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
#249 Ariana: Feelings Aren’t Lord, But They Sure Tried To Be
We trace Ariana’s path from a small-town church and a turbulent home to anxiety, addiction, striving, and finally a clear identity in Christ. A Friday night with Scripture and a single line—“feelings aren’t Lord”—becomes the hinge that shifts her marriage, her mind, and her future.
• growing up Adventist in Mankato amid family alcoholism and divorce
• public school pressures, validation through dating, and early boundaries with substances
• academy years of rules, comparison, and a hunger for real faith
• college loneliness, intentional dating, marriage, and vocational twists
• hidden pornography struggle, cycles of confession, shame, and effort
• long commutes with the Bible, reframing Old Testament lives, asking harder questions
• testimonies and Wave clips leading to the key insight: feelings aren’t Lord
• practicing truth-telling over stored lies and reframing identity in Christ
• freedom from addiction, anxiety, and depression by rooting identity in Jesus
• how marriage dynamics changed when identity shifted from feelings to Christ
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SPEAKER_04:And I'm like, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00:And then and then that's not true, bro.
SPEAKER_03:Whatever. And then he's like, now I know what you may be thinking, but Jonathan, I don't feel this way. And I'm like, okay, that was like weirdly targeted at what I was exactly just thinking.
SPEAKER_04:And he's like, but feelings aren't Lord. And then he goes on to explain this more, right? Like that your feelings don't dictate the truth, right? And that's when it clicked. I was like, that's like that's what I've been missing. And I just start like bawling on the couch. And like I've said, I'm not a very emotive person. So I'm just like crying on my couch in the living room on a Friday night, listening to this and reading my Bible.
SPEAKER_01:Yo, welcome to the Death Alive Podcast. My name is Richard Young, and today's episode is with my friend Ariana. I've known her for a while, and she works at a place I love, but to hear her story, man, it just warms my heart to see the gospel changing people's lives and just growing up people into Christ. And so you're going to appreciate this story. Uh, it isn't probably for kids, but it's about someone, you know, who saw the truth and realized that just the truth was realer than what we feel sometimes. And so this is Ariana. Uh buckle up strap in. Love y'all, appreciate y'all. Uh check it out. Alright. Another one of somebody that I've known for a long time. And not only that, you're you're at a place that I love dearly, but we never really crossed paths. Have we ever really crossed paths anywhere? Like, have we ever lived in the same area?
SPEAKER_03:No, never lived.
SPEAKER_01:No, because you were at Union checking it out, and then you left. And then I'm sorry to hear that. And then you uh you got to Maplewood uh the year after we left. Was that 2015? Or your Jacob did.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. No, it was 18. Uh you were not uh you got to Maplewood in 2015.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Yeah, I'm sure you're right. I get the 2015 2018 stuff, because on one of those years I left. Okay, yeah, we left Maplewood in 2018 to go to Kansas City. But Ariana, uh, where are you taking us? Where are we starting the story? Where are you from? Who who are you? What is your quest?
SPEAKER_04:Okay. Um, I'm from Mankato, Minnesota, in the southern part of the state, you know, pretty flat farmland, boring. Um, there is one Seventh Adventist church there, and that is where my story starts, is in the Seventh Adventist Church growing up. We moved houses a lot growing up, but we always went to that Adventist church. We were always around the Mankato area.
SPEAKER_01:What does your dad do?
SPEAKER_04:Uh my dad did a conglomeration of different things. So he worked in like a factory at one point. He worked for a land uh, I guess what's that called? I want waste management trash pickup at one point, but he wasn't like the trash guy. He just worked there. I don't know what he did. He drove semi, he I mean, he did a variety of different things.
SPEAKER_01:He's a jack of all trades. Is he like super handy?
SPEAKER_04:Um in his area, yeah, for sure. Like in the areas he's worked in. He's good at like figuring out a skill and then doing that skill and keeping with it. He's a really good truck driver. That's that was his favorite profession, I think, of all of them, driving semi.
SPEAKER_01:Why why when I think of Mankato, there's a couple things that come to mind. One is that the Vikings used to have their training camp in Mankato.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, that was awesome.
SPEAKER_01:And the other is there's a big um Sudanese uh community there. And when I was at Maplewood, like we got, you know, on my basketball team, I had like five or up to seven Sudanese dudes, and they were all from Mankato. So when I think of Mankato, I think of the Vikings and tall, skinny, black dudes that can ball. That's what I think of. Is that what you think of when you think of Mankato?
SPEAKER_04:No, but that's because I grew up there. I feel like the Sudanese population didn't start coming in until I was older. Like we had a little bit when I was early teens, but not in my early childhood. Because now there's quite a few Sudanese members at the Mankato Church. Because I go back every now and then, you know, to see my family. Of course, they still live there. Um, but yeah, there it wasn't really prevalent until I was probably in my early teens.
SPEAKER_01:So why did your parents choose Mankato? What is it about if they're just like we'll settle here?
SPEAKER_04:Um I don't really know.
SPEAKER_01:Is your dad from Mankato?
SPEAKER_04:Well, no, sort of. So he lived in Mankato at one point in his life. Um, but when he and my mom got together, they both lived in New Ulm, which is a town like 30 miles west of Mankato.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I know New Ulm. It's on the way from Lincoln to Hutchinson. You pass New Ulm, and it's kind of like, oh, we're at New Ulm. So when you tell when someone says, Where are you? and we you say just past New Ulm, then you know where it's at. But sorry, for anybody listening, like in Australia, the the Minnesota geography is not interesting to you, but it is interesting to me. Okay.
SPEAKER_04:No, it's a super German town, which my mom has large roots there, so I'm pretty German.
SPEAKER_01:You're like 100% German?
SPEAKER_04:I'm like 40 to 60 percent German, which I don't know if if you look at you know, like roots of Europeans, that's quite a bit of German compared to the others. The others are all small percentages, you know.
SPEAKER_01:So is your family your larger family? Is it mostly Seventh day Avenus? Or I know that Minnesota is a heavily Lutheran uh state. Is it yeah, do you have a mixture, or what is it?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Um so my mom was raised Lutheran, her whole family is Lutheran, the German side definitely Lutheran. And then my dad's side of the family, which their roots come from like England, you know, so just not that interesting. But um they I'm English.
SPEAKER_01:That's interesting to me.
SPEAKER_04:They are the Seventh-day Adventist side of the family. So that side of the family, my dad's side, goes back Adventism, like you know, to Ellen White. It's it's old roots in Adventism, probably before Ellen White. I don't even know. Like five generations or something.
SPEAKER_01:They're like they were in the Navy with William Miller, like that's how deep their Adventism goes.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like a fifth generation Adventist on that side, but my mom's side was Lutheran.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, and so you're growing up, there's one Seventh-day Adventist church in Mancato. Was it uh was it a is it a big church?
SPEAKER_04:Um, no, it's not. It's a very small church. There's not a ton of members. You would think the like with the size of Mankato that it would be a decent sized church, but it's really not. Um, it's pretty small. I don't even know exactly how many members they have, but our pastor was always a pastor who shared churches. So currently the Man Cato pastor has four other churches, as far as I know. That was kind of always the way it was. Five churches for one pastor. So yeah, that's a lot. Um, but I felt like considering that I saw the my pastors a decent amount when I was growing up. So yeah, it was a small church. I felt like growing up, the church that I went, the Seventh Adventist church in Vancado that I went to, although it was the same church that my siblings went to, it wasn't the same church by the time I was growing up, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_04:Um, I felt like there was a lot more kids my age than what my siblings had. They probably had one or two people their age at the church when they were growing up. I think there was like within five years of me, there was probably eight to ten kids, which was quite a bit within my age range compared to what they had growing up. So that was really nice. And all of our parents were friends, so we got to hang out a lot. I was the only girl for quite a while, but that didn't bother me. But because my parents our parents were close, well, I should say our moms, dad's not so much, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So my dad actually brought my mom into the Seventh day Adventist Church because I, as I mentioned before, my mom was raised Lutheran. My mom transitioned into Adventism, I think when she had her first right after she had her first or second kid, um, which was 15 years before I was brought into the picture.
SPEAKER_01:How many kids are there?
SPEAKER_04:Four. So I'm one of four. I'm the youngest.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So my dad, though, stopped going to church. I don't even know, probably during that second kid or something.
SPEAKER_01:He's like, You should be an Adventist. She's like, okay, and then he's like, and I'm not going to church anymore.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I don't I don't even know if he was the one who pushed her into trend like uh converting to Adventism, but just going to church, she decided she made that decision for herself. He wasn't like, be an Adventist, but he's the reason that she became an Adventist because he initially would go to church, but he stopped going to church, didn't go to church, I don't think once my whole childhood. Um because he was he suffered from alcoholism really badly when all of us were growing up, really. We all dealt with different parts of it. My sister always says we grew up with different parents, like because our parents changed and their relationship and who they were individually changed a lot throughout their marriage, and of course, then throughout each kid, it was different. And we're all all of us kids are three to five years apart, so it's kind of bigger gaps than you know. Sometimes it's like two years, two years, two years. And yeah, so we have bigger gaps between us, so there was a lot more room for different parents between each kid than there might be for some. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, keep going.
SPEAKER_04:Um, well, I got on this tangent. What was I talking about before?
SPEAKER_01:You were talking about we were talking about the church, and then you talked about how your your dad stopped going.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so I was pretty blessed because all of our moms were friends. So we did stuff outside of church quite a bit on Sabbath afternoons, like we'd go to a park nearby and go on a hike and just outside stuff, and we'd have like youth sleepovers. And this was my childhood experience with the church, just getting to spend time with people who cared about us and also kids our age, which was or my age, I should say, which was really great for me in the lens in which I viewed the church because I felt like people in the church cared about me, and that really kind of solidified my roots in the church, more so than my siblings, I think. They had a little, but not as much as what I did. And I think that's partially because my dad wasn't around so much when I was a kid, so my mom leaned more heavily on her friends in the church for support.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's beautiful that you had a root with people that that love you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And so, um, who was God to you?
SPEAKER_04:So I felt like as a child, a young child, I knew that Jesus loved me, right? You know, the song Jesus loves me kind of ingrains that in you, whether you know it or not. So I knew Jesus loved me, but there was always, and I knew he wanted me to love him also. And I did as a child, and I was curious and I was interested in him. But there was never like uh as I grew older, I should say, like into my teen years, there was more disconnect and disillusionment with it. Even though I was always curious and interested in going to church and having those roots, I don't know that I was like living a Christian life because I felt like even though my family was Adventist, we weren't like the strict. My mom wasn't strict with us. It was, you know, we weren't allowed to go to other people's houses and have sleepovers on Friday nights, and we weren't allowed to watch stuff on Saturday that wasn't veggie tales. But other than that, there weren't a lot of like laws in my house about religion. It was just we did worship as a family on weeknights and most of the time. And we saw literally about what like are there more laws?
SPEAKER_01:Like I know you have kids. Are there more laws in your house than the house you grew up in?
SPEAKER_04:Um I don't think so. My mom was pretty uh discerning on what she allowed us to watch and consume, but not in such a strict way that I felt like I was missing out on a ton. Um, and I've tried to be that same way with my kids. Like I let them kind of consume things that I feel like are appropriate and are age appropriate, and have nothing that's directly against Christianity and Jesus and all that.
SPEAKER_01:So you are you don't think that having not a ton of rules was a terrible thing?
SPEAKER_04:No. And we had rules, but it just wasn't um like Adventist rules. You know, we didn't have a lot of those, like we don't oh, so I guess my family didn't really eat pork, but it's not even really something I knew. Like it wasn't yeah, I didn't it wasn't talked about. Like we don't eat that. It was just we just didn't. But yeah, we ate meat, but not pork and you know, all those unclean meats.
SPEAKER_02:Interesting.
SPEAKER_04:But we weren't they I just felt like there wasn't like this strict, like we must follow these rules, other than Sabbath. And I didn't really feel like the Sabbath was a sometimes I felt, you know, as a kid, you feel like it's binding, like, oh, I just want to watch my movies or do what I want to do, but I never felt like it was that much of a restriction. My mom might say differently, she might say, like, oh, she's she hated it, but I don't know. But I think that's partially due to the fact that like when it was nice out, we were out like doing stuff with our church family, and that helped a lot.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. For sure. Like, if you're not out in nature and you're not doing stuff with the family, then it can like if you're just sitting at home and you're like and you can't watch this, well that it's a bummer.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, winter hit different.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, especially in Minnesota. Yeah, especially in Minnesota. So, yeah, how did this shape your picture of who God is?
SPEAKER_04:I think I saw God as someone who loved me and wanted a relationship with me, but I never really understood how to get there. Like, other than like saying, Well, I love Jesus and I go to church, so I guess I'm a Christian, right? You know? And that's about all I understood of it. I felt like it just didn't go that deep. I had a desire, but it didn't go very deep. My relationship didn't go very deep as a child.
SPEAKER_01:W as you grew older, were you nervous about that?
SPEAKER_04:Um I don't know if I was nervous about it. I kind of felt like a lesser Christian once I got into academy because I was like, I didn't know all of these like extra things that go with religion, right? I didn't know any of this stuff. I didn't, I didn't know about um I didn't really know anything about the unclean meats, right? I had no idea about that. I didn't know I knew my grandma was vegetarian and that was a thing, but I didn't really know you're not supposed to eat this and that. And like I didn't know all these things. So coming into a school from public school, because I went to public school K to eight, no, K to nine. And so that's kind of the world I knew. So coming into an Adventist school was like a total life change, complete shift of mind, and I was I felt like lesser than some of these people who had grown up in the church for their whole lives. Obviously, that wasn't true, but that's how I felt coming into academy.
SPEAKER_01:I have this vivid experience of being in Wood's Auditorium, and I think I was either at Maplewood or at Midland at the time, as either the dean or the principal, and it was like some kind of prayer conference or youth festival or something. I don't know what it was. And like they were like they split the group up, and there were kids like in a circle, and they were like, What do you want to ask God for? And I just remember feeling all of the anxiety of the students were like, I I just need to have a better relationship with God, and there was like real anxiety about it, and I'm sitting there, I'm like, Man, how do I help these kids? But it seemed like like academy time is like that turn up the notch on your anxiety about relationship with God, and I was like, this I definitely felt that in a game. It felt so whack to me, and I was like, how do I not like how do we move away from this? You you felt that same feeling, like the anxiety turned up about relationship with God?
SPEAKER_04:For sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Man, like what did that like why? What was the like what was the anxiety?
SPEAKER_04:Just that I wasn't, you know, doing my daily devotionals and I wasn't spending time with God regularly. So I'm like, well, I must not be a very good Christian if I can't even spend time with God every day, right?
SPEAKER_01:Isn't there like this feeling? Isn't there like this judgment on like maybe even in the dorm on which person is the most like they're actually going after it? And then there's like, man, they're really they're having devotionals, and they started a Bible study, and I'm not starting a Bible study, and I I have my devotionals, I guess, and and I, you know, I'm talking during Vespers. Did it feel like there was a hierarchy or like there was people that were going after it and maybe you weren't?
SPEAKER_04:You know, I didn't really feel that way, like that hierarchy in the dorm life or anything like that. Um, I definitely saw like differences in people, like wow, this person is like the best Christian, right? But I didn't feel like anyone was stigmatized for it or anything. Maybe that was like a skewed picture in my brain, but I don't know. I think in my experience in academy in general, I felt like at least everyone in my class, we all kind of in general, you know, there's obviously a few outliers, like respected each other and appreciated each other. But that took time too. I guess it wasn't instant, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So how did that go? Did your did your spiritual life grow through academy?
SPEAKER_04:It did, yeah. I feel like I feel like we need to go back though. So my bad.
SPEAKER_01:You did you didn't know that?
SPEAKER_04:No, no, no, it's not your fault. It's good. Um, so when I was in elementary and middle school, because this I feel like this is largely due to my dad not being around, right? My parents were separated many, many times. Throughout their marriage, but they never actually divorced until I was 12. I think I was 12. It would have been like sixth grade or something. My parents got a divorce. And that kind of changed a lot. But at the same time, because my dad wasn't around, it didn't change that much. And we never had money anyway, because my dad was always drinking and spending his money on what he wanted to spend it on. Even though he's actually a very frugal person, you wouldn't have known it because of his habits. But that's what you know the disease does. It changes the way you look at everything. So we just never had a lot of money growing up. And that was something that always was like with me, like, okay, we can't afford this and this and this, right? So then when my parents divorced, it was even more tight around the belt. Like, okay, it's just mom now supporting our finances, and we couldn't do a lot of stuff. But I felt like my mom did a pretty good job with trying to give us things to do and opportunities to have, even though we didn't have a lot of money. And I appreciated that. She didn't like, she let us know, you know, we can't like afford all the things in the world, but she still tried to make it a good childhood, at least in from my perspective. And I think large a lot of that has to do with just spending time with family, is what made it feel like it was a good childhood, because I got to spend a lot of time with my siblings and everything growing up. Um, but I definitely had this complex of the, you know, the daddy issues, as you would call it, because my dad wasn't very present in my childhood or in my middle school years. So I pretty much attached myself to any boy that would give me the time of day. Um, starting seventh grade, probably, you know, when that that's when girls start thinking about that kind of thing. I can't speak to when boys do, but seventh grade. And in public school, it's especially prevalent, at least in the public school I grew up in. If you were a girl and you were even a little bit pretty, you better have a boyfriend, right? Or at least that's how I felt in like keeping up with whatever trying to fit in. And I felt like throughout elementary and when I changed schools in third grade, I really started to feel the pressure of like I need to fit in. Um so that kind of stayed with me in the like, I need to fit in with these people because I don't know if I have a place with them or not. Like I'm this Adventist girl, or you know, kind of Adventist girl who's I always felt different in that way just because a lot of them did their sports and they did sports stuff on Saturday and they did all this, and I'm like, well, I'm separate from them because I can't, I don't do all that stuff, we can't do all that stuff, right? But then I'm also separate from the Adventist church because I'm not this super Adventist girl. I go to public school. So I know you're no man's land. Right. So I always felt like this in between and like I didn't fit in anywhere. So I was always trying to fit in somewhere. And part of that was like having a boyfriend and also just the needing attention from boys because I felt like I wasn't getting it like at home or in my childhood.
SPEAKER_01:So did you did you you figure it out? Did you get a boyfriend?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so I don't even I don't how do you count like middle school relationships that last four weeks, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Oh but you count them.
SPEAKER_04:I I didn't count them. So in other words, I don't know how many boyfriends I had from between seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. I have no idea. Like there was somewhere between five and ten, probably from seventh to ninth grade. Yeah. And they, you know, it was all fairly like low-key, none of it was any high pressure until you start getting into high school, and then there's a little bit more pressure. But I I didn't feel a ton of pressure because it was just freshman year that I was in public school. Um, but definitely made some poor decisions in seventh, eighth, and ninth grade.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Did that uh how did you feel? Did you feel guilty? Did you feel like when you're making these decisions, were you feeling like this isn't the route I really want to be going?
SPEAKER_04:For sure. Um I I think probably because of our Christian home, I would feel like I need to fit in, but then there's certain ways where I can't fit in. I was also blessed with a friend group that wasn't super interested in like drinking or drugs, but then I also had another friend group who was like sort of connected to my friend group that was more interested in drinking or drugs. So it was kind of like I had access to it. And when I say drinking or drugs, the like alcohol was available to a decent amount of my friends starting in eighth grade as well as marijuana. So that started becoming a thing in eighth grade and then into ninth grade, those things were becoming available to me because I was hanging out with these people. Um, so I had good friends who d weren't into that kind of stuff, but then I had friends who were. So it was definitely available to me if I wanted to go down.
SPEAKER_01:Were you attracted to this? Or were you like, uh, I don't think it's my scene.
SPEAKER_04:So I watched multiple people in my family struggle with alcoholism and also even some marijuana and other things, and it kind of turned me off from it. I had a curiosity about it because of watching people do it and watching friends do it and people in my family, but I also saw the destructive path that it brought my family members' lives down. So I was curious, but not necessarily super interested. And then I remember one time, my freshman year, I went to a friend's house, and I'm my mom, I'm sure, did not know that her parents weren't going to be home. But her oldest, her older sister was, and her older sister was not also not old enough to drink, but she had more readily accessible alcohol, I guess, than um we did. So anyway, she had alcohol there and she had a couple friends, and then my friend and I had a couple of friends over, and it was the only time in my life where I ever got like super drunk. And the next day I had someone tell me that, oh, you did this and this and this, but I wasn't like totally blackout, so I actually remembered. So I was like, I didn't do any of those things, but just that freak out of like I could go down a path where I get drunk enough to do these things and not remember them. So I that turned me off. I was like, I don't like that, like being able to do a bunch of things and not remember them the next day. It kind of makes you feel out of control. And just the experience of being drunk, I definitely didn't feel in control of my decisions. It felt like very impulsive, and I didn't like that. So I was like, I don't think I'm gonna do that anymore. So the time was kind of enough for me to be like, eh, I'm good. And I'm not saying I never like experimented with it again, but I definitely never wanted to go down that path of like getting drunk on Saturday night and hanging out with your friends. Like, I was like, this is not it for me. This is not enjoyable, not fun at all. And then there was a lot of other like drama and stuff my freshman year with what I felt like was a pretty solid friend group, but apparently wasn't. Um, because they at some point or the other, they all like just decided I did something wrong. And granted, they may have been right in many cases, like there was probably things I did wrong, but I lost by February of my freshman year, I lost like every friend I had. And I thought, you know, from friends who I'd had since at least sixth grade. So I was like, oh well, they've got to be solid friends by now, right? I was wrong. So yeah. Yeah. But one of them, we became friends again, and I'm still friends with her to this day, so that's cool. Nice, but yeah, but the others I just kind of lost them and I had to make new friends, but it was not a good year. Freshman year in public school was a terrible year for me. Absolutely terrible.
SPEAKER_01:So is that how you decided like I gotta go up to good old Hutchinson?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So I grew up going to camp meeting, which um, you know, was something in the Adventist faith that um people like to do in conferences, right? So the Minnesota Conference Camp Meeting takes place at Maplewood Academy. So I knew of Maplewood Academy. I went every year to camp meeting and stayed with my grandma. My grandma. When I was a kid, camp meeting was pretty was a pretty big thing. Adventists from all over the state went, whether their kids were in public school, private school, whatever, they went to camp meeting, right? It's not as big as it was when I was a kid. And it was also like this big 10-day thing. It started Thursday and ended the next Sunday.
SPEAKER_01:They were still pretty proud that they keep they kept it for 10 days, but do that have they they cut it down to just one weekend now?
SPEAKER_04:Oh yeah. No, it's just five days now. Um, but it it was 10 days when I was a kid, and it was awesome. I loved it. My mom brought me on Saturday, the first Saturday. I stayed with my grandma in her dorm room and my aunt for the week, and then she picked me up again the next Saturday, and I just loved it. Like getting to be with other kids who are also come from faith backgrounds. Some of them went for went um to Adventist schools and some of them didn't, but it was just really great being around other people. It was like my church family, but compounded into a larger group of people that I actually had more in common with, even than my church family. So it was awesome. I loved camp meetings so much. I looked forward to it every year.
SPEAKER_01:I probably visited that camp meeting maybe when you were coming up there, um, because I I came up with Buell one time because Buell he would gum up with the camp meeting stuff. And so, yeah. I hated camp meeting when I was in Minnesota because I had to run the dorm and I hated it, hated it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, they don't do that anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Uh I was not good at doing it, so I just felt all this pressure, and it's like the school year's over, psych can't be.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, they don't do that to the deans anymore. It was more like it was it wasn't even really a question. It was just like we're gonna can take control of this now. I think because of you, actually, they were like, No.
SPEAKER_01:You're like, Richard did a pretty poor job, we're gonna do it now. Good for them.
SPEAKER_04:So anyway, yeah, they took control of it. I don't think Jacob's ever been in charge of the dorm during camp meeting. So maybe no, maybe he has, maybe the first couple years, but anyway, yeah, it was because of Jacob.
SPEAKER_01:Do you do a better job, Jacob, not me?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, it was definitely. Um, anyway, so yeah, so I knew about Maplewood Academy, but the whole idea of like a boarding school was totally foreign concept to me. And I visited Maplewood for academy days, my eighth grade year, but I just visited for fun because I had friends from cam meeting and stuff there, thinking I'm never gonna be able to go to this school, right? But I visited it so it I experienced storm life for a weekend and what life would be like. I'm like, but this was in my friend group, but still solid at home, right? So I was like, I'm never going to this school. Love you guys.
SPEAKER_01:You're can't leave the homies, can't leave the homies.
SPEAKER_04:No, right, no, not happening, right? Well, then um, after my freshman year of high school being so terrible, and my pastor at home and one of the faculty at Maplewood came to recruit, like did this church service and recruited and talked about Maplewood. And I'm like, maybe, maybe I could go to Maplewood. And my mom's like, we can't afford it. And I'm like, Yeah, you know, you're right. We can't afford that. It's like$14,000 a year. How would we pay for$14,000 a year? So because she was, you know, single mom supporting us in our house that she's having to pay for and everything else that she's having to pay for by herself. So then I told my pastor though that I was interested, but we couldn't afford it like at all. And my mom said the same thing. She's like, Yeah, we can't, we cannot afford it. Well, two days before registration day, in October of 2011, uh, pastor calls me and he's like, uh, we found someone to sponsor you for the next three years at Maplewood. And my mom is like, uh, like, like, how much do I have to pay? And he's like, nothing.
SPEAKER_03:And we're like, whoa, like, really? And she's like, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So uh I uh packed my room up and went to Maplewood in August of 2011.
SPEAKER_01:Were you excited? Were you like, was this a good thing?
SPEAKER_04:I was excited, but probably pretty anxious too, because even though I had a couple friends here, one of them was a senior. I was coming in as a sophomore. Um, one of them was a senior, and sh I felt like she was really the only person that I was really good friends with coming into Mapewoods. So I didn't really know that many people here. But I came anyway, made friends.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, how'd it go?
SPEAKER_04:Um it was pretty good. Well, okay. Sophomore year was good, but I wouldn't say it was great. Um I definitely had issues with the dean that year. It was her first year, so she was figuring out how to dean and I was figuring out dorm life. So of course we're both gonna clash. Um, she kind of came in with her pretty like strict, like we need to follow every rule. She definitely got more lax by the time my senior year came. She was still, you know, followed the rules, but maybe I got more okay with rules too by senior year because public school's pretty like they have dress codes, but they don't really enforce them. Um, but the dress code here was strict, so that was the hardest thing for me. And I just I think I told my mom multiple times I don't want to do this anymore. Like I just want to go back to public school. And she's like, no, you're at least gonna finish out this year. She's you're not leaving in the middle of the school year before you've experienced one full year of this. And glory to God, because I'm so glad she did that. I'm so glad I stayed. I made some really great friends that year eventually, and it ended up being an awesome year. But I wouldn't be Ariana in high school if I didn't also attach myself to a boy while I was here. So that was another aspect of sophomore year was the boyfriend thing. And then, you know, I had the like sad girl complex of like, no, I'm becoming too attached to you, and so I broke up with him and then you know, soon regretted it.
SPEAKER_01:All the you see this happening since you're at Mabelwood, you see it happening all the time now with these kids, and they're like, Yeah, I I experienced that. I went through it.
SPEAKER_04:I definitely didn't have the lens to view it then like I do now. It was just like I'm breaking up with you, but I didn't know why, I didn't understand any of that.
SPEAKER_01:But that's just but now it's isn't it sad that we have this information, but now nobody listens to us? Like someone I'm pr I'm pretty close with like was dating this girl all through high school and just went to college. He's in his first year at an Abbas College. And I told my wife last year, I was like, they're gonna break up uh before Thanksgiving. And then I just saw them this last weekend, and I was like, Hey, are you and what's her name still together? And they're like, No, we we broke up uh you know right after Labor Day and then got back together and broke up, I think like before Thanksgiving. And I was like, Oh Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's like we can see it coming from a mile away, but we don't no one will listen to it us, and we don't really know what to do with this information, but it's we we try, we do try to incite our wisdom upon them, but so many of them don't listen, especially when it comes to dating. We tell a lot of kids like I don't even recommend that you date in high school because your hormones are all over the place, you make decisions you wouldn't normally make, um, and you're just not seeing anything clearly. Like it's not a good time to be dating. And not many people take that advice from us, but because that sounds like no fun.
SPEAKER_01:Like, where's the fun? You gotta date.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, no, my my husband did not date at all in high school. I dated more than I should have, and we still can't come together and give this advice to students. Like, I did this, he didn't, his high school experience was much better than mine.
SPEAKER_01:And they're like, that's for people who don't know what they're talking about. We know what we're doing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. They definitely know better than we do.
SPEAKER_01:So you you you had some heartbreak, some frustration, some sadness going through then.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So yeah, and then the next year I was like, Oh, I miss you terribly. Please, I've changed. Let's get back together. And of course, we did. So then we dated almost all of that, my junior year of high school, and then he broke up with me on graduation. Well, the night before graduation, and I was like, absolutely just like, we were gonna get married.
SPEAKER_01:Was he a junior as well or a senior?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. We were in the same class.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, nice. So you're gonna go into the next year, uh, and this will be uh awkward year. So uh man, graduation, that's it's a common tale, but true, but it's it's a tough one.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So I was just, you know, heartbroken all summer. It was a terrible summer. Actually, it wasn't that terrible. I went to Kentucky to help um watch my niece because my sister was working nights. She was uh working in a nursing home, I think, and she was working nights, and she had a uh six-year-old daughter and was pregnant with their son. So I helped to watch her because she's pregnant and tired because she's working nights and you know, so just all compounds. I was helping watch it.
SPEAKER_01:Not you for her, working nights. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_04:Like having children of my own now, I can't imagine. But anyway, yeah, so I helped watch my niece that summer, and that was cool. But you know, I was like just a shell of a person all summer, probably, other than being able to interact with this awesome five, six-year-old child who was great, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And then back for your senior year, let's see what happens. What happens?
SPEAKER_04:So, senior year, I actually feel like was my best year in academy. I didn't date anyone, but I enjoyed the year so much more because I got to spend just focus on hanging out with my friends and cultivating those relationships instead of a boy relationship. And I actually enjoyed it significantly more, which is why I tell all these students just wait until after high school. But um, but no, it was great. I got to spend a lot of time with my friends. I was definitely sad about the breakup, still felt awkward, still felt sad at times, but in general, it was a pretty good year, and I got to create some, or I guess they were already friends with me, but like, you know, really solidify some friendships that one that's still really good friends with today. Actually, two that I'm still really good friends with today.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So the year of no dating was the best year. I wonder if that's a coincidence or for sure. And you were the most mature okay. So then, yeah, what happened after that?
SPEAKER_04:Um, well, and if you look at uh I'm thinking in my head about the question you always ask, so who was God to you? So during high school, um during those three years, I definitely felt the pressure like we were talking about, about like um, I need a better relationship with God. And like every week of prayer would come, and I'm like, okay, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna do it this time. And there's a couple weeks of prayers that really stood out in my brain that uh were were turning points in some way, but it wasn't the like heart transformation that I really needed and desired. Um, so they were good in the sense. That I learned a lot, but they didn't give that heart transformation. That if like deep down, I didn't know that's what I was looking for, but I was. And I remember distinctly, I believe it was my junior year. There was one week of prayer. We had a really great speaker come. This man knew the Bible, like every part of the week.
SPEAKER_01:You remember who it was?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. His name was Tim Riesenberg. Um, he was he, I don't, I don't know anything about him other than that week of prayer we had, and that he has the entire Bible memorized. Um, because he could just like spout verses like it was crazy. Um, but that was an amazing week of prayer for me. Uh I remember at one point praying because my relationship with God was always, I felt like fairly superficial, even though I had like somewhat of a devotional life, it wasn't regular, and I prayed and all those things, but I felt like it was a pretty superficial relationship. So at one point I remember praying during this week of prayer. God, if you are real, present, like prove it, prove it, you know? Like, how how do how am I gonna know? And I just remember during prayer, it was like a silent prayer time during week of prayer, you know, they tell everybody to pray for however long, and it was probably short. But and I just remember feeling like an actual embrace, like a hug. And it wasn't a person, it was a you know, the Holy Spirit. And I was just like, from that day, I was like, okay, I I I always felt like I knew God was real, but like I said, it was superficial. So that was really like, all right, God's real. I'm gonna continue on this Christian journey.
SPEAKER_01:That's important.
SPEAKER_04:You know, no, it was for sure. And if it weren't for Academy, I wouldn't be where I am today, even though in Academy I didn't have that heart transformation, it came much later in life. I am so grateful for that time.
SPEAKER_01:You all this stuff is building, you know? We're immature, we don't know what we don't know, and we're just growing, and you can't get to to see without going through A and B. You don't just jump. And so there's some of that foundation, I'm sure, was just super important to what you were able to receive later.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And then during, I feel like it was every week of prayer, but probably this week of prayer in particular, there was another struggle that I dealt with ever since I was in seventh grade. I was introduced inadvertently. It was like one of those things where you start looking something up and go down this rabbit hole. But inadvertently in seventh grade, I was introduced to pornography. And that became a huge issue for me all throughout high school in my adolescent years. And every time, every week of prayer, I was like, all right, I'm gonna stop, right? And every week of prayer, I I did stop, right? And but as the way addictions and habits do, eventually it comes back. So that was another thing, just like, well, if I can't quit that, then I'm not really there, right? I'm not a good Christian if I can't quit that. That was always the message I felt like the church had given me was that if you are not living this perfect life, you don't really have Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like that's the I mean, that's one of the biggest ones that keeps people from seeing so much of the truth of the gospel and how much God loves them is because they have this thing, this habit that they can't get over for sure. For sure. So like by the time you got out of high school, did enough week of prayers come by that convince you that you could quit, or or you're just like, uh, I'll just keep going after God and we'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, the definitely the second one there. Um, I did not just have enough week of prayers to quit. So in the end of my senior year, actually, no, it was like November of my senior year, a group of us went down to visit Southern Adventist University, and the second we drove onto that campus, I was like, this is where I'm going. Like, no question. This is where I'm gonna be.
SPEAKER_01:So I decided sad for a union college recruiter. Oh, yeah. That they didn't even have to say anything to you. It's just like, oh, look at this beautiful green grass and these nice buildings. I'm in.
SPEAKER_04:I think it was God speaking to me, man, because every time I went to Union's campus, I was just like, This is depressing.
SPEAKER_01:How is it the campus? That's the campus speaking, not God. All right.
SPEAKER_03:No, no, no.
SPEAKER_04:But not that God was speaking, that union's campus was depressing. But when I the fact that when I drove on to Southern's campus and was like, this is where I'm gonna be, I felt like that was God.
SPEAKER_01:Like, you know what this is this is. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Southern is a beautiful campus.
SPEAKER_04:It it is beautiful, and we went in November, which is like still fall there, so it was really nice time. Um, but it was just absolutely beautiful. I fell in love with everything about it, and I did, you know, a lot of students say, like, I'm gonna go to this different school because I want to be different than all my classmates, because you know, majority of Maplewood graduates go to union. So I was but I did it. I went, I was like, I'm gonna go. And I I did. I went to Southern Adventist University in August and uh never looked back. Well, no, that's not true. Freshman year, many times I thought about transferring, like, maybe I should just go to union. But I would talk on my on the phone with my friend who was at union, and the problems like she's like, Well, this is happening and this is happening and this is happening. And I'm like, Okay, so it's literally just a bigger maplewood. Like all of the same problems we had in high school, you're still having. Whereas me here at Southern, the biggest problem I'm having right now is I'd like to have more close friends, and I uh need to study for this test, right? So I was like, maybe I should stick with it here. Maybe I don't want to, because the whole reason I didn't want to go to Union is because I didn't want to go to just a bigger Maplewood. Even though I loved Maplewood, I didn't yeah, I didn't love everybody just knowing everything about you and your whole ever like past experiences in high school. I'm like, I don't really want that for college. I want to go to a place where I can actually start a college career and not just continue on my high school relationships that everybody knows about, you know, because people always would talk to me about my relationship, they'd be like, You guys are gonna get back together, you're so perfect. And like, how do you move on when people are always saying stuff like that to you? I'm like, okay, well, maybe not though. Like, maybe we should just move on. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah. You went to Southern, you you enjoyed it. What was your major?
SPEAKER_04:Uh I started out at psychology. Oh, hold up. I'd forgot. I worked at a camp, a Christian camp Adventist camp, the summer before, and I just loved it so much. It was awesome working there. Best camp director, in my opinion, but it's the only camp director I've ever worked for. But Jeff, yeah, it was Jeff. Yeah. Um, and well, but I just hear stories about people from other camp directors, like gnarly all over the city.
SPEAKER_01:It can get gnarly out there, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, camps from all over, just people like, well, this happened, and I'm like, oh my gosh, my director never would have right. Um, but no, he was awesome. He was a great director. And I loved working at North Star. And I uh had some friends up in the Brainerd area who I would go see on my days off, yeah. And we would hang out and yeah, whatever. And I'm like, I'm going to Southern next year. And this was a guy friend, of course. And I'm like, yeah, so but we were just friends, we'd always been friends from camp meeting, right? And somehow we ended up in a relationship, and I'm like, somehow just like we tripped over some there.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, we're dating.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's how it happened. And so I'm like, I'm about to go to Tennessee for college. Like, that's not changing. And he's not, he's staying in Brainerd, he's going to college there. So I'm like, um, I don't know if this is, and he's like, ah, let's just try. I'm like, okay, we'll try. So I mean, I was probably just as gung ho about it as he was. I'm painting myself as a hero here, but yeah, I was probably like, no, we're gonna try. We're gonna try long distance, we're gonna make it, right? Um be the ones you're gonna transfer eventually. Like we're we're gonna make this work. So, um, yeah, so I go into college in Tennessee, hoping to have no ties and start off fresh with a boyfriend in Minnesota, which, you know, it was fine. But maybe it was for the better, because then I didn't instantly go to college looking for my next boyfriend.
SPEAKER_01:You know what? The silver lining.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So going in with then there's like less pressure, you're studying psychology, just not all the Minnesota drama. You're just able to do you.
SPEAKER_04:Right. I was able to try to focus on classes more, which is definitely what I needed. I think I failed one that first semester. I I don't recommend failing a college class, but I feel like a lot of people do their first semester when they're like in over their heads. They're like, I can take it.
SPEAKER_01:What class was it?
SPEAKER_04:It was comp 102.
SPEAKER_01:Just like English writing?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but the second one, the research one.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, did you plagiarize your research paper?
SPEAKER_04:Is that why you got No, I just didn't do what I should have been doing. So I wasn't meeting the like checkpoints to get my research paper in, which you spend like half the semester working on. And so by the end of the semester, I didn't have a research. I I think I just ended up withdrawing from the class, but it was late enough in the semester that it still affected my GPA. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't finish the class because I was like, okay, this is not going well. Maybe it would actually be better for my mental health if I just take it out of my schedule, even though it's gonna affect me, because then I can focus on these other classes. Because yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Missing like failing a class or doing like that, I did that once. I didn't fail it, but I withdrew and then I went down to like 13 hours. And I was like, oh yeah, and you don't realize you're gonna have to make up for that. And so, like a couple semesters in a row, I had to take like 20 hours. Not ideal. Not good. No.
SPEAKER_04:No. Yeah, I ended up just taking an extra semester of school because of I I failed that one, and then I don't remember, something else put me back the next semester, but I also switched my major second semester.
SPEAKER_01:So to what? To education.
SPEAKER_04:Uh yeah, education. Um, well, actually, technically, my major was English. Uh, education was like my light, it's like the major is called English with a teaching licensure because I was going for English education specifically because I wanted to do high school.
SPEAKER_01:I think it takes a special person to go right into college immediately and be like, I'm gonna be a teacher. I think that because you've been in high school so recent, you don't want to think in high school, I'm gonna be teaching these kids. And so you need a little time in between to realize, okay, yeah, I think I can go into education.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. What's funny is I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. Like when I was little, the like play games that I would do pretend, I was always playing school. I was teaching my stuffed animals or friends or whoever were going to be my pupils this material, and I was the teacher always. And I I just loved the idea of it. I always loved school. I know I'm weird. I didn't love math in high school, but otherwise I always loved school. And uh I I don't know, I just knew I was gonna be a teacher. And then junior year of high school, I had an awesome English teacher, and I was like, oh, I think I'm maybe I I've always well, I haven't always liked to read. I started liking reading in middle school. I'm like, maybe I should teach English instead of elementary, because elementary is just kind of everybody's go-to, right? But like if they want to teach, they're like, Well, I'll teach elementary, because you can go K to eight, so that's pretty wide range. But in high school, I was like, maybe I want to teach high school.
SPEAKER_01:And then when I went to the You're throwing my whole theory, you're throwing it in the trash. So you knew you were gonna be high school.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but then I still went to college and was like, I'm gonna be a psychology major.
SPEAKER_01:I think people pick psychology because they're like, I don't know what's wrong with me. Maybe I'll take some classes and I'll find out.
SPEAKER_04:That's probably that's probably accurate, yeah. No, I thought about doing school counseling. Um, and I just ended up like, what am I doing? I want to teach. So I went um and changed my major second semester to English with a history minor so I could teach English and history.
SPEAKER_01:And so now so as you're going through college spiritually, was there some growth there?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I was blessed with an awesome um campus ministries director at Southern, also, who I had a pretty good relationship with because she was also from Minnesota.
SPEAKER_01:So she went to Union College. I know who she is.
SPEAKER_04:She did, she did. She goes she went to union college, she's from Hutchinson. Um, so I didn't actually know her that well before I came to Southern, but because we were both from Minnesota, we kind of connected and I was like, oh hey, Minnesota. And so I would go see her quite a bit, and I always appreciated her sermons when she would do Vespers or whatever. And that that desire, that heart desire for something deeper was definitely still there because even though I'd had, you know, all these week of prayers, right? Um, I still just had the surface of what I felt like was a surface relationship, despite the many times I tried, like, I'm gonna keep a prayer journal, I'm gonna keep this regular devotional, I'm gonna do this and this and this to get that relationship. But it just never you know fully panned out. But I always had that heart desire for something.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and then I reached a point in February of my freshman year. Oh, I should also say there were other people from Minnesota who were at Southern. My class at Maplewood actually had like four or five people come to Southern, which was kind of yeah, I remember this.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, I remember vividly, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But it was probably because of our Southern visit, you know, the previous year.
SPEAKER_01:Like you, Jenny Vigil. I forget the other two, but I remember like it was sad news for the Union College enrollment services.
SPEAKER_04:There were uh three others, yeah, that did. And most of us stayed, except one, and he didn't go end up going to union, he just didn't he did a different career, he went out of college. Um, but yeah, we most of us stayed too for the whole college career, which is pretty crazy, also, because a lot of people like try to go somewhere else and then they end up going back to union. Um, which uh yeah, but we all stayed and I think we all really enjoyed it. And then um my one of my friends from school moved down there to live with his aunt and uncle. One of my friends from Maplewood moved down there to live with his aunt and uncle. He wasn't going to school at Southern, but he was living with his aunt and uncle because his brother was going to school at Southern and he wanted to be close to his brother. So I they the aunt and uncle at graduation previously at Maplewood, they met me and they were like, Oh, you're going to Southern. Well, come over anytime. Except she's from the South. So, oh, come over to our house anytime, you know. Okay, terrible accent, but you know, super sweet. They're like, I can do a much better southern accent than that, but anyway, so yeah, I went to their house a decent amount, and they would invite us to go out on the lake on the boat and everything. And so this friend who wasn't going to Maplewood or Maplewood, who wasn't going to Southern, but his brother was. I actually knew him too from camp meeting growing up. I kind of like way back in uh sixth grade or so, I had a big crush on this guy. We kind of texted a little bit back and forth, but we lived in different cities. We were young, we're like, okay, well, there's no point in getting in a relationship when we're 12 and 14 years old because we don't live near each other. We both went to Maplewood, but he was two grades above me, so he was only there one year that I was there. Um, because I didn't start until my sophomore year. So, but I became really good friends with him again. Not in the like romantic way, because remember, I had a boyfriend in Minnesota, just in we were good friends, and that's definitely what I saw him as was a really good friend. But he was the he was one of those guys that always was kind of in the back of my mind as like, hmm, he's uh he's kind of an interesting person that I connect to well, but we're probably never gonna be in a relationship, so I just like put that out of my mind. Forget about that guy, and right, yeah. And but we were really good friends my whole freshman year, and he was a uh an important person for me to have right there because he was a good supportive friend. And anyway, fast forward to February of freshman year, I was having a rough month, and I was just like, maybe I shouldn't even be at Southern anymore because I felt pretty lonely. I a lot of people don't tell you this about college, but college is lonely. As a mug. Yeah, because when you're in high school, especially academy, you're with your friends all the time. Like you guys are together all the time in the dorm, in classes, you go to lunch together, you go to classes together, you go everywhere together, you do everything together, right? In college, everybody has their own schedule. And especially in a college as big as Southern, there's not one Vespers program and one church program. You can go to a lot of different Vesper's programs and a lot of different church programs while you're there. So and then you're all on your different sket class schedule too. So if you're starting out with nobody who's in the same major as you, who you have all your classes lined up, which you can do, but most people don't, you're alone a lot. Like you're just on your own, even though you're around people, you're not like actively with a friend all the time, like in high school. So I was pretty lonely, and I was feeling that even though I went to this uh aunt and uncle's this friend's aunt and uncle's house all the time, I still felt pretty lonely for the majority of the time. So I was having a rough time. And I remember going to Vespers one night, and the speaker was that campus ministries director who is from Minnesota. Um, and what I don't know what it was that she was saying that just spoke to my heart, and I was like, something has gotta give, like something is not working here, right, in my life. And so I went back to my dorm that night and my roommate wasn't there, and I just was like sobbing on the floor, and I'm not a big crier, so or I just never have been like a very emotive person, but I was just sobbing on my dorm room floor, like, what am I going to do because something is not and I was crying out to God, like, God, what what am I supposed to do? Because I don't know what's going on, I don't know where to go from here. I feel like my entire life is just in shambles. And I heard a still small voice say, This is not the path for your life. And I knew exactly what he was talking about, and it was my relationship, my long distance relationship. And even though I was super into this relationship more than I thought I was going to be in the beginning, um, I broke up with him.
SPEAKER_01:And did you tell him God came to me and told me to break up with you?
SPEAKER_03:I did, I did, and I I feel bad about that to this day.
SPEAKER_01:He's like, God, God himself said that? Dang.
SPEAKER_03:I did. What did I do to God? I know, and I feel bad about for too for that to this day. I actually apologized to him fairly recently for that because I was like, that was so out of pocket. I'm sorry. Um poor guy. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:If you're listening to this, you're the man. You're good.
SPEAKER_03:Who knows? But anyway, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So then I was like, all right, I'm single. I'm just gonna be single. Cause that's where I felt like God was calling me to be. I was like, all right, I just need to be single for now. Cause I felt like even though I went my whole senior year of high school with no relationship, my life from seventh grade to that point, I was mostly in a relationship with somebody somewhere, right? So I was like, I'm just gonna be single. We're just gonna be done with relationships. I'm gonna focus on college and friendships, and we're just gonna do that, right? So that's what I did. And I was single. And then like a month later, I I had resolved to be single, like truly down to my core. I was single, right? No, yeah, I believe. And but this friend who had been my really good friend.
SPEAKER_01:And I'm not gonna guess this person, but are the initials Jacob Guptil?
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yes, they are. So, um, so this friend, um, Jacob Guptil and I were we talked quite a bit, and we Snapchat was it was a thing back then. I don't know. A lot of kids these days probably don't know Snapchat's been around for a while, but we would Snapchat every day, you know. I don't even know if streaks were a thing yet, but we would have had one if there were streaks. Um and and uh anyway, so we talked every day. Um, and then over spring break, we weren't together, but there was some sort of shift in our conversations. They became a little bit more like I love you. Yeah, no, not that level, but yeah, no, they were a little bit more flirty, and I was like, okay, is this me or is this him putting this on? Because I'm I'm gonna be single. Like I'm single, single as a Pringle right now. Okay. So, but you know, but then by the end of March we started dating.
SPEAKER_01:So I am single. Well, I mean, not really. We're dating and we're gonna get married and have kids, but I'm single.
SPEAKER_03:Uh yeah, it was not the plan, but yeah, that's uh that's just how it happened. Yeah, March 31st was when we started dating, March 31st of 2015.
SPEAKER_04:So not even a year after I graduated high school, I was in that relationship. And I was like, all right, God, if I'm gonna be in a relationship, we're gonna do this right, right? So we're gonna because in my previous relationships, I probably did not make the best decisions as far as how I treated those boyfriends, and also in you know, like physical decisions, not the best decisions, right? But I was like, I'm gonna do this one right, okay. So there's something different about this guy.
SPEAKER_01:You're like, we're not we're not messing this one up.
SPEAKER_04:Well, so I brought to him one day when we were contemplating dating, we were in the car because I didn't have a car, so he drove me everywhere. And and uh I brought to him one day, I was like, Do we really want to get in a relationship though? Because we are just the best friends, and I don't want to ruin our friendship.
SPEAKER_01:And I mean he's like, Man, let's just be buddies, let's just be pals. I drive you everywhere.
SPEAKER_04:No, I specifically remember we're in the car and we were on this thing called like Dead Man's Curve, and he looks directly at me and I'm like, Look at the road. But I didn't say it, but in my brain, I'm like, oh my gosh, look at the road. It's called Dead Man's Curve because it's a very sharp corner, and a lot of people go off because they're not paying attention um or going too fast. And he looks at me and he goes, But would we be ruining our friendship? And I was like, He's not good about marriage.
SPEAKER_03:Like, I am 18 years old, oh, 19 years old, like I'm not thinking about marriage.
SPEAKER_04:And uh I'm like, okay, so we're doing this, and uh yeah, then we started reading a book together so that we could like talk about things that most early relationships don't think to talk about. We kind of skipped the whole get to know you part of the relationship that a lot of people have to do because we already knew each other so well because we had been friends all year. But then we started reading a we read Adventist Home, uh, just so we could kind of talk about different aspects of relationship, not really so we could be like, this is the way we need to run our future household, right? It was just kind of like, well, this is a good starting point to talk about these topics, right? We didn't finish it because the like the last half of the book, I think, is mostly about children. So we we both agreed we wanted to have children and that we were fairly similar in mind in the way we wanted to parent, but then we kind of stopped because, like, okay, we don't need to go that in depth at this moment, right? But through this, we ended up deciding we're probably gonna get married, right? And this was in the course of two months. Two months. Uh, we decided we were gonna get married, and I was like a little in over my head because I was like, I'm 19 years old, I'm a freshman in college, but I also felt like it was the direction. Like I didn't feel any qualms with it at all. And I spent a lot of time in prayer with this, and where I had previously been in big inner turmoil, but I didn't feel any issues with this relationship. I was like, maybe this is the the way to go. So we got engaged in June. That's like two and a half months after we started dating. Naturally, and yeah, and then we got married in December. Uh so yeah, six month engagement, and we were married. And you were you were your sophomore year, sophomore year of college. I had just turned 20, like two weeks before.
SPEAKER_01:Did you stay and finish your whole thing at Southern?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yep.
SPEAKER_01:But you were like you were living in off-campus housing, or you had your own place?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we we lived in off-campus housing. So, I mean, Southern's used to students getting married, so they have like married student housing. Um, yeah. So we got married over Christmas break, the day after Christmas that year, and we kept trying to keep our wedding pretty low key because we were broke and because you know, college, and uh, and neither of us have parents who can afford the world. Um, so yeah, we got where did you get married? At the Mankato Church, naturally, yes. Um, and I also I should add, my junior year of high school, my dad decided he was gonna stop drinking, and I wanted nothing to do with my dad. I was like, mm-mm, I don't trust you at all. My entire life, you've been drinking, there's no way you're just gonna all of a sudden quit cold turkey now, right? And my mom and him moved in together. Well, he moved into my mom's house, which was previously also his house, but um he stayed in a separate bedroom because they were just helping each other out with finances, right? So they could share the the financial burden on the house. And uh I but I did not trust him. I was like, mom, how can you let this man back into our lives? I was not not having it. At some point, I forgave my dad to the best of my ability at the time, but there was probably still some resentment there then. Um, but he was he was in our wedding and he walked me down the aisle and everything. So I think for him, I think he really appreciates that he was able to come back into our lives when he did because he would have missed out on a lot. And then shortly after, my other sister started having kids, so he got to come back into our lives at a good time, which was good for him. And he's still sober to this day.
SPEAKER_01:So he was he able what was his how was he able to quit?
SPEAKER_04:I don't know. Sheer determination.
SPEAKER_01:Good for him.
SPEAKER_04:He just decided he didn't want to live that life anymore.
SPEAKER_02:Good for him.
SPEAKER_04:So he stopped. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So what happens next? You're married, you get out of school. What's the plan? Where are you going?
SPEAKER_04:So we both go through college. He graduated from his undergrad in 2016. Um, his undergrad was psychology, and but he was going back for his master's the next year. So he got his master's in school counseling. And so he was there with me throughout the rest of my schooling too, up to May of 2018. May of 2018, he graduated with his master's. I still hadn't graduated with my undergrad because I had to do student teaching. I got all my classes done, but I needed to do student teaching in the fall. So that summer, when he has his master's, he's all graduated. Somebody was like, hey, there's an opening at Maplewood Academy. And I'm like, man, I I don't know. I want to go anywhere. Like, I just want to experience other places, but I don't know if I want to go back to Maplewood Academy right now. Like maybe one day we'll go back there, right? But do we really want to go back there right after college? Like experience nothing else? Come on, you know, you know.
SPEAKER_01:And this was the assistant dean position, or was this a position for you?
SPEAKER_04:It was the head dean. No, for him. Oh it was the head head dean. And so when you left, and um they ended up hiring somebody else. And it was kind of a disappointing because we had felt like, oh wow, okay, even though we said we didn't want to go back to Maplewood, God must want us back in Maplewood because all of a sudden all these doors are opening, right? And then the door was shut. He wasn't hired as head dean. And we're like, oh, guess we misinterpreted that one, God. Like, all right. So I remember being a little bit mad because I hadn't even wanted to go back to Maplewood. And then it seemed like we were gonna go. And I was like, okay, so I kind of worked myself up, got a little bit excited for it, and then the door was shut. And I was like, Okay, I guess we're not going there. And I remember being mad, like, why would you show us this path and then close this door? Well, like a few weeks later, then they're like, Okay, well, we still need an assistant dean. And the conference still didn't want to hire him. Like, he'd done count, he had to interview again for the assistant dean position, even though they had interviewed him for the head dean position. So they interviewed him again, still didn't want to hire him. Well, it's August 2nd. They have not hired an assistant dean. They well, they had, and then that person backed out because they found out they had to live in the basement because the previous assistant dean still lived in the assistant dean apartment.
SPEAKER_01:Was Shane not gonna be the dean anymore?
SPEAKER_04:No, he was doing full-time tech that year because school was still um distance learning, so we needed a full-time tech person at that time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So No, it wasn't even COVID back then.
SPEAKER_04:No, no, it wasn't COVID, it was just the distance learning program. Um so he was full-time tech that year, but he knew he was leaving after that year. So that's why they're like, well, you have to live in the basement for a year. And if you've never been to the basement of the boys' dorm at Maplewood Academy, God bless you. I don't I don't recommend it. Okay, so yeah, Jake's like, I'll live in the basement of the boys' dorm. I don't care. I'm married, whatever. We'll we'll deal with it. And I'm like, yeah, whatever. We're called we're coming out of college, we don't care. We have low standards. We lived in a camper the year before.
SPEAKER_01:So hey, hire us. Our standards are low.
SPEAKER_04:So the principal of Maplewood, who was a new principal that year, he was only there one year.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:But he was like, Nobody wants to hire you. I don't know why, but I'm just gonna hire you because nobody wants to hire you. Yeah. He's like, I think you're a good fit. So I'm gonna hire you because we don't have an assistant D. We had one, he backed out. You don't need to interview again. You've interviewed two or three times now. We're just gonna hire you. Um, because he at this point, he was the only one who had interviewed who was still willing to do the job. So the principal made an executive decision and was like, we're gonna hire you. So we did end up going to Maplewood a little bit late. I, however, had to do my public school placement because when you do teaching at Southern, you get a dual credit your or a dual license uh public school and NAD. And so I had to do my public school placement in Tennessee. So I still lived in Tennessee until October. So we were apart for almost three months. But we he came and visited when he could, and so I think I saw him like three times over the course of that.
SPEAKER_01:If you want to see your husband more than three times in the span of three months, you're selfish, all right? You that should be enough, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, he was in this new full-time job, and uh I was doing student teaching, so neither of us had that much time to go see each other anyway. Um, yeah, so but then my professors graciously and Maplewood graciously agreed to let me do my second um private school, um, Adventist school placement at Maplewood. So I was able to do the second part, even though it wasn't within the Southern Union. So I was able to do my second placement at Maplewood, and so that was good. So then I moved in uh October up here, and then I finished out my student teaching, gradu went back down to Tennessee to graduate in December. Uh I graduated on my birthday and finally had a college degree. Felt pretty good about that because uh the only other person in my family to have one is my sister, and she didn't end up using her degree. Um, so I was like, felt pretty good. Got a college degree and gonna use it. So gonna go to school.
SPEAKER_01:Graduating from college, um getting married. We haven't heard how everything was going on with all these things that you had been talking to God about. Like you're not that far removed from high school, and now you're back at the academy you went to. Yeah. Um, because you'd gotten married and because all this stuff, like, did you feel like you had a firm handle on like, oh, get God loves me, or like how like where was he in all of this?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So at this point, I was still really struggling with that addiction and that habit. Um, and I had told Jacob about it and like I'm gonna stop. And I initially I did stop when we got married, and then you know, old habits and addictions creep back in, and there were multiple times where I would fall back into it and have to, and I confessed that to him, like, okay, I fell back into this, I'm gonna stop, fall back into this, gonna stop. And I did every time, and I would go be able to go decent amount of stretches without it and everything, but it still always crept back in. And after I graduated college, I ended up working part-time one year at Maplewood just because they needed someone to fill something in. So I worked part-time for one semester, not one year, one semester, because I graduated in December. And then the next year, I was hoping to come back to Maplewood again, even to work part-time. And they were like, we don't really have a position we need you for right now. So I was pretty heartbroken, but I also understood. I think at the time I understood less, but now I understand. Like you can't just make a position out of nothing. Um, so they were like, but because our new principal that year was the previous superintendent of the conference, and he's like, but Southview in the cities needs a pre-K kindergarten first grade teacher. And I was like, that's not what I went to school for. And they were like, Yeah, but you could. So I ended up going there and teaching there. I was really reluctant at first, but he showed me a video, like the school's promotional video, and he's like, Well, look at these kids. And I was like, All right, I'll do it. So I did, and I actually loved it. It was great.
SPEAKER_01:You were commuting like a long, like every day, what two, three hours?
SPEAKER_04:Well, total, it was about three hours, yeah. So it was an hour and 15 minutes one way. And some people were like, Well, you could stay with a church member overnight some nights if the roads are bad or anything. I never did that. I commuted every day, even when the roads were bad. I drove. Um, so yeah, that was that was a big commute. And honestly, if I hadn't had to do the commute, I probably would have stayed one more year. But the commute was a lot, it took a lot of time out of my day. Um, and I but I did like teaching pre-K kindergarten in first grade. It was more draining for me because it's definitely not my niche. It was like, um, but this is the time in these long car rides back and forth. I started listening. I would listen to audiobooks, I would listen to all kinds of stuff, but I started listening to the Bible, and I read, I listened to Patriarchs and Prophets at some point, which I thought was gonna be really boring, but was actually really interesting. And um Ellen White in that book talks about how like all these people were not great people. Like, don't look at them as the example of this is like total, you know, don't don't uh take my word for this, but this is what I get from it, right? Is that these people made terrible decisions and God still used them? And I'm like, I never looked at it that way before. And so that really like started sparking my curiosity more because during this time I'm working there, I'm really starting in these long car rides. I'm having a lot of reflection time and I'm really starting to think, what is the purpose of all of this? Like, does the Bible really contradict itself? Like, do we really have this God who loves us, but at the same time we have to work for it, but we don't have to work for it? But what are we working for? Like, is this all just a big contradiction? And I was so confused and I was starting to question everything. I was like, what is even happening? Am I even a Christian? Do I even really believe there's a God? But I had that the like enough experiences in my life to know there is a God, but what is he for?
SPEAKER_02:Right?
SPEAKER_04:And what am and what is my purpose in all of this? So I really started to question and search. So I was listening to the Bible, just you know, UVersion Bible app, like back and forth. Well, I think I listened to like my audiobooks in the afternoon, I listen to my Bible in the morning, whatever. Um, it's not important, and then and then um I was just heard so many stories in the Bible that I had never heard before. So that was really interesting. Just learning all these things that I realized I had never really read the Bible that much. Like you read bits and pieces growing up and in academy and whatever, but I never read that much of the Bible. So that was really eye-opening and interesting. And I'm like, okay, gonna figure out the answer. Is the Bible contradicting itself? What is going on here? And then on my birthday of 2010. I no, 2020. I uh get a message from no, it was 2019. I get a message from Serena. Serena Line at the time, yes, and she's like, hey, happy birthday, and I'm like, Oh, thanks. Like most people just post on your Facebook page, you know, they don't message you directly. So, but it was good to hear.
SPEAKER_01:I have a rule that I don't tell anybody about that if you say happy birthday to me on Facebook and you don't text message me, I delete your information. I'm just playing, I don't, I don't. But a text message means so much more than Facebook, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's much more personal. Um, so I was like, Oh, it's good to hear. You we for background, we worked together at camp that one year. I worked at camp two years, she only worked together one year. We worked together at camp the summer of 2014 after my senior year of high school. So we kind of knew each other from that and we shared a day off when we worked there. So uh she and Reagan and I would all go out on the boat when he could get hold of the boat for the day. And um Reagan taught me how to wakeboard, which was pretty cool. Um, still know how to wakeboard to this day.
SPEAKER_00:Shout out to Reagan.
SPEAKER_04:Uh yeah. And uh that was it was a good summer, good, good group of people to have a day off with, low drama people. I just really enjoyed uh working with them. And so so so it was kind of out of the left field to hear from Serena because I really hadn't heard from her since we worked together at camp in 2014, and it's 2019. So I um was a little shocked, but I was like, Oh, it's good to hear from you. And then we shared like a few messages back and forth, and then she's like, Hey, can I call you sometime? And I'm like, sure. Like, we weren't like that close of friends, and we haven't talked in five years, but sure, yeah, why not? So, and I was like, Yeah, I do this long commute from work, so after work would be a great time to have a phone conversation because I'm always just sitting in my car for an hour and 15 minutes. So she did. She called me that week or something, maybe not until January. I don't know. At some point, we talked on the phone and we had a long conversation, just talking about I think we talked most of the drive back, so about an hour. Um we just talked about life and everything, and she was just very happy and positive. She gave me a little bit of her testimony and was like, Oh, but if you want, you can listen to my full testimony on this podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Because you started the podcast this had to be 2020 then.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, 2020.
SPEAKER_01:Because her we recorded her podcast on Christmas Eve of 2020. No, no, no, New Year's Eve of 2020.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so it was it was 2020 going into 2021, right? So yeah, that that tracks, yeah, that makes sense. So that's why at first I was like, wait, which year was it?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because if it's 2019, yeah, anyway, that doesn't matter. So yeah, she says, if you want to hear my full story, check out this podcast.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it was this podcast called the Death to Life Podcast. I don't know if you've heard of it. So um she told me to listen to it, so I did, and I started so I started with hers, and I was like, wow, I was like, what changed? Like, how did she all of a sudden receive this transformation that made her life so much better and she was able to forgive people just all of a sudden, right? Like, how did that how does that happen, right? I was like, what am I missing here? And then I saw some other people I knew on there, like Tyler Morrison. Don't I don't know his wife personally, but I listened to hers also and listened to both of theirs, and that was really powerful.
SPEAKER_01:And I think Nick's first episode was already on there, and I knew Nick because I went to school with him, Nicholas Morrison, because we were we graduated in his episode was a live that we did together before the podcast even existed, and so yeah, that was fun.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so there was like a few people I knew on there, so I was like, I'm gonna keep listening to these. But and you know, I have this long drive to and from work, so I have lots of time to listen to podcasts. So I was like caught up, man. I listened to every episode all the time, and then I would be like sad because this was early on, so there weren't that many episodes yet. So I'd be like, I don't have any listen to today. I don't have any episodes to listen to today. But yeah, so that's kind of like sparked my interest. I was like, what's different here that they're experiencing that I'm not experiencing.
SPEAKER_01:Were you grabbing any of the theology, or were you like, what is this freedom from sin thing? Like, what does that actually mean? Or were we even up front? I don't like the way we talked about it. I don't even know if we even mentioned that.
SPEAKER_04:Like at that time, at least to me, because of the lens I was going in with, it wasn't super clear, but it was clear that there was a huge transformation. And I'm like, what what are they getting that I'm not getting? Right. And the and remember, I had been previously questioning this and praying about it. Like, what is going on in the Bible? What do I believe? Because I had never really stopped to think about what do I believe for myself, right? So I'm having this big sort of a crisis, like, what do I believe? And then Serena, in step Serena, right? And then in January, I think it was she, maybe February of 2021. She's like, Oh, if you want to know more, because we continued talking after this. She's like, if you want to know more um about this, or like that this topics are interested to you, we're like soft and um what's the word? Soft debuting. That's not it, but um this like series on this website that you can check out, and it was the the mini clips of the wave one, the very first uh clips that were like the the vlogs, like the 10-minute ones. Yeah, the 10-minute ones, and there were 10 of them or 11, 10 or 11. Anyway. So and I listened to them, but as I'm listening to them, I'm like, okay, this is really this guy's really deep. Like, I need to like pull up my Bible and I need to be like pausing as I'm listening because I need to be able to read it for myself as he's saying it. Like, I can't, my brain doesn't process fast enough to just be like, read this verse on the screen. I'm gonna read it. And then, like, okay, moving on to the next thought. I'm like, okay, I can't, I need to like it.
SPEAKER_01:He often says, I'm not talking fast, you just listening slow.
SPEAKER_04:I do listen slow. Okay, so so I am I got my Bible out and I'm listening to these videos, and I pause it like here and there to like take it, make a note or um read the verse that he's reading so I can fully understand what it is that he's talking about. And I don't remember exactly which video it was. I always say it was video five, but like in hindsight, I don't actually know if it was video five. All of a sudden, he's talking about like you are this, this, and this. And I'm like, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00:And then and then that's not true, bro.
SPEAKER_04:Whatever.
SPEAKER_03:And then he's like, now I know what you may be thinking, but Jonathan, I don't feel this way.
SPEAKER_04:And I'm like, okay, that was like weirdly targeted at what I was exactly just thinking. And he's like, but feelings aren't Lord, and then he goes on to explain this more, right? Like that your feelings don't dictate the truth, right? And that's when it clicked. I was like, that's like that's what I've been missing, and I just start like bawling on the couch, and like I've said, I'm not a very emotive person, so I'm just like crying on my couch in the living room on a Friday night, listening to this and reading my Bible, and like what was the thing that was true that that like wasn't your feelings, but this this thing was true that made you emotional? That because I've lived my whole life, I didn't talk a whole lot about this, but I had lived my whole life with so much anxiety and depression and like inner turmoil. Most of the problems in my life I had put on myself. Like they were all internal things that I was putting on myself, making them so much worse. And I probably should have talked about this more as we like were going through my life, but I was always focused on some inner problem, right? I had anxiety, I had depression. I was diagnosed with both when I was 18, but I had been struggling with them for much longer. Um and my like my freshman year of high school, how I talk about that being a terrible year. I dealt with severe depression that year as well with all these things happening. And so just hearing that you don't need to live by what these feelings are telling you was the shift for me. Because there was so much other stuff that I already understood. Like I know God loves you, but how does He love you if you still feel this way? Like, how does that connect, right? So realizing that it doesn't, your feelings don't actually tell you the truth all the time was the shift because I was always so caught up in those feelings and in trying to fit in with people and trying to be a certain person and trying to live a certain way to uh fit in, or trying to live a certain way to be a Christian, or just trying so blindly to do to live a Christian life that when I really had no idea what a Christian life was. Like holy.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. So when you're when you're experiencing this, did Jacob ask you, like, like what are you watching? Like, why why are you why are you on the couch crying? Or like what did you tell him about it?
SPEAKER_04:I think he was at Vespers, but I told him, I was like, this is this is what I've been missing. This is the shift. Like I told him when he came home. I was like, I get it. I was like, my my feelings have literally nothing to do with the truth. Feelings can lie, feelings aren't always real. And I just had to like over the next few months, I had to speak a lot of truth over myself when those thoughts would creep in. Um, like, you're not good enough, you're not this enough, you're not whatever enough, right? And I still have to do that because those thoughts still creep in sometimes.
SPEAKER_01:But can we talk about those thoughts for a second? Though those thoughts aren't random, those thoughts we've stored in there maybe for years sometimes. Like there's something that we've either believed or a trauma that has taken place or something that happened that we didn't like or that we did like, and so we've stored it and we've kept it, and then it like something happens in life that rubs up against that old thought, that old thought pops up. It's not it's not exactly rocket science, right? Like we store these thoughts in there, and then like like let's say when we're a kid and we make a mistake, somebody puts it there, like, oh, you're this or you're that, and so you believe that, and then later on, when you make a mistake, well, guess what comes out? That thought that you'd stored in there, and and that's what you end up thinking about yourself. So you say you still have to keep speaking truth about you. Hey, those that thought might come up when it comes up, you can see it for what it is. Oh, that's a thought I've stored in there because of this reason or that reason, whether it's trauma, whether it's something that happened, and you can just be like, Yeah, you can let go of it, release it, and it doesn't have to dictate today. Like, there's no rule that says that just because something hurt me last year, it has to hurt me today.
SPEAKER_04:Right. And those are the things I didn't understand. I carried so much baggage from everything that had ever happened to me, like my dad not being around, my dad being an alcoholic, other people in my life suck suffering from alcoholism, and also reaping the effects of that, and like you know, the terrible or whatever relationships I had been in, and all these things failing, and no, like seemingly nobody liked me, like why, right? And it was all just so caught up in my own self and my own feelings. And as I like steward walking in freedom, realizing that it was never about me to begin with, and the problem was the focus, right? My focus was all on all of these inner lies and things that were inadvertently told to me, or that I was literally just telling myself, that were just complete lies, and I couldn't get past them because to me, those lies were identifying me, they were defining who I was, but they were never truth to begin with.
SPEAKER_01:Mercy. So you said throughout those next months, like now you had a tool, now you knew like, well, there is truth, and just because I'm experiencing something, like I do feel this way, um, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's true just because I'm feeling a certain way.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. And and I called Serena the next day or soon after and told her about it. And I had actually already been going to the Friday night Bible study because Serena told me about that too, with um Nick Morrison and the Florida boys. Yeah. So I had already been going to that for since February, I think. Um, this was in March when this happened, that I finally felt like I was like, whoa, I get it. Um, so I I called Serena and told her, and it was just it was really a huge mind shift, mindset shift for me. And as I have learned, I mean it's been almost five years now. So as I like continue to steward this thing, I learn new stuff every every day about walking in freedom and learning about Jesus. And it's just been so awesome. And I'm like, this is this is the piece that I was missing. It was all this like, I'm so terrible. If I can't quit this addiction, if I'm still suffering from anxiety and depression, obviously I can't be one of God's children. And that's exactly the heart that was spoken to. Oh, there's one thing I didn't say that I should have. The morning, because I was struggling with this, or not struggling, but like grappling with this so much. Like, what are they when I listen to the Death Live podcast? I'm like, what do they have that I don't have? I see that there's a heart transformation. How do I get that? And then I think in a podcast episode, I heard like, just ask, right? So just ask God for a new heart, right? And that morning that I like so early on in the morning, I had just gotten to work. I had been thinking about it on my way to work, and I sat in my car and I prayed. I was like, God, just put a new heart in me because I just don't get it. And then that night was when I watched the video and it all clicked. So it was like just full circle.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's kind so before I say this, how long did uh it take Jake to for him to be like, okay, yeah, I see a lot of this makes does make sense.
SPEAKER_04:So I it was so fast. Like, I think so. He he um he's like a checks out, yeah, yeah, yeah. He he said he'll do a podcast episode too, but he felt like I should go first. Um so you know what?
SPEAKER_01:Don't tell me.
SPEAKER_04:Because I want to hear I want to hear him say, Yeah, yeah, he'll he'll tell you, he'll tell you. But I will say that like our marriage was not like a perfect marriage. We were doing okay, but at the same time, there was always things we were struggling with or dealing with. And after this, I'm not saying we never struggle now, but after this, it was like the shift we needed because you can imagine being married to a woman who is so focused on herself and how she feels all the time would not be a very fun way to be married.
SPEAKER_01:So well, think if you have two of those people, right? Right, and like the apartment you live in has the ghosts of Richard and Natalie.
SPEAKER_03:We didn't live in that apartment yet.
SPEAKER_01:Where we had the biggest fights of our marriage because we were both trying to figure out what was going on with each one of us, yeah, and it was just a bunch of emptiness, fruitless, yeah. Yeah, it's very sad. And so, yeah, one is bad enough. If you got two, it's just a recipe for disaster.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And he's always been a very patient, kind, and loving person, and I think the Lord blessed him with that because I don't think a lot of people could have handled being married to emotional me. And it's weird because I say I'm not very emotive and I'm not, but I hold it all up like in or I held it all up inside and just let it like fester and poison my brain.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, I remember you in high school. Like I told you when we were in in Michigan, like I have this vivid memory of you up in the enrollment services, and I think I was trying to convince you to come to Union. And then I remember hearing that you were gonna go to Maplewood. And you know, I always keep my ear discreet when it comes to Maplewood.
SPEAKER_04:You mean Southern? No, like when you Oh, like work at Maplewood, yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_01:And that you were you were still pretty young, like, and the word uh was like, oh, she's really young, they just got married. I hope this goes well. And then seeing you now and hearing your story, God has just grown you and matured you, not just it it hasn't just been age, you know, it's been the wisdom of God, the Holy Spirit. And I'm sure that your first couple years at Mabel would look completely different than now, and the life that you're able to speak over students like you, you actually have you have something to give. You had something to give back then. We all have something to give along our journey, but at this point, you know, with this understanding of who you are in Christ, I'm sure like the kids are just super blessed by that, yeah, just being around you. Yeah, and so yeah, that's I I mean it's been beautiful. Like, I haven't been around, like I haven't been in Mabelwood in a long time, but just knowing you guys and knowing some of the people that are there, I'm like, man, they're they're I'm sure they're such a blessing in that community.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and from that moment, I was just like healed from all the things, like I was healed from the from my addiction, I was healed from depression, and I was healed from anxiety, and you know, occasionally the like temptations of all these things still come in, but what's different is where my roots are. I'm no longer rooted in those things defining my identity, I'm rooted in Christ, and only in Christ, and He is what defines me, and not all of these other things that I was dealing with.
SPEAKER_01:Man, thank you so much. Um I think it's extra special to me to hear about all these things and you guys and people I know. So um I know that you're just gonna keep loving people and kids and anyone around you, and people are gonna see your good works and glorify your father in heaven, and uh praise the Lord for that. Uh tell Jacob that he he's coming up, we're gonna get his story. And uh so thank you so much for coming on and and spending the time for you.