I'd I'd forced myself to give that stuff up.
Speaker 2:Was that hard? And yeah, yeah, it was hard. A lot of my identity was wrapped up in that stuff, you know, for many years, for like being a partier or being a yeah, and just the comfort, you know. But a lot of the comfort was like it gave me the opportunity to run from. You know my problems, my thoughts, my concerns.
Speaker 2:It was an escape, and so it was around this time that I also met this young lady and we hit it off. We started talking, started dating. I had to make sure that I got her to submit to all these things and she'd never heard of Adventism. She definitely never heard of all this conservative stuff that I was bringing out, this legalism stuff that was coming out. But you know, I was pretty much like, hey, if this is going to work out, you got to do this stuff. That's not healthy. But we ended up getting married and so this is 2011 and you know, she's kind of along on this journey with me and along on this journey with me, and there's just a lot of hurt, a lot of pain. That happened there. But eventually somebody this, this other pastor in Tuscaloosa, there, there was this church that I was. I was speaking at once a month and he, he connected me.
Speaker 1:Was speaking like super easy for you. Yeah, I'm like you just get back into the church and you're like preaching at all these places yeah, just like almost from the get-go that's wild um, yeah, I shouldn't have been but I mean, these are like.
Speaker 2:These are, like you know, I'd get up and like I'd preach for like an hour and 15 minutes, sabb, you know, just like going and going and going. Um, but I was. I was introduced to this brother named Bill Liversidge. Victory in Jesus, victory in Jesus. And that was like my first glimpse of like gospel Did you do his sermon series?
Speaker 1:Did you read?
Speaker 2:that book. I went to a seminar that he did live and then, yeah, then I read the book and I listened to all his it's over Romans like five through eight or five through eight, pretty much like victory in Jesus.
Speaker 2:That's essentially what it is, and it's like it's stuff that I never heard before. And it was so freeing and I felt some of the shackles starting to loosen, I felt some of the weight, some of the burden starting to fall away. But then I'd get scared Like no, no, no, I, you know I'm being tempted, I'm being led astray. It's about what I do, it's about what I need to accomplish, it's about the changes that I need to make. How did you?
Speaker 1:believe, uh like, what was the key to salvation.
Speaker 2:To prove to God that I could obey, Like really, that's what it was.
Speaker 1:Did you know that? That's what you thought.
Speaker 2:No, I would have said like oh yeah, we're saved by grace righteousness by faith, like I would have said that okay, but my my actually actually believed in my experience yeah was, I think that's important was completely other um. So bill bill was another. He was a good mentor to me, you know and and we chat on the phone, but you got to know him, yeah. Yeah, he flew me out a couple times to other events that he did and like would put me up in people's houses that he knew and trusted and it was really good and he was able to like to chip away at some of these what I believe are wrongly held beliefs. But he would do it in a very gentle way. He would do it by asking questions and getting so he was getting me to think and getting me to question and so he planted some seeds. He planted some seeds and it was. It was heartbreaking for me when he passed and the way that he passed and how sudden it was.
Speaker 1:How did he pass? I don't know the story.
Speaker 2:He just, someone found him in his house one day. Oh mercy, yeah, just fell over.
Speaker 1:He's been such a blessing to so many people. Yeah, yeah, what a, what a beautiful man.
Speaker 2:Um. So I was kind of trying to like get into ministry. I'd felt a call to pastoral ministry at this point From age six, yeah, um. But like it was coming on strong at this and I was trying to get in the back door, I was scared that if I went, again some of these conspiracy thoughts that I had, like I was scared that if I went to some Adventist university that, like you know, I would be changed and like the you'd get indoctrinated with some wrong theology.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was some like liberalism and stuff like that, and so you know, got to be got to be careful about going to Southern.
Speaker 2:Gotta be careful about Oakwood. And again, I didn't know about Southwestern until your uncle mentioned it to me. But again, god was working. God was working and I was trying to get in the back door into ministry and it just didn't. It didn't happen and God knew it would have been. It would have been a disaster if it did so. To make a long story short, I ended up going to Southwestern. I went to Southwestern Adventist University. There, in.
Speaker 2:Texas Yep, still married and it was really there that I truly started to level out and I just I had some great friends. I had some amazing professors. Pastor Bill Kilgore cannot say enough about Papa Kilgore Love that man. And he again, just he was like my new Pastor Carl. He was patient, he listened, he was kind. He didn't make me feel crazy, but he would. He pushed back on me, he'd point stuff out, he'd get me to think and he just showed me other ways of believing, other ways of living, and it wasn't a watering down of anything, but it was a living from faith, living from trust, depending on Christ. And so it was really good for me my time there.
Speaker 2:I worked in the dinosaur museum there with Dr Art Chadwick. Dr Chadwick, just another tremendous mentor to me, taught me a lot about just responsibility, taught me a lot about listening to other people and really helped me grow into what it is to be a man and what it is to be a Christian man. And so, yeah, I got to spend a lot of time with Dr Chadwick, a lot of time alone, just one-on-one with him, and, um, pastor Russ Laughlin as well. He was like he was the, the uh, the religion department, not the religion department, the education part, but like the I can't remember what it's called the spiritual life and development part of the campus, like he was the head of that at the time. And so he's like the chaplain, yeah, but he wasn't the chaplain. There was a chaplain Mateo was at the time but he worked alongside her. But he also, you know, took me under his wing, had some, had some good talks with me, but he also saw something in me that I didn't see and he introduced me to summer camp, to, like you know, christian summer camps, and that's really where my life changed massively.
Speaker 2:At Lake Whitney ranch summer camp I worked. I worked at Lake Whitney ranch summer camp the first two years of its existence and I was on the administrative staff there. It's in it's it's on Lake Whitney Ranch summer camp the first two years of its existence and I was on the administrative staff there. It's on Lake Whitney, there in Texas. It was about, I think, an hour and a half from Keene, okay.
Speaker 2:But yeah, just you know, I made so many friends there, so many good friends again, that just started getting me really thinking and getting me to be a better listener and less of judgmental. And you know, I think a guy's like Devin and of a tardy, and Jonathan Coker, and these, these guys that just really just poured into me, poured into me in so many amazing ways. April Chisholm, just it was, it was. It was a profound experience that first summer. And then I built upon it the second summer and I was the SIT director, staff and training, so like I was working with like 16, 17, 18 year olds that wanted to work at summer camp when, when they, you know, were 18. And so I was getting to train them and work with them and mentor them while I was also being mentored, and it was just a beautiful thing. And um, shout out to Carlos Rodriguez, who was one of my first SITs and my Carlos, my honey, carlos Rodriguez.
Speaker 2:What's up, Carlos and uh, I think he's going to be here tonight.
Speaker 1:No, he's not.
Speaker 2:Uh well, depending on when this is recorded and when this goes live, but yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:He's coming up, is Christian coming up too?
Speaker 2:Was this a surprise?
Speaker 4:Maybe I'm ruining the surprise, I don't know. Sorry, carlos, my boys, he sent me a DM. He was like, bro, you going to be there, I'm getting excited. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It but, yeah, it was just great, it was. It was it was really good and I was, I was starting to again, I was leveling out and I was, I was letting go of the judgmentalism. I was, I was letting go of the legalism. It was still there, but it wasn't as strong and my, my emphasis in my teaching and my, my preaching, it was it was beginning to change and I was focusing more on the love of God, I was focusing more on grace and I was preaching a lot about that and, um, it was, it was good. It was good and in terms of my, my walk with Christ, my marriage, not so good, it was. It was rough.
Speaker 2:Um, while while I was going to school there, um, you know, my, my wife at the time ended up, you know, cheating with this other guy back home. She went to go visit her mom and, um, it was just, it was, it was, it was tough, it was really hard. But I decided, like you know, hey, we're going to make this work, we're going to, we're going to fight through this and we did some marriage counseling and, um, it things, things got better from there and not not good, but better. And and I, you know I also, like I was not in a place where, like I, I was not being a good husband, right, you know I, I, at this point I was very much focused interview junior and senior theology majors for potential pastoral positions and we're just honest, from the get, go Like hey, just so you know, full disclosure, we do not have any openings, we don't have any positions available, but we still, you know we still want to get to know some people.
Speaker 2:Well, the interview just went extremely well and they ended up later in the day calling my the one of my professors and saying like, hey, if TJ, let TJ know that, before he accepts a call anywhere else, call us, like we really like him and like we're having some we're we're figuring some things out, we might, we might be able to create a position, find a spot for him, and so that ended up. It worked out and I the first time in Oklahoma was when I got hired to come work in Oklahoma. How long ago was that? That was in May of 2016 that I began.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, You've been here for a while I've been ministering in Oklahoma Conference, same church. Let's go.
Speaker 2:Now I came in as the associate pastor. I was under a seasoned vet and he retired within about a year of me coming in. Okay, um, but also during that time, I was only here for a couple of months, um, well, no, maybe six, six, six, seven months, and the infidelity thing happened again, and this time it was with a girl. Okay, um, so that that sent me, that knocked me for a loop, um, and these lies start coming in too. You know, like, am I not enough? Sure.
Speaker 2:Um, am I not the right person? What, what needs aren't being fulfilled, Like what? What? What's wrong with me? That was, that was.
Speaker 2:A lot of those lies started to creep in and again I'm like, hey, let's, let's, let's fight for this, let's try to make this work. But, um, and we did for a little bit, but it was hard, it was really hard and, just um, her heart wasn't in it and that became abundantly clear. And then, like I found other stuff that was still going on, and so it was just like you know this, this isn't going to work. And I can say Beyond a shadow of a doubt that going through divorce and that pain and that suffering and that anguish, I would not wish that upon my worst enemy. Like I was just wrecked, it was so bad. And God blessed me with a tremendous support system of the Oklahoma conference and for the, the, the leadership and the members of my local church and and some of the pastors around here and, just like I had, I had a really good support system and they were patient with me and um, so some some time went by.
Speaker 2:I eventually became the head pastor and, um, you know, it was just sort of like I was going through the motions, like I was, I was trying to be a good pastor and it was really, though it was more about no more be more no more, be more.
Speaker 1:So you're preaching kind of like what's your sermonic? I'm still very much.
Speaker 2:I'm heavily emphasizing the love of God and the grace of God. Much, I'm heavily emphasizing the love of God and the grace of God. But for me personally, like I was just doing so much studying so much, reading so much, listening to other sermons Like I just felt like I needed to have all the answers because I'm the pastor, I need to be able to answer everybody's questions, and that's not healthy. I wanted to be everything to everyone and I was a people pleaser. I needed people to like me, I needed people to love me, I needed people to respect me, I needed people to understand me.
Speaker 1:Mercy, that and we haven't really talked about that and I'm not going to diagnose you, but for me that ADHD, the wanting to be understood, is a huge thing and that's for me why I could never stop fighting, and especially now when someone comes up and they say you're saying this, you're saying that and like that old feeling of like, when you preach the gospel, you have to be comfortable with not being understood. Like you preach it clearly and you do your like you have a responsibility to preach it how it is, but it isn't also your responsibility to make everybody understand everything? Yeah, and that's hard when being misunderstood is this thing that like drives you nuts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, perfectly described. That's. That's what it was and I can't I didn't know this at the time, I couldn't diagnose this, but that's how it was and you can't make everybody understand you.
Speaker 1:Everybody, we all, we all have a certain lens Jesus said some amazing things and people are just like nah, fam, I'm not in, and they killed him, right yeah they killed him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was consistently being misunderstood, Because we all go into this, whether it's listening to a sermon, Bible study, anything like we have a lens and we see and hear everything through that lens.
Speaker 1:Some people aren't honest about that. They're like I don't have no lens, Right. Yeah, I'm like, I definitely have a lens, yeah we all do. And it is Christ crucified. It is what he's done.
Speaker 2:I'm preaching to this congregation and everybody's got different lenses, so there are going to be times where I am misunderstood and it goes both ways on the good and the bad. It's like, well, you said this and they're angry. I'm like I never said that. And then there's times, like you know, I have numerous instances where I'll talk to someone after a sermon like, oh, I was so blessed when you said this thing. I'm like I didn't say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because they're hearing it from whatever's going on in their life, and that's the beautiful thing about how God works. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It blessed them. Yeah, I didn't say it. Yeah, and that's the key. I don't say it Like it's really, it's up to the spirit. I had to get to that point and at this time I wasn't there. So I was consistently being misunderstood, because that's what we do, that's what people do, we misunderstand each other and I, but then I would take offense.
Speaker 1:So anytime I heard some gossip going on, anytime a letter was written, anytime a conversation like, I was just constantly taking offense over and over and over and you got all the feelings in the world, all the fields, so you got a lot of places for that hurt to land.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I can honestly say until just about a year ago, um, the entirety of my ministry was me always looking for a way out of ministry because it hurt protecting and defending yourself against people who had misunderstood.
Speaker 1:You.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and it hurt a lot there were, and it wasn't just being misunderstood, but it was also just being disagreed with. And then the things that are said and the things that are assumed, and like I took it all so personal.
Speaker 1:I needed these people to love me, I needed these people to understand me and now you're here with this thing or you're on the death of life podcast. This is just ironic.
Speaker 2:It is, it is and we're about, we're about to get to that light, we're almost there, we're um and I'm, I'm, I'm excited. So something really good did happen, though. During this time I met. I met this girl named sarah.
Speaker 1:Shout out to sarah. What's up? Sarah, you cool, you cool right now bro, she's so cool.
Speaker 2:I, yeah, I met this girl named sarah and she's she's now my wife, and she's amazing. We met in a bookstore, in the theology section. Really, she had a CS Lewis book in her hand.
Speaker 1:What was it? Mere Christianity or Screwtape Letters, or something?
Speaker 2:It was. No, it was the Pilgrim's Regress.
Speaker 1:I've never even heard of that one, yeah.
Speaker 2:She's going deep. Oh yeah, she's got all this CS Lewis on her bookshelf. She's like she's she was. She's going deep. Oh yeah, she's got all this CS Lewis on her bookshelf. Um, she's, she's, she's smart. Uh, I love her. Um, if you, if y'all can't hear me through this he's smiling real big If you're watching on YouTube.
Speaker 2:you, you, you must yeah, yeah, I, I was just. I was. I was talking to someone last night and they asked like so what, you haven't lived in oklahoma your whole life? Like what, what's, what's been the best thing about oklahoma? And like I love that question because I instantly smile, like because I I met my okie girl here, like I met sarah here. So, anyways, my first words to her were cs, lewis, huh that's a good pickup line.
Speaker 2:Come here often yeah, um, but yeah, I mean, it was just, it was so good, it was so good and we just we did not waste time, like we got right into like the nitty-gritty, like the real stuff of life it wasn't like what's your favorite food?
Speaker 2:what's your favorite color? It was's your favorite color. It was like what do you think about this? Like what? What are your thoughts on marriage? What are your thoughts on kids? Like what you know raising kids, and like you know just real stuff, like talking about past and family life and all that. And so, yeah, like I found, I found happiness and safety with her in a way that I'd never found in any other relationship and I truly felt like she's a gift from God, like thank you, lord, for this. And so she brought a level of stability to my life and ministry that I was desperately aching for in that moment. And you know, we're talking now from where I am now, like I know that it's not her, but it's Christ in her. Let's go.
Speaker 2:And I told her that the other night, like I texted her and I just said, I love seeing Christ in you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And she was just like that is such a sweet thing to say and and it's true, it's, it's the truth, it's real. And so, christ, even before, like I'd fully accepted the gospel, like Jesus was working in and through my life, oh man. People in my life through the circumstances. But ministry was still a struggle there was. I was now at this point where I had I had swung so far away from legalism that I kind of swung, maybe too far the other way.
Speaker 1:You like to jump from ditch to ditch? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And so I was, like now, a militant soldier against legalism. I felt like it was my job to root it out, see, when we're against something.
Speaker 1:There's always seems to be pitfalls. When being against, like, if we're not preaching for something, if we're not like, here's the truth, that will set you free, yeah. Instead we're rather preaching Don't believe this, or don't believe that, or don't act like that and don't act like that, yeah. Then we tend to overcorrect, yeah, and we get in some trouble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I did lots of trouble. Yeah, and we get in some trouble. Yeah, and I did lots of trouble, just tons of fights and drama with local church members, like that ain't healthy, that ain't good. And you know, I always thought I was right, they always thought they were right.
Speaker 2:Strange how that works. Yeah, so there was no give, there was no middle ground and it just led to a bunch of grudges, it to a bunch of awkwardness and and and pulling and fighting within the church. And then, covid came 2020, I remember the church, our, our local church, like our building, like it shut down, you know, for a little while, and everybody hopped on social media and I got sucked in.
Speaker 1:I got sucked in Were you like on COVID debates on Facebook.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was on some COVID debates but then after the death of George Floyd it really got into like the social activism sort of stuff.
Speaker 2:Social justice, like the social activism sort of stuff, social justice and I. One thing that I haven't mentioned in in a lot of this is that growing up, there were a lot of times in my life in my life when, like I was the one white kid amongst like all my black friends, and so when all this started coming out and I started seeing the just overt racism coming out of the mouths of my white friends, my white Christian friends, my white Christian Adventist friends, yeah, it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2:It threw me for a loop and again I went about it in the wrong way. Sure, I took up the Cape, I became like the white knight in shining, shining armor to defend and protect my black friends, and that isn't healthy. There's a place for protection and care and love, certainly, but the way that I went about it was not healthy, right, and it was very combative and it was very brute force, was not healthy and it was very combative and it was very brute force. And so, again, like I, just I got caught up in all that. I got all caught up in the politics as well, and leading up to the, the election in America in 2020, and it was all consuming, and I once again became this person who was living completely in an anxiety bubble.
Speaker 2:The panic attacks came back and they came back full force and there were. It lasted for a few years where, like all day, every day, I felt anxiety, like it was just that was my reality, and sometimes it was worse than others and when it was real bad, it was real bad, like I thought I was again, thought I was dying, thought I was having a heart attack, saw all these doctors, was convinced that it was some other issue in this thing, and saw a lung specialist and a throat and ear doctor and cardiologist, like all this stuff, like trying to like. What is the problem here? Right.
Speaker 2:And everyone's like you're fine, You're completely healthy, which then made me freak out even more. You got anxiety, bro, yeah, and I'm just like something is wrong. I feel it and everyone essentially thinks I'm crazy, and so it was just, was really, really bad. So it was just more ministry struggles and more of me trying to find a way out and needing to procure a way to make sure that, if I did step out, that I had something to fall back on that I could provide for myself and for my family. Hmm.
Speaker 2:And then I started reading some books, started listening to some different things. Shout out to John Mark Homer the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.
Speaker 1:That book was transformative for me Talks a lot about Sabbath in that book, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, talks a lot about slowing down, and I needed to slow down because my life was just hurry, hurry, rush, rush more and more, and so it became one of those things where, like I, I fell into self-help and was reading all those books and you know um atomic habits and you know and.
Speaker 2:But good stuff, like there's good stuff, but again I was viewing it as like I'm my own savior. If I can make all these changes and do all these things, then I can save myself, protect myself. Gotta get a little better every day. Yeah, keep myself safe and sound. And so this just continued to go on for a few years and it was a back and forth things. I'd have losses and victories, and then it was about this time last year it was March of 2023. Or, like I started to really hear the gospel.
Speaker 2:Now there had been times where, like Wes had, like, sent me a death to life podcast, like hey, check this out. Or Micah had sent me a death to life podcast or sent me some sermon or something, and it was one of those things where, like I'd listen to it. But again I'm in that place of just like needing answers and being smart and all that. So like I wouldn't admit that. Like wow, they have something I don't have. So I'm like, oh, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, that's the gospel. I preach this stuff, but I I wasn't living it. It wasn't my experience. There was still a lot of lies that I was believing, but it was about this time last year where I just really I got plugged in. I watched the wave one videos. I started attending some online Bible studies.
Speaker 1:So you just were like, let me see what this is about. Oh, that's kind of interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it was. It was a process. It wasn't like I watched one video and was like, oh, like my life changed overnight. But once it clicked, it clicked. What was the thing that clicked? I was watching through the wave one videos from the PVC church. So his actual sermon. Yeah, yeah, the longer versions. And I would encourage anybody that has questions or concerns, um, not just to watch wave one, the shortened videos, but they're still up online. Go watch those long ones and, and you know, get get a little more depth, um, but so I, I got, I got Jonathan's book and I read that and what was the idea from the gospel?
Speaker 1:that you were kind of just like that had been new or different. That you were going on to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that in Christ, by faith, I'm free from sin.
Speaker 1:Oh, like the main message.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was the missing piece. I knew God loved me. I knew that grace was the only means of salvation, that it's not what I do or don't do, but it's righteousness by faith. But the free from sin part. Again, I was a people pleaser. I needed people to love me, I needed people to like me and I can admit now that a lot of what I was hearing and experiencing was based upon lies. It was just lies and lies and lies about myself, that I'm not enough, that I'm not lovable, that I'm not making it clear, whatever the thing might be. When I was able to accept and receive the truth that is again pulled straight from Scripture, pulled straight from Romans 6, three times free from sin, it expanded my understanding of how much God loved me. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I got to this place and.
Speaker 2:I'm in this, this place now, where I do believe that I was created for love. I was created to receive love, to be loved, and and I have needs to be loved. But God is love. God is infinite love, and so every part of me that needs to be loved is already well loved by him, which then frees me not to need to be loved by anyone else. It's great when you love me, it's great when other people show me their love, but I don't need it anymore the way that I used to believe that I needed it, and so that frees me. When somebody is rude, when someone misunderstands me, when somebody is a jerk, it frees me to respond in love. It frees me to live unoffended. I don't have to take that personal. I can respond in love.
Speaker 1:How did this like? What's kind of funny is that the gospel is. If you don't understand the gospel, it is the key to living the way you actually want to live. Everyone tries to teach you to live by Christian principles and Christian values, but without the gospel, like the gospel is okay news and then they're like be forgiving, be loving, lay your life down, Don't seek your your own, really try hard not to do it or try hard to do these things, but you don't have the foundation of it's actually christ in you. He has actually done it. He has given this, like he's already given you this heart because he's given you himself. Yeah, Like, as you're grabbing onto this stuff and you're growing in it and you're seeing, oh, I have lived offended and oh I've had kept reprimanded wrongs and oh, I've had been argumentative and looked at other people like not in the spirit going through.
Speaker 2:That was that eye opening like, oh, I I haven't been living the way I should have yes, 100, and god is so good and so patient that he he unveiled a lot of this all at once. But then there were other things that he sort of like was drip feeding me along the way, so it wasn't super overwhelming in the way that I probably would have been tempted to take it Like man. You wasted a lot of years. You're kind of a failure. You were supposed to be the pastor that knew it all and you didn't. And it has.
Speaker 2:This truth, this gospel has completely transformed my life and my ministry and, like you're saying, there are opponents to the gospel, there are people that don't like what they hear. But what I'm finding more and more is that it's generally based on assumptions, and it's wrong assumptions Because it's the what I like to term the Jesus and thing where, like, someone will be able to say like, well, yeah, it's all about Jesus, our salvation is Jesus and or. But it's also law keeping, it's also obedience, it's also right living, it's also these changes, this thing.
Speaker 1:And so they think that somehow this gospel allows you to give up responsibility. Yes, and you don't have to be accountable. I've talked, you've talked to me. I've been held more accountable in living my life in step with who I actually am from this truth than ever before yeah 100%.
Speaker 1:And if someone's like I've been, like I've been rebuked and the word rebuke sounds really hard but it just it means like when someone's like richard and they're doing it from love and I know it and I've been able to receive it even though it doesn't feel good, but I've been rebuked and turned from it, walked the other way, appreciated that person who's done it, and, um, I've never. I never had that before. Yeah, before it was just like, oh well, I can't. Now some people Like it wasn't like the TJ running after me in the church and say that I needed to wear suspenders, Right, right, yeah, it was the bro. Like you really think like that's going to get that person to understand what you're saying and I'm like, oh okay.
Speaker 2:And it's from a loving place of like bro, I know who you are in Christ and you know who you are in Christ, but what you're, what you're doing right now, like that, ain't it Like? Let's talk about that, let's, let's, let's. Let me exhort you, let me encourage you and remind you of who you are in Christ. Yeah, they're rebuking. It's also encouragement, yes, and it's gotta be. And and a lot of the misconceptions, a lot of the arguments, like when some I've come to find that there are some people that when they hear free from sin, what they think you're saying is free to sin.
Speaker 1:Some people don't like the idea that they would be free from sin because they want to continue in that sin, like let's not throw that one all the way out either. Like when we're saying like because if you're free from sin, there's no longer an excuse and you always had a built in excuse, yeah, the devil made me do it. Yeah, you like, I'm a sinner. Yeah, I have a sinful nature. If you are a sinner, you always have a built-in excuse.
Speaker 2:And that's what I tell people all the time. Like that, this gospel thing, it takes away that excuse of the devil made me do it, because those chains have been broken. You are no longer being puppeted or controlled by the enemy. You are now a child of God, you are a son or a daughter of the king. You are a son or a daughter of the King, you are a saint. And so if you slip up, if you do this thing, ultimately we got to be honest with ourselves and say, like I did this because I chose to do it.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, you're the one to blame. And now there's reasons, but there's no excuses. Right, I wasn't setting my life from truth, yeah, yeah. So let's set our lives in truth, yeah, yeah, let's walk this way, and that's always the encouragement. Yeah, and we're growing in it, yeah, okay. We're going to take a quick break from the episode and I'm bringing on my sister, jadra. Jadra, quick question what's up? How you doing, how you feel?
Speaker 5:What's up? How are you doing? How do you feel?
Speaker 1:Oh, man, I have God's peace, I feel great. Okay, how long has it been since you first started to understand that you were free from and dead to sin, free, free, free. How long has it been?
Speaker 5:Oh, it's been three and a half years. Yes.
Speaker 1:Three and a half years. That's quite a bit of time. What, would you say, the gospel has done in perhaps changing your life, would you say?
Speaker 5:Oh boy, how much time do we have? Yes, the gospel. It's just radically changed my thinking, radically changed how I see myself. I have assurance of salvation. I know my father loves me. My heavenly father and I live in abundant life, and so I'm lacking in nothing. That means I have the fullness of God's peace and his love and his joy, and so that reflects now in my marriage. My marriage is better than it's ever been. But that took some time. That took some time for Jesus to do some work and just looking at my children in that same light I mean the jobs that I do it's changed everything, richard, everything.
Speaker 1:So everything pretty much then.
Speaker 5:Pretty much everything.
Speaker 1:So everything, pretty much, then Pretty much everything You've donated of your time, your energy, your finances to keep this message going. Why is that important to you? That?
Speaker 5:this message gets out to the people. Well, when I received the gospel, God radically changed my lens of how I look at others, and it's like he zoomed me out like Google earth, and I started to look at all the other humans on the planet, literally as my brothers and sisters, and we have the same father, and so I, uh, just want everybody to be one big, happy family. I want us to all be together in the kingdom now, Like I want people to experience God's peace in their life and and have true joy, not just temporary happiness and and so, yeah, that's it's, it's good stuff.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. If you're listening and and you know the drill, you know what I'm about to say loverealityorg slash give. We are going for this thing, and every dollar that you donate gets this message going out. There Either the podcast, internet Church, several podcasts, jj, you have a podcast. What's your podcast called?
Speaker 5:My podcast is called Worthy of Everything. Yes, please subscribe.
Speaker 1:Five stars. If you don't put five stars, I'm inclined to believe you're a hater. That's right, no, but yeah, every dollar goes to getting this movement out there, so join with us. Loverealityorg slash, give Anything else. What's your podcast about Jadra?
Speaker 5:Oh, worthy of Everything is about how to walk this out. Walk out freedom from sin, identity in Christ, especially if you maybe have a history of abuse or trauma or addiction anxiety, depression or trauma or addiction anxiety depression.
Speaker 1:But the over-encompassing topic is intimacy with God. Man, that sounds awesome. Thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate you.
Speaker 5:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Richard. So, as you're growing in this thing man, you came in our community probably like a year ago, like you're saying. And man, man, you came in our community probably like a year ago, like you're saying, and, man, you've been such a blessing. What do you feel like freedom from sin, the things that you've been just growing in the most, as you can see from what you've seen from your life? What do you think?
Speaker 2:those things are. One of the biggest mind-blowing moments of truth was that I am a child of God and what he thinks and says about me trumps what anyone else thinks or says about me. That God knows me so intimately my heart mind that he never misunderstands me. And so if somebody else misunderstands me, that's okay, I'm not a misunderstood person. Gods me. And so if somebody else misunderstands me, that's okay, I'm not a misunderstood person. God understands me. And so it's really been a rooting down into that and seeing the fruit, because I never would have been able to admit this or verbalize it until walking in freedom. But I was a people pleaser and from that stemmed so many of my issues and struggles and conflicts in my life. And now I'm in this place where not only am I able to move from freedom in those areas but I'm also able to retroactively go back and reconcile and build back connections with people. And it's just been. It's been such a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:And there are again, there are detractors, there are people that either misunderstand or just don't like what the gospel says and I preach it boldly, like I'm just out there, front and center, and a lot of it it does come down to. They think that I'm just using the gospel as an excuse to live licentious. But I know, in that moment when something like that is assumed or said, that it's just. It's just, they don't know. They don't know, they don't understand what the gospel is. They don't understand the power of grace, because I used to understand grace as being forgiveness for sins. Grace is the bad things that I did aren't being held against me. And like, yeah, that's part of it.
Speaker 2:But grace is also transformative. Grace is what gave us a new heart. Grace is what renews our mind. Grace is what gave us a new heart. Grace is what renews our mind. Grace is what gives us the ability to walk in truth, to know we are in Christ. And so for my life, looking at my life, I am in more submission to the Spirit than I've ever been in my life. I am more obedient to the Spirit than I've ever been in my life. I am more obedient to the Spirit than I've ever been in my life. But that is because I am in Christ, not because I'm gritting my teeth and trying so hard.
Speaker 2:And so, again, when people assume that, like this gospel is just an excuse to live licentious, to just do whatever you want and to claim forgiveness after the fact, they just don't know. They don't know. And I'm in a place now where I don't feel the need to argue and debate over and over and over. But, like I am free just to live this thing out and that people are watching and people can choose to do whatever they want with what they're seeing. I'm always available to answer questions. If someone has honest questions and they want to know and have that talk. I'm here, but I'm no longer in that place where, like I'm going out and trying to seek out error and confront it or correct it, because there are people that are hungering and thirsting after righteousness and I believe that God has given me a gift and a talent and a call to share that, to spread this good gospel seed, as opposed to spending time rooting out tears or arguing and debating.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely man. Sometimes we're reaching all the way up I say this all the time reaching at the top of the tree for the unripened fruit. It's like the fruit's right around our elbows. We saw a girl come in here last night. Doesn't know anything about anything that we're preaching, she heard this message. Then she got healed on our way out of back pain, carpal tunnel. Praise God, and she just wants it. And sometimes, like you and I and our friend Arnold, we think that we can convince somebody about the gospel. And you know like, the gospel is not to be debated about, it's not to be argued about, it's here to change lives. Yeah, and so, yeah, man.
Speaker 2:If I can. I debated whether to share this, but I'm going to do it. Do it. I want to share a story to testify the power of the gospel.
Speaker 1:What you going to share, yeah.
Speaker 2:So since I've been at this church that I've been at since 2016, there's a member there that he and I just have not seen eye to eye ever. I say that I mean there are little things that you know.
Speaker 1:we feel like the Sabbath is cool and he's like, yeah, that's the only thing we just like we see things very different.
Speaker 2:We're both very passionate, we both can be a little hard headed a little bit.
Speaker 2:And so we're we're very alike in a lot of ways, but we see things very differently and we have very different convictions on certain things, and so it's just been a constant up and down roller coaster where something will flare up and you know he'll come at me or I'll come at him, and it's just not been good. And so for years it's just been this awkward thing of like we, we just we get along, quote unquote, because it's the right thing to do. Sure, and I, I kind of just accepted, like this is what it's going to be like, just deal with it, make the best of it. But just a couple months ago, walking in this gospel freedom, I was preaching a sermon, I was wrapping my sermon up and it was, we were, it was a communion service, and so at our church we do the bread and the wine, but we also do foot washing. We call it the ordinance of humility, and so I was talking to the congregation about that, prepping them, leading them into that and just saying, hey, I know that it's, it's easy for us to wash our spouse's feet or get with our friend that we're close to and, like you know, we, we do this ordinance of humility with the same people over and over and over. But I want to give you permission and offer you the invitation that if there's anybody in this church that you have something against, if there's anybody that you need to reconcile with, like that is the point of this Jesus washed Judas's feet. Jesus knew what Judas was about to do and he still washed his feet. And so I said I want to encourage you that if there is somebody in this church that you feel that you need to reconcile with that, you would take this opportunity to do that. And as soon as I said it, spirit was in my ear. It was like what about you dog? That includes you TJ. And I was just like, oh, so I, I gave space for just like 60 seconds of silence, you know, and just told people hey, just just pray, just just sit, just sit with God and see, see, know. And just told people hey, just just pray, just just sit, just sit with God and see, see if, if you hear something. And so then I closed with prayer, I said amen.
Speaker 2:I walked right off of that platform and went up to this brother and I was like hey, can I wash your feet? And he looked at me and he kind of smiled and he was like yeah, and he looked at me and he kind of smiled and he was like yeah, and so I said you know, hey, I know, I always, I always do this with my wife, you do it with your wife, like we'll still do that. But then, like after, after that, let's, let's connect. And so I walked over to him afterwards and he just kind of looked at me and he, he said it in a very like a kind of like a stern fatherly way. I was coming over to you know, like get, get the water and the bucket and the towel, but he pointed at the chair and he said sit down right there.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh okay, but then he went over and he, he got the water and he got the towels and he came over and he washed my feet and he prayed for me. I washed his feet and I prayed for him and we didn't vocalize like talking to each other, like apologizing and stuff, but we did it through our prayer and it was beautiful and it was it was true reconciliation. And we got up and we hugged and we're at this place Now. We're like everything that's happened in the past is water under the bridge. We're not looking forward, we're not looking backward, we're looking forward. And, yes, god has made us very different, but that's okay. And if we're honest with each other, all the things that we disagree about we can, we can stack up. You know that list, but the list of things that we have in common and agree on is is even higher. Why don't we focus on that? Why don't we build from that? And it's, it's just been beautiful.
Speaker 2:I, I felt in that moment a massive burden lifted off of my shoulders, a burden that had been building and building and building for years and that would have been enough. That would have been enough for me. But what God knew that I didn't is that. I'm not going to go into specifics here, but he was about to be faced with a terrible, horrible, heartbreaking circumstance in his family. Terrible, horrible, heartbreaking circumstance in his family.
Speaker 2:And because we had reconciled before that came, I have been able to just love him and be there for him and be a pastor to him and be a friend to him and his wife, without any of the awkwardness of the past, without any of the weirdness or the past drama or burdens, and it's just been a beautiful thing. And that to me right now, that is the power of the gospel. That is something that I never would have done in my own power. That is something that only Christ in me could bring about and I'm so grateful for it and I'm so thankful for it. And I know that there are going to be times of disagreement in the future again, but I also know that I can respond in love and it's all going to be fine because I'm safe and sound in Christ.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful, as I think, eugene, we go back. I don't know where to go back, man. There's a lot of landing spots.
Speaker 1:Where would you go back if you wanted to talk to old TJ? I'm thinking about the TJ who's hurting from his marriage falling apart. I'm thinking about the TJ who's passed out on his deck. I'm thinking about the TJ who's hurting over his grandpa. If you were to go back and talk to this kid, where would you want to go? Where's the most hurt that? You would just want to put your arms around this guy and just be like bro, you're free from and dead to sin in Christ.
Speaker 2:Honestly all those points. I mean honestly all those points. I think that at all of those points, I'm able to now see with a clearer eye that the root issue in all of those circumstances is that I did not know I was loved. I did not know that I was enough, I did not know that I was worthy. I did not know that I was enough. I did not know that I was worthy, I did not know that I was understood by the one who matters most, and so I was looking for love in all the wrong places. I was looking for people to respect me or like me or understand me or understand me, and the entire time I had either forgotten or not understand the full depths of the truth that God loves me, god understands me, god predestined me before the foundation of the world to be adopted as his son, and that he has already given me every spiritual blessing, and that I don't need to work for it, I don't need to study for it, I don't need to try harder and grit my teeth, but I'm free to rest in Christ and rest in the assurance of salvation and rest in the love from my father and allow that to propel me forward and allow that to comfort me in the tough moments, allow that to keep my joy up, even while I'm joyful, even while things are going well. Young TJ, zombie walking TJ, that TJ who is dead now. He needed to know that.
Speaker 2:But all of that said, my wife always chokes on this, like she's just like how can you say that I don't have any regrets? I have no regrets. There were things that I did that I can honestly say I could have done them better. There are things that I did that I didn't need to do, but all of those experiences have helped mold me and shape me into the man that I am today, because God's presence was with me in every single one of those experiences, whether I realized it or not, and I do believe that now I have this testimony, I have these stories that I can share with other people when they are struggling, when they're in these same places, when they're facing these same things, and it also it gives me patience and understanding and love for people that are maybe acting like a jerk legalist, like I was. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, if I'm honest, a lot of the people in my life that I've looked at and not liked or had issues with, it's because I saw my old self in them and now I'm free to love them. Because, in the same way that I can look back on this broken TJ who didn't know, I can look at them, and in the same way that I can look back on this broken TJ who didn't know, I can look at them and realize the same thing. And this is an opportunity, not for me to correct them or to fight them or to debate them, but to love them, to show them the love of God that is overflowing out of me, and give them a glimpse of this gospel thing and that it's for them too, and give them a glimpse of this gospel thing and that it's for them too.
Speaker 1:Amen, bro, amen. I didn't know when we were going to record the podcast and then I was like, oh, I'm going out to OKC. I got to record with TJ and, man, it's been a blessing. Thank you so much. Love you, love your heart. You're a blessing to the community.
Speaker 2:You're a blessing to God, man, you're a blessing to God, man, you're a testimony. Thank you so much, man. Amen, amen. And dear listeners, just remember this one thing in Christ, by faith, you are free from sin. Free, free, free, free free.
Speaker 1:Man. The gospel cannot get better. And if you've heard a form of the gospel but it didn't bring life, you've heard a form of a gospel but it made you feel less than then. This prayer is for you Father, show me what you have actually done through Jesus Christ. Show me the inheritance that I have now in him, so that I need not worry or wonder, but I can walk in power and authority. Thank you for showing me. I believe you will, because I'm praying this in Jesus's name, amen. All right, don't forget to hit up Internet Church every other Friday night. Don't forget the Monday Night Bible Study, the Death to Life Bible Study. Hit that up, come kick it with me and Elias. It's a good time. All right. Love y'all, appreciate y'all. Bye.