Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#134 From Religious Legalism to Spiritual Freedom: Lauren's Breeze Pursuit
Have you ever felt trapped by religious legalism and longed for the liberating power of the gospel? Join us on a soul-stirring journey with my sister Lauren as we explore her faith evolution, from her Adventist upbringing to her college experiences balancing religious adherence and personal relationships. In the second half, we delve into Lauren's ministry, her quest for gospel freedom with her husband Wesley, and their transformative 2022 moment. Discover Lauren's encounters with the Love Reality community, a song's profound impact, and her personal identity as cherished by God. Together, we challenge the idea that our actions earn God's approval and learn to embrace His love through grace. Be inspired by Lauren's journey from fear to faith and the discovery of God's unconditional love.
view more resources on our website
0:00 - Freedom From Legalism in Faith
13:10 - Boarding School Experience
27:00 - College Experience and Spiritual Change
33:32 - Relationship Taboos in a Strict Environment
42:09 - Challenges of Following Rules and Expectations
50:57 - Navigating Relationships and Life Changes
55:48 - Ministry Life
59:54 - Encountering Different Perspectives on Gospel
1:10:46 - Struggling With Freedom and Belief
1:16:27 - Finding Freedom in Gospel and Community
1:29:01 - Experiencing Transformation and Finding Home
1:45:12 - Discovering God's Unconditional Love
Keywords: religious legalism, gospel, faith evolution, upbringing, college, ministry, freedom, community, transformation, personal identity, grace, faith
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Death to Life is brought to you by Love, Reality, a good gospel ministry. Our mission is to tell everyone willing to listen that in Christ, by faith, they are free from sin. Everything that we make is made possible because of the generosity of people like you, thank you.
Speaker 3:The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can and that's why we want you to hear these stories, stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to Life.
Speaker 1:I don't think I'd ever experienced anything transformative, Any molding of my character I had done. I felt like you have to be this way, you have to do this, Very like a rich young ruler. Like I've done this since I was a kid. I've done that. Like, what else do I need to do? I knew there was something, but watching these people get it in real time, I was like whoa, this is really neat.
Speaker 3:Yo, welcome to the Death to Life podcast. This is Richard Young, and today's episode is with my sister, lauren, and this episode is all about legalism and performance. It's about a young woman who was trying to earn God's favor, and to see that shift, that subtle shift, to change somebody's life, to change somebody's mind, is so awesome. So Lauren has always been a sweet, sweet person, and just to see her grab onto this gospel so beautiful. So let's just jump into this episode. This is Lauren. You're going to love it. Love y'all, appreciate y'all, buckle up, strap in. Lauren Vai. What is up?
Speaker 1:Not much.
Speaker 3:Not much For some reason, I don't know. Maybe it's because you're faithful to have your camera on. I've been watching your reaction to the gospel for the last year or something, and you with your notepad, and so for me this is just exciting and fun to have you here, and I'm excited to hear about that journey. But tell us where does the story start, lauren?
Speaker 1:So for me it's really at the very beginning, even, yeah, in my mother's belly, I would say because they came into the church as newlyweds and so my mom and dad were baptized together into the Adventist church when my mom was pregnant with me, and so it was. My sister came along shortly after and it was an organic experience, I would say, like growing up with them in this truth and in Adventism. We didn't have generations to fall back on of. This is how grandpa did it or anything like that, but I think because of that, it really was us all learning together in it, and I think that helped me to formulate things on my own, and doing it with them in a genuine way really helped early on to establish me a bit in many ways. So I was glad for that, and church was a big part of growing up.
Speaker 3:So tell me about who was God growing up?
Speaker 1:Church was. We were very faithful in attending and I think as a kid what stood out the most was my Sabbath school. All the Sabbath school teachers were very faithful in just what they committed to. They would, you know, be there for us not just Saturday mornings but in our lives too, ended up being very instrumental. But I can remember even the classroom settings and everything and we had a pretty big church, I think relatively, and loved playing there, loved the kids, and I remember I'm not sure how old I was but then my parents and some other members of the church pretty large portion I'm not sure how many they split from that particular church and that was kind of a big event but I was probably pretty shielded from actually what was going on and the politics and drama weren't forefront, at least in our family, wasn't talked about and I just know that people were razzled and it was a lot of stuff even during the church service that would take place and vocal and yeah, they just felt like it would be better to split and there was a large contingency of the congregation that did that. Some went to other churches in the area because there were other churches in northern New Jersey but we started a little church, but we weren't even a little church, we were so small, we were a company and that was a big change. It was just much smaller. It was big Sabbath school classes, down to my sister, myself and we're not even the same age, but you get combined when you're that small and then my best friend and some other kids here and there, but again my Sabbath school leaders, in whatever division, very instrumental. We really studied a lot. We used like a different curriculum than, I think, most other churches and then I started noticing we had this little reputation of being a little different and now I would coin it as the term a little bit conservative, at least relative for the area. And yeah, we used a different quarterly. So we were studying more like end time, more pillars of our faith, different aspects of maybe eventism. And it's funny because growing up my parents were really balanced and I would say now too it helped me so much. But that was like a little phase and as a middle schooler you're just traumatized by like the silliest things. So yeah, I started feeling a little different than the other kids at school, just in the slightest way, though didn't really realize it so much. We were very close, went on a lot of hikes and had a very productive Sabbath where it was fun to be around a lot of people and even though we were small, since we did a lot of social things I didn't necessarily realize it it felt different, but it didn't feel bad or anything like that.
Speaker 3:All of these things. Who was God in all of this?
Speaker 1:I was. I thought he was good, honestly, but I think growing up as an Adventist I was genuinely afraid of end times and that was a big factor, a big motivator. It was like, okay, he's good, but I've just got to be faithful and I've got to get through, be able to withstand end times, to the point where I was having nightmares about it. As a 39 year old, I can tell you two of those nightmares still.
Speaker 3:They were very vivid, very frightening and, I think, to me you were afraid of the end times and people coming to get you, or afraid of the end times and will I be in heaven?
Speaker 1:Not afraid of my destiny, but afraid of what it would take to get there and would I be able to. And then are they going to use my family against me to the point where, even later, I considered I don't even know if I would want to have kids because they'll use my kids against me, just afraid of what was going to take place. And no trust, no relationship there in that sense, because even when I was teaching later, I remember having to ask a pastor to come and give my kids reassurance about end times and he had just an amazing perspective and I'm not sure if he even knows what an impression he made on me talking to them, because it was really helping my heart to and it was one of the first times where I had heard it framed. This isn't about what's going to take place, this is about Jesus and if you keep your eyes on him, these things aren't going to be the end, all be all. And yeah, it was a big moment, but I loved him, I loved God and Define irony?
Speaker 3:is it when Jesus comes and tells us all the stuff that's going to happen before the end comes, so that we are not afraid, and then we take all of that and become afraid. I feel like that's the definition of irony. Is the whole purpose of knowing these things is that we don't move in fear, right? And yet we've used them to maybe I don't know. I don't know. It's just that's sad to me, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same yeah. And I think that in trying to inspire us, we studied a lot about the Waldensians and man, they went through some stuff, sure they did. Man. Just hearing those stories and I'm sure there was like other kids that were like man their faith is remarkable and it was. But I was like, oh, I don't want to be thrown off a cliff, I don't want to be burned in a cave and with no way to escape. I don't know why those were my takeaways, but for some reason they were. I later went to the Waldensian Valley and was able to like visit and I saw it at a different point, not as a kid, and it was pretty inspiring. So God brought that back around for me, thankfully. But yeah, at this point I'm still like a good kid, just pretty motivated, probably by people pleasing, never rocked the boat. We were told a lot as kids we would go to grocery stores and be checking out and people would tell my mom and dad like how good my sister and I we heard it all the time.
Speaker 3:Just well behaved.
Speaker 1:Well behaved, yes, and a church you name it at school it was. I think you'd skirt by sometimes in some ways once you get that kind of established. But it was very interesting to hear my parents would say it, even in front of us. And so you do start to try to live up to that because that's what's expected. And a church and I are probably really just sensitive, sensitive to the Holy Spirit, sensitive to people's reactions, and I could be so motivated by a feeling of disappointment. Of course that can be really twisted and I can also be extremely motivated for good or for bad, with guilt. But yeah, more than that.
Speaker 3:There's so much good and bad that comes with that. I've realized that I am very sensitive and I think I've been seeing it more and more with my son. I see how sensitive he is and I realize, yeah, if you give me a compliment, I'll take it in a huge way, but if you criticize me I'll take it in the same amount. And so just realizing in my life, man, I am too sensitive to the wrong things. I need to be more sensitive to the right things and not let any of this other stuff touch me. But I had to get a revelation of that man. You are sensitive, bro, chill out, so it can be tough. Were you homeschooled.
Speaker 1:No, I went to Tranquility Avenue School, so we grew up going to that school. I went from first through eighth grade my sister probably started in pre-K, I think, and yeah, so we had a lot of good teachers and great friends from there. It was assumed that once I was about to graduate from eighth grade, that I would just go not far down the lane to Garden State Academy. But this was a pivotal time for me because my friend came home from church and, like I said, just being small and not many kids, it was so exciting to have her there. We were sitting on the steps of the church and she was telling me about her experience at Boarding Academy and something I had never thought of At Garden State. You could board there. We had a lot of students from the city and surrounding areas, but you could also be a day student, which of course I would have been. And, as she's telling me, I'm intrigued but thinking that's pretty crazy. She had gone there for, I think, a year or two. By this point she was going into her senior year and her parents were, I think, moving down there, if they hadn't already, and so there was going to be somebody from New Jersey that I knew and she starts telling me some of the positive things that she really liked about the school A very spiritual environment. You have the chance to work and get a lot of experience, and mostly the friendships that she had established there and what that meant to her. And as she's talking to me, I could look back and remember like earlier that summer we were at camp meeting and it was Saturday night. We went to a basketball game in the gym and I think it was Pastors vs the Youth and so they were playing and I don't remember at what point and exactly what happened, but it ended in what I would consider an all out brawl, like it was a fight. And there I remember Pastors vs the Youth. A lot of them were PKs, a lot of Pastors kids in that group. There were metal chairs flying. I can remember them hitting the floor and then just getting pretty scared and we were like, okay, let's head back, let's get out of here, kind of you know. And it was this kind of stark contrast from what I was hearing about one school and then what I was hearing about the other. That school went through a lot of ups and downs. My sister ended up going there later. She had a good experience, but for me we were on our way home, about to getting in the car, and as we're pulling out I said Mom, dad, I want to go to Watchtow Hills Academy and the car stopped and then they both did the turnaround in between the seats and looked at me and was like really I do. And that point on we just hit the ground running because it was two weeks until school started and I remember spending the rest of the summer like on the beach at the Jersey Shore writing out lists of things that I would need to go to this school and my life was about to change.
Speaker 3:Wow, so you were a freshman.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:And you spent four years there.
Speaker 1:I did. I was a four-year senior.
Speaker 3:So, this experience being yeah, tell me when you graduated and you look back, what are the things that the main takeaways, that that molded you there?
Speaker 1:There was a lot in this experience. It's a self-supporting school and so they were working on a new dorm, but at the time we were in a smaller building, so I was one of six in a room. I had five roommates. My freshman year my I shared a bathroom with I think there was nine of us. We were on a schedule. I had a 15 minute segment that I could use the bathroom, shower, everything, and then there were mirrors in the kitchen where you could finish doing your hair. So you opened your eyes and you had a devotional time, a set. You had to do it. You already woke you up. You did it for 30 minutes and then it just the day continued just like that 30 minutes for devotions, 30 minutes to get ready, 15 minute worship with everyone at the cafeteria. You do classes in the morning and then you have lunch and then you work for four hours and then choir and dorm worship, suburb dorm worship, study hall, and it was a quiet study hall, very quiet study hall. And then you were, your lights were out by 930 and you did it all over the next day. So learning this schedule was hard at first, but it my main takeaway was this work ethic. I think that was nurtured in me and then coming along to like my sophomore year. That was an interesting year because as a freshman, you're just taking it all in. You look up to the seniors and then it was a different group leading the school the second year and a lot of kids wanted to leave. They did not like the experience. You're having a mix of different types of kids and I chose to go there Ultimately. I knew that and that affected how I looked back on situations. I remember being on my bed and I'm on the top bunk and I'm staring at the ceiling asking God, how did I get here? Because it seemed so surreal and other people they knew how they got there. Their mom had made them go. Their dad told them this is it and that really colored their experience. And when they left after, a lot of them left there. After my sophomore year we came into junior year with this incredible group of students that wanted to be there and they told us that. So here I'm hearing it again this is the best students group of students we've ever had and something strikes the chord with me and I wanted to live up to that and I really stepped into this. I'm an upper classman now and wanted to be a leader. It's a small school, so there's only like 40 kids total, and so by my senior year they really tried to nurture that leadership in you, if you want to. And I found a lot of things happened my senior year too. I had been baptized end of my sophomore year and it was a good experience. I we had ended the year with a week of prayer and I decided to get baptized, and I was 16, it was a very conscious decision and it was an interesting time in my life to decide that Usually, if you're Adventist and you grow up Adventist, you're usually baptized a little bit younger. That's probably not everyone's story, but I never gotten the pressure of that and so I was. I just think at this point I had some self-worth issues that I didn't really realize or acknowledge. And being popular or like a leader, like was trying to, was filling that because people are seeing these things and complimenting you and so you step into that. But it wasn't long, yeah, until things changed. Our senior year, senior year, that changed not just me but our student body. It was September when September 11. 2001. Yeah, so that was. We're in like this isolated place and the phone is just ringing off the hook. My AMP teacher finally goes over, answers the phone and it's a little annoyed. And then he's like what? And then now we're all concerned and but we're not watching television, there's no access to news, we don't listen to the radio at this school there's, we're completely isolated. So when he comes back and tells us I was like why is this small? I thought it was like a Cessna, I just figured.
Speaker 3:Exactly what I thought.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I suddenly felt really far away from home. It was, I just wanted to be back and I immediately thought my dad works in the city. Sometimes he works for Newsweek magazine. We grew up going to the Thanksgiving day parade and we got to be inside the building and your eye level with these huge balloons. We'd go out into the streets and so you're thinking is he there? I don't even know what's happening, but then they wouldn't tell us right away. I didn't know that they were actually trying to find out because one of the students, his dad, worked in one of the towers, and so when they did announce to the school what had happened, they gathered us all in the cafeteria. His reaction was audible, obviously, and but immediately they were able to tell him your brother was late for school this morning. He missed his bus, your dad had to take him and he never went to work. He's fine, he's okay, and so it was an immediate relief. But I was ready to go home. They offered a trip to New York to help, and so I was like I'm game, let's go. So I'm excited to have a chance to go to New York City, and I didn't realize that I was stepping back into a different city. This is very different than going to Rockefeller Center or shopping or eating good Italian food. All of a sudden, I knew within moments of being there that this had changed. Not just me, but these people and as you're like, we were doing different things, like whole portering, selling bookstore to door get trying to get into these Manhattan buildings, pressing every button, and then they would let us in and we'd have this pitch, this memorized little script, and they would react one of two ways, generally New Yorker style I don't know what you're doing here or why and why you're talking to me about this no, thank you. Or people would just genuinely open up on a dime and they would share their experience of who they had lost and how it affected them and I couldn't believe the stories that I was hearing, just genuinely off the street of these people. We also got to pass out like literature and we were helping with depression and recovery stuff and it was my first miracle that I got to witness, because a lot of this is ending up in the trash. It's New York City, but there was this one lady, there was a lot of us at the subway entrance passing them out and I had prayed Lord, please use the magazines that are even in the trash. You can do this and all of a sudden this lady taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and she is holding this stack and she's. I hope you don't mind, I just had to come back and tell you. I read this and it changed my life and I went back through the garbage and I scrounged all these. I'm just letting you know that I'm taking them and passing them out to everyone I know. And it was small but it was big to me because God's showing up and, yeah, this is the year for me that things really started to just rubber meet the road with where I was in my relationship with him. We got back from Christmas break that year and it's really exciting when you get back from home, leave and you're trying to find out who's here. What did you get? Did you get any food or things like that we could eat on Sundays after lunch if it was approved by the dean?
Speaker 3:Very. Did you get any food that we can eat on Sundays with approval from the dean?
Speaker 1:Yep, so exciting. We were all ramped up and they called us into the calf and then we knew something had happened and they told us that one of our students at the school had not made it back, that she was in a car accident on her way to the dorm, and that forever changed us she passed. Yes.
Speaker 3:Oh mercy.
Speaker 1:We had lived and she did not, and it was really obviously as hard as it gets. It was a time for us to really sober up and reflect. And when that happens to you I think especially at that age you suddenly combine with what happened in September 11. I was really tasting my mortality at that point. I was like I'm not this invincible teenager and it made me self-reflect very much. It's my life right. If that had been me, would I be as confident as I am about Debbie and her salvation? And I think a lot of us started to ask. A lot of those kind of internal questions, gave us a lot of time to think.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. When you graduated from there, what was your plans? What were you gonna do with your life?
Speaker 1:Junior and senior year, I got the opportunity to go on a mission trip. Junior year was to the Philippines, and senior year we spent a significant amount of time in Romania, and so that was towards the end of my senior year, and I was really inspired to two things I realized that there is a much broader world than just my little circle around Lorne Bay, and I felt like I really wanted to help, however I could. Those opportunities to serve and be there on a more long-term forum mission trip made me see that there were things that I wanted to do to affect change. So this started influencing where I was gonna go to college. Southern was definitely on the table. I went and toured with my bestie from New Jersey. We looked at the school and but it was funny to me because there was another school on the table as well, another self-supporting school, and it's a little different. As a self-supporting college, they're not accredited, and so neither was my high school. But this had much bigger implications. I knew I wanted to be a teacher at this point. Ultimately, I wanted to work in an orphanage somewhere and yeah, and so I was looking for where can I serve, where can I do that? And for some reason, I had this encounter with one of the staff at that self-supporting school that said we can make that happen. You wanna work overseas? We'll do your whole internship there if you come to this school. And so I was like okay, and so I started leaning towards wanting to go there. I graduated with eight in my class actually a large class for the small school that it was and five of us ended up going to that college.
Speaker 3:So but you knew like when you graduate from there, you're degree If it was a teaching degree it wasn't gonna be accredited by any state or any, but you were just going for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So it was a little different at that point because all you had to do was get your masters after that and then you were golden. If you went to graduate school and they accepted you anywhere and you got your masters of education which I was planning to do it was fine. It was, and a lot of people were going that way. It was the pastors that were having a hard time getting the jobs, not the teachers, I will say, because I probably won't come back to it later it did change the year that I graduated. I just didn't know that it was going to affect me that way, but yeah, it did.
Speaker 3:So you go to the school and you were gonna be in education. What happened?
Speaker 1:We got there and it was a lot different than we expected. That's really what I can say about it. It was very different. It was a lot of the same rules that we were used to Little more strict with the dress, even more strict with the diet, same rules about guys except now it's college, you had to get permission to leave campus. There's a lot to say here at this point, but it was similar but, framed in my personal experience, very different. I knew, going away to high school, I was in that kind of environment where I was choosing that and I was choosing it for college as well. But the way it was presented, these things were vastly different, and that's what I think the difference was.
Speaker 3:My friend- how was it presented?
Speaker 1:I can remember a chapel. This is very specific. I can remember we lived in what was known as the mansion, and so in that was the girl's dorm, the offices that I worked in, the cafeteria and the chapel, and so there were days, could be longer, weeks, where I wouldn't even step outside my own little world. Thankfully, when I started teaching I had to leave to a different building, but yeah, and so we went downstairs and we had this chapel and the RA's were doing it this day and I remember them taking, for example they were trying to get us to make sure we knew why we were turning our lights out at 9.30. And they framed it Okay. So basically they took a quote that linked the moral law to the health law and then use that to say if you break one, you break the other, and so if you don't turn your light out by 9.30, you are breaking the 10 commandments. And it was a hop, skip and a jump, but they said it and they were allowed to say it. And again, we're in college now, not high school, and so to just be presented this way, it wasn't about thinking things through, as very much spoon fed to us and it was this kind of thing that I didn't make it out of the chapel before I was in tears. This was very different and it seemed like, wait, this is all the wrong reasons, because there was this couple of things that I had started to accept in high school and taking them on as my own, but for very different reasons because I love Jesus and because I wanted to be a monster, whatever it was at the time. And then this was, for me, a little different. So we had one classmate leave within the semester and then the rest of them left by the end of the year.
Speaker 3:All of your classmates, that you came in with the five, the five of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a little tenacious and I don't really know what made me stick it out, except I can remember that my high school was starting in college and my mom just didn't really want to do that the first year, even though I had a great experience and it was very spiritually uplifting. I think the I was going to be able to start student teaching my sophomore year. That was a huge pull. And then I applied for small choir Not exactly sure how I got into that one, but I auditioned and I did. And so they take really significant trips and you do. You get to get off campus a lot and I still was looking for this spiritual environment. But yeah, it just started changing and this is my experience. There's people that go there and have a very different, wonderful experience. I try to look for the positive in a lot of things and so I had friends like calling like I don't think you should be there, we're called to live a really balanced life and they would try to talk me out of it and I feel like and I would just give all these reasons why it was fine, I was doing my thing- so what did this experience at the school?
Speaker 3:what did it produce in regards to what you thought about God and how you looked at other people?
Speaker 1:Hmm. So obviously you had to perform a certain way to be accepted by others, and definitely by God at this point, and it's funny how that presents itself. Though it wasn't like I was like this judgy person, I didn't think that starts to really rub off. But I think what happened for me was that I'm looking for some sort of validation. So I think I just started to look for love, like in all the wrong places. I started to catch feelings for this guy and he was in a small choir with me. We would go on these trips and we. It's going to seem so insignificant, especially compared to other people's stories, but this is just the nature of like where I was and how strict it was and whatnot, and you could not have relationships. So we liked each other.
Speaker 3:In the college.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is pretty much the extent of it. Yeah, we did end up holding hands by the end of one of those trips because you're spending a lot of time together, you rebel. I know it, it's just like the peak of like. It doesn't get much more salacious than this. So, yeah, hang on to your hats, but no, it was very evident that I was having this need. But then, because I never did something like this before, I had been four years and they would like to be like in high school, they would say the staff would come to you and say this guy likes you. And I was like, really, and honestly I don't think I really knew. These are things you find out later. A lot of times I was like, okay, I'll avoid him.
Speaker 3:I would Wait. The staff is telling you that so that you can avoid the guy.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%. They were like you need to sit with so and so now, and it was one of the staff and I was like, okay, and all of a sudden I went through line and I realized, oh he's, he would wait for me and then be like three people behind me. So then I have to go sit next to the staff and they put this on you Like I was a freshman year and obviously it just continues. But this isn't even the college side of things. That was more so. I mean, we heard stories I don't know if they were true about the Dean, like spying from trees and stuff. It was just a lot I don't. Yeah, I mean to say a lot of things about the school in terms of but this was my experience and yeah, we grew very close on that trip. My roommate I didn't realize they were close, I thought because she was best friends with his sister and then when I got back from that trip I heard her like crying herself to sleep and I didn't understand why and I didn't know that anybody knew either. These. This is taboo.
Speaker 3:You guys had held hands.
Speaker 1:Oh, nobody knew that, but they knew that we liked each other. I guess that was pretty obvious. Yeah, I mean it was yeah.
Speaker 3:Why was she crying?
Speaker 1:They liked each other before we went, but that's the thing. You don't know, you, they're not in a relationship and you don't know that they are, because all of this is like squashed. Yeah, there were other choir couples that are married like to this day and, yeah, sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don't. So I had the choir director come and talk to me and and then I guess she talked to him as well and he squashed it.
Speaker 3:How'd he squash it? He didn't not hold your hand in the neck Like how do you squash something that isn't there?
Speaker 1:So it was maybe more declaring there's nothing going forward. I remember walking around and him going I don't even know what to do anymore Like I like you so much and it's like what do you do at that point? What can you do about it? You can't do anything about it, you can't act on it, we didn't, you shouldn't. And then, yeah, so he went, it came to a head and the girl knew. So that's why he did that, and he was just like, okay, there's nothing, not going to be anything with you or her. And, um, yeah, I was sad because I was lonely and again, like with people just being so critical and everything being about what you did or didn't do, all of a sudden I felt very different. Um, I knew on those choir trips that the girls were treating me different. I knew that one girl in particular particular, was really nice about it Ended up being Diego's wife. She was wonderful and a lifeline to me. I don't even know if she knows, but when what a sweet lady. Oh my goodness, and when people are nice to you, in those situations, it means so much. And unfortunately, though, I didn't learn. This happened again, and it happened my junior year Same choir, different trip. Now, instead of going choir.
Speaker 3:I'm telling you, you better watch out for those select choir people.
Speaker 1:Yup, those bully rollers, right yeah, and sometimes it was like so before it was like me and his best friend that we were hanging out with now is he was definitely interested and I think just I had gone down this road and I just did it again. This was different just in the fact that he was also in the choir, but he was a staff kid with a little bit of a different reputation and so he's not a theology major and I don't think that people essentially liked him for me. And so I started noticing like same story, okay, in terms of I appreciated and like the attention and I liked him, I think, and genuinely, but what you're not in a relationship, it's not like he ever was. Like will you be my girlfriend? This is not happening, but at the same time you know what it is. But then there started to be like repercussions. So that time we handled it. This time it got to the end of the year and just starting to spend time with him and one of his friends they were I got in this staff kids homes and the peak of my rebellion was the ice cream and movies that we were all watching together, huddled up in the mountains, oh mercy. I know it right, pirates for the winds. It was just a crazy experience to have this go analyzed about you, and then I just had no idea the repercussions of this later on, just in my thinking and in my spiritual walk. And so this one ended different though. I was going to work at the summer camp for the second year, I was second in command and getting ready to do that, and they called me into their office. I have never been called into any sort of office or been putting in it, put in any scenario where I got in really formal trouble and it was people really close to me. And, yeah, they told me that I was being put on probation and it was because of this guy, and I just thought like okay, and the same person that had talked to me about the other relationship was in this committee. I couldn't understand the difference. I really couldn't. They had both, at one point or another, come home to New Jersey with me with approval, like we went nowhere without these same people knowing. So I didn't really understand, but it was like I left and for some reason I came back. They called me back and said you're still going to graduate, you cannot talk to him until after Christmas and I was like, okay, I'm losing it, I'm crying and thinking like what in the world just happened? And so I spent that summer reeling, left. I didn't do the camp and went on. And they said they told me at that point I could go back to my high school and do my student teaching there. It wasn't that they just squashed the dreams of going overseas and doing what I wanted to do, but I was okay with going back there and it ended up being a very healing year for me, thankfully. I wish they could.
Speaker 3:This is wild to me. What were the consequences and repercussions and what it did to your thinking?
Speaker 1:I think it was the double standard for me. I really tripped out on. Okay, so was it? You know, the same things happen with the first guy. Why all of a sudden was it different? But it was the way he was perceived, I think. Ultimately, or someone had told on me or said something, maybe they heard misinformation, I don't exactly know. I also don't want to know if someone told them. I'd rather not know if it was somebody that did that, even though I have my suspicions. But yeah, later down the line I just remember thinking, man, if you mess up, if you mess up in the smallest thing, the repercussions are terrible and you're not considered what spiritual anymore. Condemnation was just a big theme of mine, the shame that I felt for something like this. You had just mentioned Ed Ray's story in the Bible study and I'm like I'm not experiencing what people did. But man, people can make you feel really bad. I remember listening to Layla's story that Will had recommended and you stopped the podcast to say public service announcement, like if someone they had her. The little snippet of her story was that she was going through some really extreme things in her life. Her marriage was falling apart and someone had emailed her to check on her spiritually because she was wearing pants. And when you stopped the podcast to say public service announcement, don't do that. I cried because it was like obviously pointed probably towards people to not do that. Hey, let's love people, that's not.
Speaker 3:But for me it was actually very healing to hear that that's not okay, that was because you felt like you were to be, that you had been condemned in that way, for something similar, for wearing pants, or like having a crush on a guy, or yeah, just very judged by external things.
Speaker 1:Like no one took into account all the other things that I'm like student teaching and pouring my heart into that, my sophomore and junior year. That I'm like at this college, willingly trying to live my life for God, trying to dedicate my upcoming young adult years to working overseas and leaving family and friends to try just to help, and yet I'm caught up on this stuff.
Speaker 3:This stuff makes my blood boil. I get so sad because there's you're a well meaning person wanting to serve and it's almost like you have no options outside of like being a robot.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's unfortunately a good way to put it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like, what are you supposed to do if you have feelings for somebody? What are you supposed to do? Suppress, I don't, yeah, okay, yeah, you graduate from there. You have an accredited degree. Did you start working? What did you do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I spent my senior year. The cool thing is you spend an entire year and I call it an internship, but it's student teaching for a year instead of I don't know what most schools do. I don't know.
Speaker 3:I did mine for a semester.
Speaker 1:Okay, a semester. So I got to see a school year start and end. That's helpful when you go into your first year of teaching. Not to mention, I've taught two years before this, so before I even step into the classroom, I have three years of teaching experience.
Speaker 3:Those are the kind of that's solid. I didn't have Right, so I was like. I was like I can't do this, my professors came and watched me teach and they were like yeah, maybe maybe, maybe, don't do this since, like my senior year, oh yeah, I've been proving myself since high school. I might, and I say prove myself. I tell you I struggled with self-worth, but my teacher English teacher had a different experience.
Speaker 1:I was like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm like I don't know what I'm doing. I'm like I don't know what I'm doing. My English teacher had an eye infection and she couldn't teach. And this other teacher gets up and is trying to explain grammar. Then he can't. And so we call up the smart kids in my class and they go and they try. They couldn't. So finally, I was like I don't know what else to do. I think I need to go help. And I explained it. I don't know grammar. Okay, I know it now that I've taught it, but at the time. But there was a teacher in the back who was leading out study hall and was like you are a born and bred teacher and my mom was, so it was like in my blood. So I went into, I would say, my career, though still needing to prove myself, because here I had really the teaching experience was great, but my self worth, my confidence as a teacher squashed, because it depended on what other people said about me. Did they think I was a good teacher? Did the parents think it? So everything I did was to live up to someone else's expectations of myself. I wanted to be an amazing teacher. Yeah, because I really, at this point, wanted to prove to. I mean, I didn't set out that way like I'm going to prove to the world that this is the career that I was supposed to take and nothing in my schooling experience is going to stop that. It wasn't like that. I had a genuine heart for my students and even though the parents were like, are you the student or are you the teacher? That whole thing was a theme that followed me when I was transitioning to teaching. I was at a youth event and the same thing happened. They walked up to me and was like how are you enjoying this weekend? And I was like it's great, my students are really liking it. He was like, oh, sorry, I thought you were a youth. I was like, oh, it's fine, but you're a teacher. Then I was like I'm student teaching, I'm looking for a job. And so he was like you're how old? Then I said I'm 21. And he was like oh, and he was genuinely surprised and at this point I've heard this a lot now, so not surprising to me. But he goes back over to his buddies and he went to them and was like hey, she's a teacher and she's 21, looking for a job. And they were like no way. And the reaction was so strange. I just kept thinking why are they making such a big deal about, like, how young I look or something? And then they were like, okay, we have to tell you something. We were at our church in a prayer meeting this last Wednesday and we are looking for a teacher. So the teacher that's leaving. She was at the school for a long time. This school is like her heart and soul. So she was telling us this testimony of coming to the school and being coming a teacher since she was 21 years old. And she was like, guys, we need to pray that there's a 21 year old out there that will come to our school and teach for us, and so that's what they were tripping over. And then I was like what, okay, I get it now. And so I got on the phone with her that night and we talked and in my heart I knew that's where I was going to go, so I had to let go of this idea.
Speaker 3:Is this another self-supporting school?
Speaker 1:No, but I was a local hire so I didn't get the full pay, but that was because of my choice of where I went to college.
Speaker 3:So this was a regular. Is this a Christian school? A small?
Speaker 1:Christian Adventist school in Shreveport, Louisiana, with a very supportive church family. To teacher school. I'm the upper grade teacher middle school and then, yeah, this kind of, yeah this kind of starts a different phase of my life at this point in the story. But yep, I've taught there for three years and then I came back several other times to teach there.
Speaker 3:And if we listen to Wes's podcast, he tells that story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dragged me around a lot of different places.
Speaker 3:So, as you're doing, okay. So this is I'm trying to see. It seems like you have a, that you want to keep the rules, and you're pretty good at keeping the rules and you love the rules, but yet the rules have come up to bite you a couple times. Don't know how you're feeling about that and so you're now doing this job that you're born to do. God loves you, but he is expecting some pretty serious stuff from you, and you're just a young person trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, how am I gonna live up to all this stuff? To whom much has been given, much more will be required. That was a line that you heard. I heard a lot and I genuinely don't have this spirit of rebellion in me. I just wanted to do what was right, but it was a lot to live up to. It's a lot of pressure and then, when you got this perfect image going on, you want to maintain that and anything that kind of cracks that surface is really detrimental actually. So these things are quite small in and of themselves and consequential in some ways to the rest of my life, but at the same time it felt big, it felt shameful and it felt like, as I'm moving into my teaching career, I tried not to focus on that with my students. But it's okay, guys, we've got rules to follow and rules make a classroom right and I was trying to, like course, correct that and I'm not sure how great of a job I did, but my students loved my classroom and I loved my students and I found a lot of fulfillment in teaching and so I tried to. Whatever rules the school gave me, that's what we did and we enforced and we tried to do them well, but yeah, so God loved me. But because he loved me, I had to keep the commandments. And because he loved me, but it was this, god is this way, so you have to do this Instead of an outflow of my heart. It was reversed and yeah, so I was trying to figure that out as a young adult.
Speaker 3:That's tough, yeah. And then how long until you run into Wes?
Speaker 1:I hadn't even started teaching yet. I'm graduating single. So then at grad school, everywhere, everyone has a mother, a brother, a nephew, a someone that you would be perfect for. So I've heard this a lot and again it's like months after, I think, I went to interview and I was talking to a lady at church and she was like I've got this son and he's moving back here. And then this carbon copy, just a little bit older, of her walked up and said what are y'all talking about? And she said we're talking about Wesley. And without missing a beat she was like Wes, yeah, he's nothing special. And I cracked up. I was like this granny's funny, I was like, but I wasn't very interested. It just seemed very overwhelming to have all these prospects. At the time I had really fallen for a guy while I was student teaching and then I had spent the summer at a Youth for Jesus program, Really liked one of the guys from there. He's very ministry oriented, so this was just like okay, maybe another guy. But we did have a chance to meet that summer. We were at a convention and he lived in Dallas and the convention was there. So they introduced us and so finally they we were spending a lot of time together, but, Wes, if you listened to his episode, he's fresh out of the world. Obviously he's grown off, Evans, but he left.
Speaker 2:And he left hardcore.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, this is, I'm seeing this fresh out of my type of environment. And he'll be like hold on, I gotta go to my truck real quick. Okay, sure, I walk by the window and he's smoking. You gotta get something. That's what he had told us. So I'm seeing him and I don't know if I'm really seeing him this way. But then I start seeing a lot of changes really quickly and so him and my friend are getting rebaptized. So that weekend my sister was down and I saw them talking. We were at the grocery store to pick up a few things before a bonfire. They had gotten baptized that afternoon and they were just doing that girl thing where you could tell they're talking about you. And they were. And so that night she asked me do you like this guy? I think sisters know, but I immediately was like no, like emphatically no. I was mad, defensive, immediately, you're going to ruin our friendship. She leaves, I take her back to the airport and I go to the school to finish up four and a half week grades and he calls me and says would you like to go out to eat with me? And I was like sure, that's fine, I need to finish up, but what time, like? Where is everybody meeting? He's no, just you and me. I was like, oh okay, sure, and that's how I went into it. And but yeah, he was real proud of his one night with the King movie that I took me to, and that's when we started dating.
Speaker 3:Man. Okay. So I don't know if we want to go all the way deep into you and Wes, but tell that and then I want to get into to life, because I think life starts coming at you pretty fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he has something to prove, I think at this point is how he phrased it and when he's looking back at it. So he was off to AFCO Amazing Facts School of Evangelism and so he was wanting to get into ministry, just going about it a weird way, and then we just started all this moving. So we started, I was at the school for three years but then he left to go to AFCO and then after that a Bible working position opened up and he took that and I was really sad that he wasn't going to be there. So we had started dating and then we suddenly had to do this long distance thing and I did not like that. I really liked being around him and then I was against, super lonely and even though I had my other friends there, it was very different. It was like if I had an experience that I wouldn't have known. But then I was like man, this guy's leaving and then so he starts bouncing. I'm like, is this dude going to settle down? I have no idea. Finally he I kind of knew it was coming the proposal we got engaged. So we got into married life. Yeah, someone said something to me, maybe my wedding weekend, I'm not sure Well-meaning, but like to the effect of he doesn't even deserve you kind of thing. I think more meant for me, like you know, like compliment to you, yeah, but it's weird how that messes with your mind, unfortunately. And then I think that did play out in some different ways, but I noticed at the time I didn't know, but I think overall I was pretty selfish in a lot of ways and anytime that he came to me in our married life and was like I think we need to work on this, that was very hard for me to hear, because married life seemed great. It was great Like we. After our first year, we're like this is so easy, this is amazing. And as the years start ticking on, it was like when he'd bring stuff up I had this impression that it just needed to be perfect. And then he's telling me something's wrong. So then I'm like, okay, what do I have to do? I just I wanted to fix it. I was like mad that something was wrong. And then I was mad that I had to do something about it, and it wasn't always that I had to it's not as things we need to work on but it wasn't healthy and that just perpetuated for a little while.
Speaker 3:And you're bouncing back and forth, moving here and there and doing all of these things.
Speaker 1:He. It's funny, in our 14 years of marriage now we have had him and I have had a full-time job the same year one time, just one year. Did we ever have a full-time job at the same time? We were very ministry driven, so like either I taught at that school and then, like, we left for his ministry opportunity and then we came back because they wanted me to be the teacher again, and then we left for his ministry opportunity and then we came back a third time and then we just kept leaving and it was hard to move, a lot like that. But we really just worked, trying to be in God's will and we knew we wanted to do ministry. And it's funny when, now that I think about it and like the fact of him either having the ministry job or me, maybe there was something to that, but it wasn't like, oh, you shouldn't get married and you can do ministry together. It's just there was sacrifices that we needed to make to do it. But I was geared up for that in high school and college. I was gearing up for a life of ministry. So I thought, ah, we can wrestle our way through this. And then, yeah, I was. I had taught for a while and then there was a big change in the school that I was teaching at and then I start interviewing and I interviewed for two. That went really well. I did the interview and it's funny because, if my self-esteem issues, I got off the phone and I knew that it went well and it was funny to feel that way. But they had me come out there, they winded and dined us for the entire weekend. I don't know that normally happens with teachers, like where they will fly you out, pay for a ride.
Speaker 3:If they're gonna offer the position, they might do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, might, and this was still very this, but the reason maybe I'm not sure, but the teacher that was leaving because she had her baby boy and the teacher that was before her left because she had a baby and they were gonna be stay at home mom. So they were like you can't ask that in an interview, but over the course of the weekend I think they were maybe trying to find out and we were married 10 years, I was teaching and not interested really in having kids. I'm around kids all the time. This is just. I'm dedicating my life to this and I don't have time. I don't know that I want a family. So now I get this job and it's a first grade teaching position, first time I've ever taught a single grade. I'm super excited to get out there, start teaching and I love this big school environment. I have a principal that's a dedicated principal. There was a secretary. It was amazing. Normally you handle everything, janitor included, because you can't just go and interrupt the head teacher in her class because she's running her own multi-grade classroom. So I remember one day I felt really sick, so sick, and I took a pregnancy test and the results showed positive and I sat there with my hand over my mouth for a long time and then audibly said I'm going to have to tell the board and that if that's not again, it's all about what people think and their perception. And I told my principal and he was like they're going to be so happy for you, but you need to tell the board. And I did. I made Wes come with me. I was really nervous.
Speaker 3:Did you tell Wes first or the board? And like I'd like to inform the board and my husband that we're having a baby.
Speaker 1:So he did know. And then he was excited, very excited and supportive. And that year I'm teaching and pregnant and I hear that this guy's going to come and do the special series and Wes is pretty psyched about it. And so he comes and I'm so tired at this point in my pregnancy and he's up there with this gigantic whiteboard and he's making notes and scribbling all over this thing and I'm having the hardest time following him. Plus, I want to sleep. At this point. I'm coming home normally and falling asleep for a period of time. Wes will wake me up to eat and I go back to sleep so I can teach the next day. And I remember Christian. I remember his music. That's what stood out for me. But Jonathan was just putting me to sleep, not because of him but because of you know, did he say anything that landed at all? No, unfortunately there was a lot of sanctuary message in that first one. I do remember his story, but it ends up being like in that first chapter of the book and everything, and then you start to hear it a lot when he's-.
Speaker 3:The border story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, border story. So I remember that. And they're talking like we have these receptions after every night. I think that was pretty intentional so that you could talk about it. And people were like oh, this is cool. And I was like yeah, but I was like my feet hurt, can we go? So they came over after the week was done. We tried. I think we went back like another night, but I'm going to be honest, I was not falling because I had missed a lot and I was just like I think it's good, but I'm not sure, wasn't sure. And then they came over Sunday and I was like I can't remember if it was Super Bowl, but my team was playing. It might have been like leading up to that and I'm like got my jersey on, my dog's got her jersey on, and then they're just like now I know that they're just geeking out on gospel and I was like we're not going to watch the game. What's happening here? And Jonathan and Krishna, they're traveling, they're tired, they like leave in the middle of it. I was like okay, but I was excited for Wes because he was like he had these bros that he could just talk to when he's finishing his degree at Southwestern and so he's starting to get into ministry and I could tell Jonathan was really smart and Wes is vibing with him intellectually and I was like I don't know what they're talking about. I just remember the song who the sun sets free is free indeed, and that was about the only thing that landed from that brief encounter.
Speaker 3:Okay, you're like they come up and they do a Love Realtor weekend and you're like Cool story.
Speaker 1:I liked it. I was so tired, yeah yeah. But I had heard a little bit of gospel, I think, in a way before that, just from a different person. So when Wes went to interview in Pennsylvania, one of the interview questions was from this guy who was learning about the gospel and he asked Wes, what is the gospel to you? And I'm like, okay, I get this little idea of I'm sitting next to him, so maybe they'll ask me next. I don't know, but I'm like, okay, I think this is what Wes is going to say. I'm like, okay, john 3.16, probably some. Okay, revelation 12 and 14, definitely Okay, angel Smith. I'm like got it Okay. And he gives this answer. That is, I'm not kidding you. It was so short, it was like one sentence and I was you got to be kidding me. We just blew the interview because Wes doesn't know what the gospel is.
Speaker 3:And you remember what he said.
Speaker 1:It was something to the effect of Jesus died on the cross and forgave us and has. I don't remember the ending of it, but it was like and it's finished, like it is a done deal and there's a lot more to it. You have to do a lot more than that. From my background, there was and yeah, and the guy was very satiated with his answer and I was like what's happening? I don't understand. I've not been to the Bible colleges. I've taken more classes. I, I it was my first time being genuinely interested. But when he was teaching us, the one thing I did get from his bit because Wes is able to tell you exactly what he knew theologically like at every step of his journey Very impressive to me. I'm like, at this point, I'm like wow, there can be assurance of salvation.
Speaker 3:Hmm, it's possible, yes.
Speaker 1:It's very significant, though I did just pseudo believe it a little bit, I wanted to believe it?
Speaker 3:I did, yeah, so when you were afraid, when you were a kid, you weren't afraid about where you were going to end up. You were afraid about them pointing guns at you. But now, as an adult, it doesn't seem like you have complete assurance that you're good.
Speaker 1:No, because I feel like I might mess it up at any point. Yeah, what's to say, I didn't want to go off the rails and I felt for the longest time I did not have a testimony. I carried that with me for a long time because my story is quite simple. Now I know that I do, but I didn't know that at the time because I didn't think I had gone off and thrown and experienced all these things. I didn't have a story. I didn't have a story.
Speaker 3:You weren't smoking at your truck. No, you have to smoke at your truck to have a story. Yeah, yeah. So what happened after that? Then you were in Idaho. You get Jonathan and Christian come up for a weekend, but you didn't really land for you. What's the next thing?
Speaker 1:West gets a call to ministry. So we moved to Oklahoma City. I was doing homeless ministry with a couple and he was like are you coming to Parkviews Alumni next weekend? And I thought I don't know. And he's yeah, boy, diego is going to be there. And I was like what, really Cool. And I kind of forgot that they knew Diego, and it was just the way he said. It was so quirky too. And I was like huh, and he said yeah, and if you stay by Saturday night we're going to be playing basketball, you know, and Diego will be there playing. And I was like, oh okay, I was like I thought you meant like the Diego that I knew, and he's no, that's who I mean. I was like no, so you don't understand. I was like the Diego, I know, wouldn't Anyway, nothing, yeah, I just I knew him from a certain context and it's funny, I'm sure he thinks of me in that context too. You just think people get like stuck there. Not all these people have I kept in touch with and he's I've got a podcast that I'm going to send you. So he sends me Diego's podcast on death to life. And who is this person to send you this? It's just a friend of yours, mike Amodrell.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay yeah, Mike Amodrell.
Speaker 1:He's in Wes's story.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah and yeah. So he sends it to me and I, honestly, I try to listen. I tried to start that podcast so many times.
Speaker 3:Diego, if you're listening to this, it's not. It was a riveting episode. We'll find out. I don't know why she couldn't listen. Let's listen in together, diego.
Speaker 1:Yes, but finally he's getting. It's getting really close to him being there and I was like all right, I'm just going to find an hour and a half to just listen to somebody to listen to this, and I was so glad that I did.
Speaker 3:Did you know about the connection between love, reality and the death of life podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure that I did. Maybe Mike appointed it out, but it wasn't like clicking at this point really. But yeah, so I did listen to it and I was like, wow, I do want to see him. So I thought he was going to be flying out with his family. I was like so excited and we get there and he's on stage, barely makes it. His whole sermon that night was on the story of getting there, because he almost didn't, but he wasn't able to come with his wife and kids. But it was fun to see him and I was like, wow, this dude is different and that was like a person that I saw and I was very moved by how different he was and yeah, how was he so different? I just had a. I just consider him a super conservative person in college and now I just didn't think his theology would change and it was very different than the messages that we were hearing at that school. It was very loving and that was different. It was cool. We didn't even get to talk for that long, but it was evident, very evident to me, and I was like, okay, there's something here, yeah. Then Wes starts watching internet church and I think probably the first one. I watched over his shoulder a little bit and then Nyara starts talking and I'm watching her listen to this stuff and I felt like I was seeing the Holy Spirit move in real time and I'm like excited and that point on I started watching very faithfully.
Speaker 3:That wasn't that long ago.
Speaker 1:No, it was no, not all that long ago. It was, I want to say, December flash year something. But hers was the one that stood out to me where I was just like locked in. I was like, okay, I'm going to start watching. And then I got connected to the Bible studies.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what was growing in you as you're starting to take some of this stuff in.
Speaker 1:Definitely seeing the people's lives changed. I don't think I had ever experienced anything transformative, any molding of my character I had done. I felt like you have to be this way, you have to do this. Very probably rich young ruler. I've done this since I was a kid. I've done that. What else do I need to do? I knew there was something, but watching these people get it in real time, I was like whoa, this is really neat. And then Christian came to our church Christian Mendenau and then and he's from Jersey so I was like, oh cool, I want to connect with him, but I've got little kids. I heard pretty much nothing from that youth weekend. And then JB and Serena come to our church and I met her and I was like whoa, I knew immediately I wanted what she had immediately. And then they spent the afternoon with us and I was like they're cool and I've heard people say that about other Christians oh, they'll want what you have. But I did genuinely. She asked me like when did you start listening to, how did it start for you? Did you start listening to the internet church? I was like I did, yeah. And I realized that the conversation was about to be on me and I knew that I wasn't walking in freedom, so I didn't want to go there. I deflected majorly.
Speaker 3:How did you know you weren't walking in freedom? Like you're hearing everybody talk about freedom and you're like but I know I'm not walking. What was it?
Speaker 1:It wasn't there. There was not change in my life. I'm learning new information and it's good and actually I believed a lot of it, because they're reading straight from the Bible and a way that I've been taught to learn about the Bible and I was like it's pretty radical. I'm like, but is it? I'm like, am I learning anything new? I was like tripping because sometimes it just was so different from anything I had heard. And at the same time I've heard all this. I've taken classes. I've taken two classes on Romans, but yet I'm hearing something different. Right, the message is definitely different. So she tries. I wish I had letter in, but I didn't. But it was a great encounter with them. And then they went. They had to go and do more meetings and I'm with napping children or whatever it was at the time. So, yeah, it was like a good encounter, but I knew where I stood. Plus, I can see. I can see Wes's life very different. I'm not just seeing people on the internet, I'm seeing him very different and I want that, but I know I don't have it.
Speaker 3:Did you ever ask him like how do I get this? Did I start bothering you at this point too?
Speaker 1:Because, like, you're saying it like so, point blank, and it's like yeah, but like how does this change you? I don't understand. I couldn't really connect the dots super well and it was a little maybe sporadic for me. So I got a hold of his book and then I started reading it with some of my girlfriends from high school. We do this, we are very close to this day, we have reunions every year and so we started reading through the book chapter by chapter and I was like, yeah, okay. And then I received the wave one in succession and I was like why haven't I done this before? But it was something about going through it with them and having to a little bit defend it for myself. I was like, wait, maybe I do actually believe some of this and having to explain it I'm a teacher, so I feel like you don't really know something unless you can explain it, and explain it well. And so then I was like, oh, I see this and I get it, but I don't know when or if this is going to happen for me. So this girl comes on from our area and she's very quickly recognized that she's in freedom and she starts talking like it. And I was just like man, why do I not have that assurance? And so I did ask Wes, and we'd have some conversations, and one that stood out to me was that he said oh, I guess I asked him. Okay, so she's saying this, that she's free. So I asked him how do you know if you're free? Because I'm really closest like wanting to say it. I'm starting to think. But he goes if you don't know, you probably aren't. And that may seem a little devastating, but it was like I was like okay, yeah, I get that. And I was like ah, I remember that from like when I got married. People were like how do you know? I was like I know and I did. And so I was like okay, I get that, I get that, I don't know it. And then wave one came around and I don't know what it was about listening that week, but I was learning some new stuff. Even as of that week, the forgiveness night I thought what a waste. Like why are they doing a whole night on that? And then I realized there's elements of this that I still hadn't gotten. So then I realized I'm forgiven and what the implications of that were, and I was like okay, that was really cool for me because I thought I didn't need it that much or that I was willing to forgive, but it was yeah. And then the after party. I don't know if you remember the after party was so good Wessel, it was Friday nights after party especially. He goes to bed and like how are you missing this? People are crying, people are sharing how their lives are just changed after this week and I'm like excited. I'm laughing when they're laughing, I'm crying. We're like watching people in real time go through this. And then I see Ruth and Eddie over there and all of a sudden everybody's cameras are on, like it's internet church, and this message comes through and I looked down and Ruth says I'd love to hear what's on your heart tonight. Again, I don't know what it's in me, but I just shut down and what I wanted to do was turn off my camera. I just wanted to just disappear real quick. But I was in an internet church one time and then we went into the small groups and then he was like does anybody else have anything to say? And he's like looking around for somebody to say, and I like turned off my camera, you know, just so that like he wouldn't call on me because I'm not feeling confident in this message. I don't know for sure what I would say, so I've. And then Wes gets on the phone with him afterwards and they're chatting. Wes just blows my spot and he's like Lauren, totally turned off the camera to get out of saying anything in your group and he's laughing. So I've done this once and Eddie knows, and like we don't have that many actions, interactions, but he knows this part of it, so I give them some funny answer Like I just I can't basically. And man, I wanted it, but it was like I was not going to be inauthentic with this.
Speaker 3:Okay, we're going to take a quick break right now and I want to introduce to you my friend Wes Wes. How long have you been rocking with some good gospel?
Speaker 2:I tracked my moment of freedom back to about September of 2022. Is this 23? Yeah, 22, but I've been following along since 2019.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and if you guys want to go back and hear Wes's episode, do you know what number yours is?
Speaker 2:I am 106. Isn't there a requirement, Like when you're on the podcast? You got to know your number.
Speaker 3:You do have to know your number or you ain't about anything 106. Yeah, man, what has this? Real quickly, if you really want to hear what it's done, but understanding this beautiful message of the gospel what has it done for your life, man?
Speaker 2:It has changed everything, like all of it, and it continues to do that. And the beauty of it is that we get to grow in this, and so it's not just a momentary like oh, there was this moment where I had this like great experience, but because of the knowledge and understanding of who I am now in Christ and the expectation that the spirit lives in me, that continues to grow every day, new day, new excitement.
Speaker 3:Praise the Lord. Man, you have decided to donate of your hard earned finances to help this message go forward. Why have you done that?
Speaker 2:One of the first things whenever I came to the moment where God brought me to freedom, one of the first things I realized is I needed community. I needed to be around like-minded people, I needed to be able to be encouraged and built up and I found that within the Love Reality community. I found that by hearing the stories of people who had the same experience, who had gone through similar challenges to me and understanding who they were and God moving in their life. People who went through completely different situations and challenges. Stories were completely different than mine, but we all found the same peace, the same joy, the same love in Christ, and that community has been vital for me to settle into the truth, to take it from like a knowledge that I had in my head to an experience that I live out day by day.
Speaker 3:Wow, man, and if you're listening and you would like to partner with us in order to get this message out there, you can go to loverealityorg To donate so that we can keep producing these episodes internet, church, all that stuff because it's on our heart to share this message with the world we've been given the message of reconciliation, that is, god in Christ was not counting the world's trespasses against them and reconciling them to himself. So that is what we aim to do and we're going to keep on doing it. We would love you to partner with us, loverealityorg, and we'll just keep this thing going on out there. Thank you so much. Wes Appreciate you and your ministry and your testimony to us. Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 1:Man, I wanted it, but it was like I was not going to be inauthentic with this If it truly was not happening in my life. I was not going to pretend that it was. Something I admired so much about Wes when we got together was his authenticity. I didn't want to fake that I'm this okay, christian, and that things are hunky during my life and I wanted it to be real for me. And so, you know, they invited me to the prayer room and I was like, okay, and I had known for some time that I that was one of the things the Holy Spirit had spoken to me was that I was supposed to talk to him and Wes, every time we would talk, you'd be like, you know, here's what I could do, but he gets to a certain point and things I think you should talk to Eddie. And I had heard about Eddie. My sister had gone to Southern and when Wes explained, like Eddie and Jaila's story, the Jaila part, just it cut me to the core. I yeah very thankful for, like, their testimony. So, yeah, I'm struggling with stuff. I'm in this phase of motherhood, I'm very easily irritable. I think it was presenting because it's all of a sudden this loss of control? I can't. I can control how I act and I've had to, you know, buy my bootstraps, act a certain way my whole life. I cannot make my child act a certain way. He is his own little person and I think that's coming out in this very irritable, angry type of way. And I just thought, if I say that I'm free and then all of a sudden my husband sees me just struggling with how I am in my day to day life, he's going to blow my cover. He's just going to know. I had no idea what this was, you know really about, even though I knew all of these components of it and I'm seeing them as true. So that night I'm telling him a little bit of my story from high school and college, because I went into it like I'm. I told him first off, I'm not afraid that you're going to find an, uncover a lie. I'm actually afraid that you're like, not that I'm not going to know and you're not going to be able to tell me. That's not for us to figure out, that's the Holy Spirit's job. Let's pray for that. And I was like, oh, like, here I'm spending months trying to do this right and we pray. And, yeah, I didn't have an immediate revelation, but I was telling him a little bit of my testimony and I veered into this weird story. I have no idea why I even told him the story, but I told him about how I was coming back from prayer meeting in high school and competitive sports are taboo. There's really no sports played. But my junior year they started letting us throw around a football and you could play with the guys if you were in the common area and it was during separate time. So I had the football under my arm and walking back to the dorm I'm RA by this point, I'm a senior, I'm very much a leader at the school and I start tossing the football to one of the other girls and she was upset that I had. I wouldn't even say she was upset, she was disappointed in me that I had done that because I had ruined the solemn spiritual atmosphere for the girls.
Speaker 3:So you threw a football to a girl.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and I genuinely love this person and I know this person has a heart of gold. I never want to. Even in saying this, it was hard to. The thing I started with telling my story was I don't want these people. They genuinely love God, they love me and it yeah. So this did happen and I didn't even realize how significant it was until I looked at my grade for the semester and she had docked me from an A to an A minus because of this incident, and I'm feeling stupid for even saying this out loud to him. And he's like, whoa, don't run past it. I'm like okay, and I felt a little better. But it seems so silly sometimes telling these aspects when I know there's people that have gone through a lot in their life. So, but the Holy Spirit can use and will use anything he can, and I want you to do an exercise for me close your eyes and tell me where God is in this story. I was like, whatever, I have nothing to lose here. Really. I close my eyes and I do get a picture of where he is. He's right at the level of the cafeteria and he is hovering and watching this take place. And so he takes me to Romans 8 and we read there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. And as we're talking it out, we go to the later part of that chapter. And I was a grader in college for a class where everyone in the class had to memorize the entire book, no, sorry, the entire chapter of Romans 8. So I've now. I didn't even have to do it because I had heard people recite it so many times that I knew it. So I actually asked him can I go get this in a different version? I had just bought like a cheap Amazon Bible just to have it in a different version, because I'm memorized it so much I cannot even get the words to jump off the page and give me any sense of meaning because it's just so rote. And but he said can I share with you where I see Jesus in this story, where I was like, sure, give it a shot. He tells me I think he's throwing the football back and forth with you. It was the weirdest thing to say, I thought, and immediately it it meant something to me. It was like, honestly, this revelation of love that I did not realize was missing. I had no idea it was about to be that simple and that put something in my heart that just changed immediately and so we're like going through some more things that night.
Speaker 3:Why is that a revelation of love?
Speaker 1:Because I was able. I didn't know at the time. I knew it meant something at the time. Later I am able to do that in so many scenarios in my life. So now what I do is when I was processing a lot of this stuff and I thought, ok, these times in my life where I'm like hurt, why am I so critical, why am I so irritable, why do I feel so judged? I see Jesus like if someone's commenting on my parenting or talking about my son, like he's sitting on this side of the table with me, hearing me. I can all of a sudden put this into real life and I can see how it's not just affected my past. He's not this God looking down on me, he's in it, with me. And I was like, wow, this is so different. I want to walk it out with a God like that, absolutely. And it's very different because when I first went to explain it to Wes, he was like what? I don't really get it, because initially I was like I'm not sure I get it either, but I knew that it was God loving Lauren. And so it went from everything that I knew like all these things I knew were true. I just now believed it about myself. I could now go to scripture and read these things. And then it wasn't like, oh, it's cool that we can be free from sin. It was like I, all of a sudden, was the righteousness of God and that's what clicked for me. And so it was this huge belief thing. And we're talking and then I hear this song in my headphones and the only I was like, sorry, one second, I've got to turn off this music. And it was music that I listened to while I was pregnant in my first grade classroom and I had just listened to this album that week. And so I picked up my phone, took off my headphones and it was still playing and I was like, okay, that's weird. I was like I wouldn't have even stopped if I had not heard it, that at least heard the album that week, and it was really distracting. So I had also just recently listened to Ben's episode where he, in this conversation of him understanding freedom, heard a song and it was like a secular song and I was like God can use that. I didn't know that, like that, that didn't need to be part of my story. I never thought it would. And it was just like, oh, I thought we were talking like gospel music playing and you got your worship on and like things are great and that's the how he uses music. And Ben was like nope. And he was like I'm sorry, they're like playing this in the church. And I was like oh, that's funny. And he's like why did it mean something to you? I was like no, it's just funny, because I know this song. He's okay, he's like hold on one sec. So he goes and he pulls it up. And we actually watched this song because it's from a movie the greatest showman. That's the song from now on. And the thing that I really thought was that, again, if I had declared this, I was free and it really wasn't affecting change in my life, that I was going to have to pull myself up by my bootstraps and just work this thing out on my own because I didn't want Western people close to me to see like that. It wasn't transformative. And so when this song from now on is playing, I'm thinking, wow, from now on things might be different. And then there's one part that says what waited till tomorrow starts tonight. And that it was like tonight. And I was like I know, I felt like things were different, but I was not understanding that this was truly like the Holy Spirit speaking to me. It just didn't feel like he could be that real in that present and I hadn't had that kind of relationship with him. And then the song just keeps repeating and he will come back home. He will come back home, he will. He's home again. And on repeat, and it stomps it out and it's very climatic and I'm at this point with my head in my hands, crying like I am home. I knew it. Yeah, so weird. But yeah, it changed. And then I thought there's no way I wake up feeling like this. I've had spiritual highs before. I was very scared that in the next couple of days my world is going to just crumble down because it's not going to be really happening to me. And it was like I wasn't even doing anything and I'm just experiencing transformation. And that's how I knew that this was the work of the Holy Spirit, this was Christ in me. And it was amazing what happens when you stop trying and you just believe the word of God over your life, over any circumstances, and finally it's playing out for me. And then I could take him at his word and every word he said was giving me life at this point.
Speaker 3:What is home? When you said I'm home, what is that?
Speaker 1:I broke that. I didn't want to like, I didn't want to read something into the song or something that wasn't there. I didn't want to make this a weird thing, but it was a prodigal moment and I remember being on a bowel today, just before that, with you and Elias and him saying talking about how the father was like getting out of his seat, any notion of that son coming back to him. He was like so excited If he even thought a leaf was blowing and it might be him. He was just about to jump out of his seat and I didn't feel like I was that son. I'm the son in the back with the salty experience of I've been here, I've been working, I've been faithful, I haven't done all these things. Am I as loved that he showed me? Yeah, you are so loved, so loved, and it's given me everything.
Speaker 3:So home is just being loved.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, being embraced by him, and him going through these experiences with me, that is ultimately what it boiled down to for me.
Speaker 3:When you're telling the story of throwing the football. It reminds me of the culture of the ancient Near East. There is no personal space, there is no private time. It's just like you're with people and you're hugging. They have a brotherly kiss when they meet each other like a whole like. And when I think of Jesus in this way, he is in the dirt with kids, he's playing with kids, he's wrestling with these kids. Kids are drawn to his love. And to think that if there was any kind of joy in your life at this thing and you're just passing the football around and you're just having a good time, that's frowned upon, and that Jesus is actually like, no, like. The kingdom of heaven is joy. The kingdom of heaven is not solemn in the way you are thinking of it, and to see him throwing that football with you is so powerful to understand who he actually is.
Speaker 1:I couldn't wait to like get to heaven and have that one-on-one time with him. It's always been exciting to talk about heaven and what that would mean. It's way cooler knowing that I can experience that now. And he's good. He's so good, he's so gentle, he's so loving. And even soon after I noticed that I don't know I would go to a secret place. And then I remember one time it being revealed this lie that I was very irritable. And I remember going to Wes and telling him this as if he doesn't know and he doesn't see this played out. But I share with him that. And then I said it's interesting though, because I was like irritable is not in the Bible, so I'm just going to find another word to focus on so that I'm not. I just didn't want to be. I was done being so sin conscious, and so I went and I saw this like list of synonyms and or antonyms. I guess it would be. And then I get this word but I'm like not sure. So I take it as a secret place a different day and he just shows me breezy and it was so funny. That is not how I would describe myself. I want to be that person. I want to be my happy, go lucky, sanguine outgoing self. But it was. It was not really what was being portrayed at this point. And I close my eyes and ask him this. And when I opened my eyes it was this flock of geese flying over. And I'm just not one that has ever been into like signs and need songs and like this stuff. But he's just you talking to me and it's like real and personal. And then these hummingbirds are just darting around the yard and I'm all breezy, okay, and I've, I got it. And then someone had said in the Bible study, go and read 1 Corinthians 13 and put your name in it. And so Lauren is loving and kind. And I get my new version out and I'm literally reading it and it says Lauren is not irritable. And you had even told me one time now that I'm thinking about it. About one time I was like struggling with patients and yeah, I was like. It was like don't do that, like it's. It's just so hard for me to muster up this. I don't want to do that. You don't. You're not that person, it's. You can make a different choice. And it just felt like. It felt like it was something that was out of my control, so in some of my families very irritable and easy to anger. Maybe it's just like this genetic thing that I'm just constantly going to deal with for the rest of my life, and it was amazing to me that I didn't have to just all of a sudden go you know what, I'm just not going to react this way. God changed my heart and when I was talking to Wes, I was like I didn't want to go to him for validation, I didn't need that anymore, which was a crazy thought. But he shared, just seem more chill, and I was like, wow, I was a call me breezy bro. Yeah, that's my new name. Who would have thought? But it was a neat thing to see him work so gently in in my life and yet show up in all the ways that I wanted him to and need to, and I just couldn't believe that it was really founded on this belief. Even when you were making mistakes, he loved you. There's no condemnation, and I just had to stop doing it and just be loved. But it was so redemptive. I felt like he was rewriting my story, like in my childhood. Yes, I was very people pleasing, but you are justified and sure. I'm in high school and struggling with these. You know what self-worth issues. And he's just there telling me, like you are the righteousness of God and you know, in college I'm looking for love. And he's telling me, like you're pure and you're married life. You may have been selfish, but he's he's writing, rewriting all these things over me. Like you are blameless Motherhood, I'm giving you the ability to be holy. And I saw it very clearly that it's nothing that I do and I'm so glad because allowing him to be in my life and make these changes has been, yeah, definitely the best decision that I've made, and I'm thankful that he showed up when I needed him right at the moment. I did. It took a long time I got there. I'm glad I did.
Speaker 3:Usually we go back in time and I'm trying to think, like when you got that report card and you saw the A minus, did it hit you really hard? Yeah, if you could go to that girl and just be like, hey, what would you tell her in that moment? Who's wants to live with peace and joy, but is seems like is hemmed in by expectations and disappointment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say just turn your eyes upon Jesus. It's such an amazing place to live from because he offers us perfect peace. And that verse has meant a lot to me recently because, like what's better than peace, perfect peace? He has got this amazing formula to make your life, and it's not a formula, but these attributes that make it so wonderful to live out, and joy is a real possibility. It doesn't have to be this life of condemnation, and you don't have to always seek approval, because God knows your worth and your worth everything to him. He was willing to do whatever it took. Yeah, not to veer off too much from a good ending place. But I remember, with this one year that I did this corporate job. I went to work and there was a lot of men in suits and earpieces in the lobby. And then there was. I had gotten there early and by the time work started at 8am there was a lot more, a significant amount like and yeah, where everyone's buzzing at this point and my boss says do you know who's coming? If I can't, say, but do you know? And I was like I think I do, it's got to be, I'm thinking the mayor or, I don't know, the governor, and he's you need to think a little bigger. I was like, okay, no, I don't know, think bigger. And he's I'm like is the president of the United States coming to our office? I didn't tell you, but yes, so I just remember being like whoa, that's a big deal. Right, I'm the assistant to the COO, so he's. There's going to be a lot of gentlemen asking you a lot of questions about the building, and he was not wrong. And they were asking every detail about the air conditioning, the alarm systems, where the every exit and elevator and the water system, questions galore. And we were preparing for this big day and there were people that came and their only clean job was to prepare for his 15 minute max visit. My boss had gone to DC and had made the connection, and so he was like going to come to this tech startup company and it was cool, we were going to meet the president, but there was this moment where we had prepped all week man, I was tired. I was the one that stayed in the building with them until they the team left, because there's just so much that goes into this and and the day comes where he's about to show up, but he's delayed. There was, he was flying in from DC, but there were, there was a crisis overseas, and so he was needing to address that before he came. So we're late and there's. It brings out a lot of crazies. There was a lot of crazies in the building, around the buildings, and they were letting. One person in particular got in, and I remember thinking, how did they let this person in? So I went over, I was hanging around like the dogs that were there that's, that's me, but. And so by all these security, and so here my boss comes and he goes up to the secret servicemen that was manning the door and I'm thinking like he's not doing that great of a job and he goes what, whoever she tells you can come into this building or not, like you, listen to her and she will let you know. And yeah, if they're not supposed to be here. And she says, no, that's it, end of story. And he goes, okay. So I'm literally standing next to one of the most highly trained you know guys in the world for security and I'm like, yep, she's good. Okay, yeah, he can come in. No, not that person. So here I've teamed up with this person who is just in control here in this point. But the thing that stood out to me was, of all the people that worked in the building, they came and was like she will tell you. And I remember this incredible it's just a weird story to say I felt so valued in that situation You're talking could be a national security threat and they put it into my hands. I felt, and obviously it's not a threat, yes, I was doing the opposite, but I thought, wow, that's a privilege and as good as that made me feel there's an as valued as my opinion was to him, like it's, he's a huge dude when he's doing his job. And I was allowed to do that. The amount of worth that God sees in me, the amount of value my it's so much greater than anything I've experienced, and it's so transformative. Like it, it allows you to see who you are, and I was trying to see it for myself and God was like I already see you this way and in fact I see you way better than you see yourself, and I'm not going to be, let it be, anything less than my son or daughter. And when you have this incredible sense of value put on you, your life plays out differently. You are different because of who you are, and that revelation of love that was so simple and came from such an honest, simple story was just what I needed to understand it for my life. And then I realized it was a miracle. I saw that miracle in my life and now it's just about. I want everyone else to to see and experience that, because it's an incredible thing to be able to come side, come side people and watch this gospel play out in the significant way that it can and does.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And, seeing your life, maybe you don't know we notice everything, like when people are in an internet church or the Bible studies, and I've just been seeing you through the last year just taking us all in, asking questions, seeing that it wasn't quite landing for you, but you knew that there was something ready for you. You just didn't know how to get it. And then, hearing this story today, you're just, it's just an amazing testimony. You are a testimony and it's an encouragement to me going forward, just to hear your heart and your that you've just been really loved. So thank you so much for sharing your story. It's it means so much to us. Thank you Absolutely. Wow. I have found that so many people still struggle with the character of God because of this idea that they have to perform for God to love them. And it's people who have been in the church for a long time, it's people that have been in a church for a short time. This twisted lie that your performance is what gains God's approval is a lie from the pit of hell, and if you're dealing with that right now, then this is for you. Pray this right now, Father. I have been struggling with my legal standing with you. I'm always trying to do enough so that you love me, but in this moment I receive this that you love me while I was a sinner. You love me when I was turned against you. You love me before the foundation of the world and even in my fallen condition. That is when you came and you saved me. And so now I know that it is not my performance that gains your approval. I have your approval because I'm your kid, and while I've been steeped in this way of thinking for a long time this old way of thinking I want the new way right now. Thank you for ministering that to me through your Holy Spirit. I believe it and I receive it in Jesus' name, Amen.