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
#250 Verna: How Letting Go Of Perfection Unlocked A Joyful Faith
We share how a lifelong scorekeeping faith broke under the weight of grace and how salvation as a gift, not a contract, reshaped Verna’s story from control to freedom. The gospel shifts behavior from obligation to fruit, turning church culture into real communion.
• upbringing in a strict, rule-focused faith culture
• marriage, family conflict, and a move to Michigan
• a welcoming church community and inclusive worship
• parenting insights shifting from behavior to heart
• resisting leadership roles due to performance fear
• preaching that led to personal breakthrough in Scripture
• salvation as gift versus debtor’s ethic and contracts
• freedom, assurance, and a renewed identity in Christ
• mentoring students and friends toward gospel clarity
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The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can. And that's why we want you to hear these stories: stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is death to life.
SPEAKER_02:No would maybe have been my next answer because to me, a personal relationship with Christ meant that you read your Bible through every year, you did the Sabbath school lesson, you dressed in a particular way, you didn't do certain things, and you did do other things. And I wasn't doing that. So having a personal relationship with Christ, no. If you asked me if I was consistently disappointing Christ, yes. But I was doing the best I could. And I didn't want to talk about whether or not I was in a relationship with Christ because that merely pointed out to me all of the areas where I was not.
SPEAKER_03:Yo, welcome to the Death to Life Podcast. My name is Richard Young, and today's guest is Verna Schlottauer. And I got to meet Verna in Michigan a couple weeks ago, and she she's got my type of energy. And uh, it was so awesome to meet her and see the passion that she has for the gospel and for Jesus. And she wants everybody to hear this message, like it's taken over her life, and after you hear her story, I think you'll realize why it's so important to her. And uh yeah, I love these, these are some of my favorites. Uh, lifelong Adventist and uh a Christian, but has now encountered the truth of who she is in Jesus Christ, and it has taken over. So you're gonna love this episode because uh Verna's awesome. So love y'all and appreciate y'all, appreciate y'all. Buckle up and strap in. This is Verna. Uh, and also, if you're gonna listen to Verna, you probably would want to go to internet church and visit our Bible studies. So uh don't hesitate to meet more and more with the saints. It's something that we get to do, it's a blessing to us. And uh, if all you do is listen to Death of Life, cool. But come holler at us online, come holler at us in person. It's it's the joy of our life uh to be with y'all. All right, let's get into the episode. Where are we starting the story? I've I've known you for so many days in person. I don't know if it hasn't even been a month yet. Um, but yeah, where are you gonna take us? I've been excited. We've been we've been postponing this one because both of us got sick, but I think we're ready to go. So where are we going?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I don't know how far back you want to go.
SPEAKER_03:How far back do you want to go?
SPEAKER_02:I always, you know, I've listened to so many of these podcasts. Um, one of the things I always wonder when I listen is how old is that person? Um and I'm sure some of the things I say will date me, but I am in my upper 50s and um have lived a full and joyous life. And uh I think one of the things I want to do at the outset is just to um give credit or um discredit, as the case may be. Um, you know, if you talk about your past, there's always that sense of, oh, somebody did something wrong. And um I've shared my testimony before, and one of the things that I I felt impressed to say was, especially since my folks were there, nothing that my parents did was their fault. Um, they raised my sister and I in absolutely the best way they knew how. And the devil will absolutely use any anything he can, any area of insecurity, he will use that to his advantage. And so just because a parent says something that I took the wrong way, or just because Christianity was presented in a particular way because of maybe the setting or the situation I was in does not necessarily mean that that person um did something wrong. The devil just used that as an opportunity to um use my insecurities to um harm my heart.
SPEAKER_03:For sure. For sure. Like I think I agree with you. I think people are for the most part they're doing their best. Yeah. Um but they're also doing their best with the the information that they have. That does change over time, and hopefully we can I think human beings can change their mind, they can grow, you know. I don't think animals really do that, and so as we get new information, hopefully we have enough humility to to grow, and so but we're doing the best with what we can, right?
SPEAKER_02:I'm hoping.
SPEAKER_03:So where where were you, where did you come up? Where are your parents from?
SPEAKER_02:Um, I am multi-generational Adventist. Um my parents, my parents' parents, my grandparents were Adventist, and I believe their parents were Adventists as well. So I'm sure someone knew Ellen White.
SPEAKER_03:Um the the the northeast part of the United States?
SPEAKER_02:No, uh well, interestingly, my um my mother is a um uh missionary kid. She was born in Venezuela, um, spent, I just found this out recently, um, spent many years kind of bouncing around from family member to family member while her parents um were missionaries in Venezuela and in Mexico. Um she spent many years um in the in central Mexico, um, but then there was unrest, and um uh those are interesting stories. She was nearly kidnapped. Um and so she was sent to the states to live with grandparents, um, and then later sent to the states again to live with friends, and then later sent to boarding academy. So um lots of bouncing around from my mom. Um my dad grew up in um Boston, Massachusetts. Um, but they both ended up on the West Coast and uh went to PUC, they got married, and I was um my then they went to Columbia as missionaries, the two of them. And that's where my sister and I were born was in Cali, Columbia, South America.
SPEAKER_03:I would never have guessed that. I like you uh isn't it interesting how things like I'm guessing that your mom was born in the 30s?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, early 40s, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Early 40s.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Okay, so Adventism has this huge shift in 1915. That's when Ellen White passes away, and then between 1915 and probably the the early 50s, mid-50s would would be the the most legalistic version of the Adventist Church, um, because uh people were putting together her her writings in a way that they saw fit. It wasn't act like the compilations. And so I don't know if your your mom and dad grew up in that era, um, because that would have been, you know, if you come along in the late 60s, early 70s, that would have been a time of, you know, your parents have grown up in this pretty traditional, strict, some would say legalistic adventism.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, and they come from a generation that is just post-World War II. So their parents are very military-minded, and you know, you do what your sergeant says, and and you know, you conform and you follow the rules, and uh this is just the mindset that my folks grew up in. So this is absolutely how I was raised. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:How long were you in Columbia?
SPEAKER_02:Um, came back when I was about two and a half, three, um, is what I understand. Maybe two, and uh then went to Northern California, and I lived the rest of my life up until um I moved to Michigan. So um moved to Michigan in 1983, I think. So really spent my growing up years in Northern California. Um, but as a pastor's kid, I just lived all over the place. You know, sometimes um you move every nine months, and sometimes you live a place a year and a half or two years. And if you're super lucky, you get to live someplace three or four or five years. And uh so there was a lot of bouncing from a school year here, a school year there. There's times I remember that um I would start a school year somewhere, and my dad would get called to a different church, and so he would he would move to that district um while my mom and us girls stayed behind trying to sell the house, um, those kinds of things, allowing us to finish out a school year, you know, and the economy changes over time, and sometimes there were, you know, dips in the economy when the houses weren't selling, and you can't buy a new house in a new place. And so there were times where um we would move and live in a camper on the back of a our pickup truck in a in a travel trailer, waiting for the house to sell in our old town, and uh yeah, things were very transient. Um I was happy growing up. I never felt the um I never felt like I was missing out. Um you know, I look back on some of the places that we live, some of the the trailer parks with um just divy places. And I didn't in the moment growing up, I didn't realize they were dy places, you know. I was just life was good. We had a happy family. We were we were very content. Um I was talking with my mom the other day, and she was, you know, lamenting the fact that many of the places that she remembers living in were very poverty stricken. And as we were talking about, I'm like, oh yeah, you're right. It isn't okay to have those things happening, and yet that's the situations we were living in.
SPEAKER_03:And uh so your dad was a a preacher.
SPEAKER_02:A preacher, yep.
SPEAKER_03:What do you remember if you could like what was his sermon? What was what was the thing he was trying to get across from the people? No idea.
SPEAKER_02:No idea. Um I he was he was concerned for the hearts of the he was concerned for the behavior of the of the parishioners. Um he wanted people to be good, he wanted people to be to know the Sabbath truth. Um I remember lots of um Daniel and Wave Revelation seminars. I remember so many of those, but I as far as preaching on a on a week-to-week basis, um, I absolutely don't remember. I I part of the reason I don't remember, um first I wasn't paying attention. Um I'm not a good paying attention kind of person, never have been. Um wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until um way later in life, although I've always known I was. Um my mom has just recent, my mom and dad have just recently moved, and she gave me all of my report cards. And I had seen them much earlier in my life. I'd read them before and I knew the things that they said, but recently when she gave them to me as a okay, finally they're not gonna stay in my house, I was reading them and yeah, doesn't um doesn't take care of her personal property, doesn't stay seated, talks out of turn, um just those those kinds of things that um is she's very social but never never turns her stuff in on time.
SPEAKER_03:This was always the way, was there ever or before, was there ever a time where you were kind of locked in, or was it always in grad school?
SPEAKER_02:I did a great job. Um, because it was hard enough and it was intense and focused, and so I did great in grad school. But outside of that, I was just there to have fun.
SPEAKER_03:So who was uh who was the guy that you were introduced to? What was he like?
SPEAKER_02:Um, a scorekeeper.
SPEAKER_03:Mercy.
SPEAKER_02:Um required, required things, absolutely required behavior, a certain but very specific behavior, required reverence. Um it was very distant. Um he was called our father, but I never ever saw him as a father. Um I don't necessarily have a close relationship with my father or my mother. Um God was distant, distant and and required things required that I not be who I was.
SPEAKER_03:Who were you that you couldn't be who you were?
SPEAKER_02:I was fun and loud and sarcastic and um headstrong.
SPEAKER_03:God was the fun police.
SPEAKER_02:He was the fun police.
SPEAKER_03:He's like, wait, hold on. Looks like too much fun.
SPEAKER_02:Let's uh let's let's a lot of Ellen White-ishness in that time of you know um entertainment wasn't okay. Um, you should always be working for the Lord. And if you have idle time, it should not be spent just frivolously. Um but I wasn't one who liked to have my nose in a book or to be studious or thinking great thoughts. I was very much not interested in that. I was interested in going outside and playing and having fun and don't make me sit still. And that was very much when you go to church, you sit still, you go to prayer meeting, you sit still. Every morning at worship, you have to sit still and be quiet. And sitting still and being quiet are not my expertise. That's not my area of joy.
SPEAKER_03:So were you in Northern California like 79, I guess through like 82? Were you in you would have been either out of college or getting getting into college at that time?
SPEAKER_02:Let's see, out of I went into college in 86.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, I didn't want to date you there.
SPEAKER_02:So graduated high school in 86, started college in 86.
SPEAKER_03:Were you aware of the controversy at PUC in the early 80s with Desmond Ford?
SPEAKER_02:There was something that was troubling my parents. I did not pay attention. Life happened around me, and I was completely oblivious. So I knew that there were things that my parents were concerned about, and and we just weren't gonna do those. Whatever that was, it was very bad. And we were we're we don't talk about it, we don't discuss it, there's no no contemplating these um nuances of of spiritual thought. There's a right answer, and anything that's not the right answer, we don't contemplate. Because you just there's a right answer. So get the right answer so we can move on. That was definitely the era I grew up in. All the all the Bible games we played were very, you have to, there's the right answer. Yay if you get the right answer. The Sabbath school lesson, you're not required to think, you just write the right answer in. Um, and so I never learned to think, I just learned how to have the right answers.
SPEAKER_03:Uh did you ever visit Ellen White's home in Northern California? Sure.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah. Every school field trip.
SPEAKER_03:Every school field trip was to her home.
SPEAKER_02:So many school field trips to her home, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Is it nice?
SPEAKER_02:It's tiny. Everything back in those days is little. Um and it was very much like less l like visiting a little historic museum with you know, these areas are roped off, you can't go there. And it was very sacred, very sacred.
SPEAKER_03:Interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So you do you went to PUC? That's where is that where you went to school?
SPEAKER_02:I went to Rio Lindo Academy for the last two years, um 85 and 86, um, and then went to PUC for two years, um, and then got married and went to Loma Linda for two years, and then came back to Northern California and did my grad school at a secular university.
SPEAKER_03:So, like during this time, how were you being spiritually formed? Like what were what were the biggest? Was it just kind of like leaning back on your growing up years and like you're going into marriage and you're like, all right, my parents did it this way, we should do it this way? Or was there something else forming you?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, something else forming me 100%. Um, my parents did it this way, I will not do It that way.
SPEAKER_03:Any specifics? Anything like they did this, like they prayed before every meal. We're praying after the meal, or we're not praying at all. Like, give me an example.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I really didn't want to have anything to do with God. I didn't mind being called a Christian, but I was really uninterested in maintaining any sort of um religious uh continuity. Um, got married, and that was such a relief to be um not controlled. That was for me for me growing up, I I always felt like everything was controlled. What I ate was controlled, when I ate was controlled, who I could be friends with was controlled. Um, everything had moral consequence to it. It was very heavy in its um in its consequence. Um, what is somebody gonna think? What is somebody gonna say? Um, you have to, it was very living in a bubble, very much living in a bubble. Um making sure that behavior was where it was supposed to be. Um, and I was tired of living for everybody else. At some point, it's like, when do I get to live for me? And I yeah, yeah, as a secondborn, um, someone who's super outgoing and um super sanguine, yeah, it's all about me. Can I get the laughs? Can I have fun? What can I do? I loved life, and I just felt like there was always a lid being put on my ability to just express myself and be and be who I was. I was constantly put in this box and I hated it. And then this wonderful man came along in my life and uh swept me off my feet, although that was a great story too. We we worked at summer camp together, and uh my first year there was between um call between high school and college, and uh worked at Leone Meadows camp. Um, greatest camp ever. And he worked up there also, and uh he apparently liked me. Um, and he told my sister um that he liked me. They worked a bus run together, so they would take the bus, go into town, pick up the kids from the different churches, and then come back up. She rode shotgun on his bus, so it was her job to make sure kids didn't puke or to get them off the bus before they puked. His job was to drive the bus. And so they have, you know, five, six hours on a bus together and they would talk. And uh he was saying that, yeah, he'd he'd love to ask me out. Uh, can she put a good word in for me? Little did he realize that my goody-goody two shoe sister was absolutely somebody I did not want to be like. And anybody that she approved of, oh my gosh, I was an astere clear. So just the fact that she's like, hey, Ken likes you and he'd like to ask you out was like the the death sentence for him. So um it took a little extra long for for me to pay him any attention. Um then when he did ask me out, we just had a blast together. Um, we'd go four-wheeling. Um, he was not concerned about um conforming to any rules. Um he he didn't oppress me. He gave me this amazing freedom to just be who I was, and he liked me for who I was. Um, and that was such a breath of fresh air. Um it was just this way of living that I was completely unused to. And uh wow, it was incredibly attractive.
SPEAKER_03:And uh did you see people who were living by the rules and you wonder how they could do it? Or like how did you reconcile like like your parents were pretty strict upbringing? Sounds like I don't you're the secondborn. I don't know if your sister kind of kind of fell in line with that.
SPEAKER_02:Were you were you're married to a pastor?
SPEAKER_03:Probably gotta be in line with that a little bit at least.
SPEAKER_02:In the Michigan Conference.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, all right. Fair enough. Um did you see that and you're like, uh how how is this possible? Like, because like everything about it, like I I makes my skin crawl, or like I like I want to break free. How did you reconcile that?
SPEAKER_02:That was hard. It was really, really hard because you're my identity was wrapped up in my behavior. So if you're good, uh then if you do these good things, then you're a good person. If you don't do these good things, then you are a bad person. Um, and so in order to shed the the behaviors, which I had no desire to continue, then I had to somehow accept um I'm also not a good person. That was really hard.
SPEAKER_03:So did you decide that?
SPEAKER_01:Yup.
SPEAKER_03:What age were you like, I'm I'm probably just not a good person. Were you married?
SPEAKER_02:Ken led me astray.
SPEAKER_01:Ken was like, um Yeah, it was probably right around the time that um yeah, probably right but between, yeah, right about that time when Ken and I were together.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And you're just like, I can't live this way, so I guess I'm I'm this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. And if I'm gonna be that, then you know, it was a it was this lifelong journey of trying hard and failing, trying harder and failing, giving up. Well, I'm still failing, so and this is a lot easier. Um, it was just learning to deal with the guilt and the self-condemnation of um living in um self preservation, self-um, I don't know. Um it would have been called living for myself.
SPEAKER_03:So after you get married and you kind of you and Ken go off and um seems like that was a a place of peace and love and joy for you, how did the rest of things go? Were you like were you able to did you you you didn't want to be religious? Did you continue to go to church?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because you don't have to be religious to go to church, you just go. It's what you're supposed to do. Yeah, we went to church sometimes. Celebrations. Um, but when we did go to church, we definitely went to churches that were um outside the traditional Adventist church um blessing. Um uh let's back up just a little bit. Um, when Ken and I um decided to get married, I'm super, super independent. Um I'd been living pretty much on my own. Um well you go to you go to boarding school at 10th grade. So how old are you then? 16? So I've been living essentially on my own, making my own decisions, picking what classes I'm gonna go to, deciding when I'm gonna go to classes, when I'm not gonna go to classes, deciding how hard I'm gonna study, how not hard I'm gonna study, deciding who I'm gonna have be friends and stuff with, um, and just really kind of being my own decision maker. So when Ken asked me to marry him, this is a funny story, he did not know my parents. He grew up with parents that were very um, they gave their kids responsibilities, and either you carry the responsibility or you don't. Um, there wasn't a lot of external controlling to make sure they behaved. Um so he was just used to that kind of upbringing, and when he asked me to marry him, I knew immediately that this was going to be a huge problem because in my mind I was making my own decisions. In my parents' mind, they were absolutely in control of who I was, what I did. Um, they were still in charge of me. And it I very much felt like a possession and not a daughter. Um, I was their responsibility. I was their, you know, if I were to get married, they would be handing the responsibility of care of their daughter to someone else to be cared for. And this is not how Ken treated me. Ken treated me as an equal, and we made decisions together, and we made plans together, and we did things equally. We were always of like-minded in the things that we did. And I knew that if I told my parents I'm getting married, that was gonna this, it was gonna hit the fan. And plus, I was 19. I didn't ask and he didn't ask permission to marry me. He wasn't brought up in a in a tradition where that was necessary. It was, these are your decisions, you make the decisions, you carry the consequences for it. So, why why would you ask permission? Um, and my thought was I'm marrying him, it's not your business. I know what I'm doing. I'm 19 after all. So he asked me to marry him, and I didn't answer yes or no. I told him, oh shit.
SPEAKER_03:That's what your response was? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It was kind of this, oh shit. And uh he's he's like, um I it this this stunned silence. And he's like, um I'm like, I yes, but but oh, you have no idea. I was elated, and at the same time, there was this intense dread of we've crossed, we've crossed a a point of no return. And this is this is gonna get ugly. And it did. It got really ugly.
SPEAKER_03:Um just between you and your folks?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah, and Ken. It very became very, very um adversarial with them. No, you won't marry my daughter.
SPEAKER_03:Um just because they didn't know him.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. They were uh he was living all of the things that were um they had expectations and they had never considered that anything would go other than the way they expected it to go. Um I would be a good girl, I would go to four years of college, I would, I would fall in love maybe my senior year, I would, I would date this lovely man, he would be in college with me. We would have um, you know, a two two years of being um dating and and chaste and and proper. And and and this was their mindset. And to have their 19-year-old daughter come home and say, I'm getting married. I'd given my heart to Ken 100%. I had no desire to be controlled by my parents. I just wanted, I wanted, I tasted freedom. I had tasted true love in that he knew me and he chose to love me. He chose me, he, he, he absolutely gave me the freedom at any point to walk away. He had several times told me um when I had gone off to college, I had told him I I didn't want to be his girlfriend um because I wanted a chance to to date whoever I wanted. Um, he desperately loved me. Um but he told me that if he told me that if being on my own and not being with him was what was best for me, that he only wanted what was the best for me. So we broke up when I went to college. Um and then he showed up at registration with balloons and walked around registration with me. Um and then he made sure that where he was working, um that they hired me every weekend to come and work there. This was at the summer camp. They had women's retreats and church things that would come through. And I had always worked in the kitchen during summer camp, so they always needed someone on the weekends. And he was living up there, so he would make sure that, oh hey, Joe Kitsia Vernican worked this weekend. Well, when you go to school Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and you leave Friday afternoon to go away for the weekend. Imagine this. I never got asked out on any dates because I never went to anything. I was always working these weekends, hanging out with him, having a blast. Um, and it wasn't too long that I realized that this calling myself not his girlfriend um was uh charade pointless. And uh I said, yeah, I'd I'd absolutely be his girlfriend. But uh that the fact that he had willingly said, you know, if that's what's best for you, then do what's best for you. And so it was this kind of love that this total freedom of you can choose to love me or you can choose not to love me. Either way, I love you, and when you're ready to be my girlfriend, I'm I'm here waiting for you. Um the there was no clutching, there were no um strings attached, there was no guilting me, it was absolutely um this this is why I call it true love. Um he totally loved me.
SPEAKER_03:So then when you get married and all this stuff happens, um and you're true, like so. There's not just baggage with just like going to church. This is intense, like family, like it's not just like an easy thing here. This is a whole bunch of stuff.
SPEAKER_00:It was. My mom had said I will never accept him. That hurt, man, that hurt so bad.
SPEAKER_02:And uh, and there were some physical altercations that had happened, and Ken I felt very much rejected by them. You know, we had been so incredibly happy. We just had this great news to tell them, and it was just if you do this, this is 100% against our our will. Um, we do not accept the fact that you're engaged, we're we we disavow that, you know you're not. And I'm like, oh, oh yes, I am. And uh that pretty much was the end of end of a relationship. Um and yet my dad wanted to be the one to to marry us. This was his his dream. And I don't, I don't I understand that was his dream.
SPEAKER_03:Um did he officiate the wedding?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, but up until I mean we had people on standby to actually officiate the wedding because I wasn't sure at the last minute if he would um say something during the service that was inappropriate or if he would at the last minute just say, No, you know, you're here, you we're not marrying you, though. And yeah, thanks for showing up. There's actually not gonna be a wedding today. I wasn't sure how dug in they were on that, you know.
SPEAKER_03:And I was a wedding photographer at this wedding, and it was a pastor's son, and he's marrying this girl, and in the homily, the pastor brought up the ex-girlfriend of the guy and how the family had loved the ex-girlfriend. And I'm here and I'm taking photos, and I'm like, yo, and I started looking around, like, is this actually happening? And then the pastor said that if it didn't work out, that that nobody should say, I told you so. And he's just like in the homily, talking about if it if it won't work out. And like my buddy, who was a who's uh also a pastor, he was in in the congregation, and I looked at him, I'm like, this is like the Twilight Zone. Like, what is happening? Yeah, and uh hopefully it wasn't like that.
SPEAKER_02:Hopefully um was exactly like that. That is what we were fearing, and uh so yeah, Ken had um a friend of his pastor on standby sitting in the front row, just in case we need someone to step in. Um either one, if there's a physical altercation, or two, if we need someone to take over the the the wedding. Uh it was and the thing is it was just so weird because underlying our All of this wedding planning is the um, you know, at some point there's a okay, well, I I remember my mom talking to my grandpa, asking for advice, you know, what are we gonna do? And my grandpa had told her, you know, it's my experience that when two people decide that they're gonna get married, they're gonna get married, so you can either get on board or not. And I love my grandpa for that. And so they got on board externally, behaviorally. But of course, there's this underlying tension, constant tension between um them and us. It was just, you know, the pretending that everything is happy and loving and knowing deep down that it's just not. And uh, so when we got married, um it was between, well, then of course I'm moving from Northern California down to LA um to go to Loma Linda. And uh, so that put you know 10, 12 hours of distance between us. And uh yeah, we chose to let that distance be as healing as possible. But there was a lot of weekends that we um struggled with the sadness of Ken feeling so rejected by my family. Um it was funny. We um my folks went to his folks to say, hey, help us get on board here. Um help us talk these kids out of that. And Ken's folks were like, We don't we don't know why we weren't married a year ago. Ken's folks had dated for about two months and then got married. She was 17. Um, so they my folks did not know that about Ken's folks. And um, their response to my parents were, what is there something wrong with our son that you don't want your daughter marrying him? What's why are you coming here saying these things? We're we're very offended that you don't think our son is worthy of your daughter. Who who is this girl that you think you've raised? You know, and uh so that that ended badly for my parents. Um so there are there's definitely a family schism there. And uh that was hard because I've come from a family that's always been really tight-knit. And uh, so you ask, did I, how did I, how did then church and and God and everything? Um I didn't want anything to do with church.
SPEAKER_03:I wanted to get away, I wanted to break free of of all of the traditions, of all of the guilt, of the of the um would you say that this event ended up coloring the way you thought about things for years, if not decades, afterwards?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, because if you don't ever address anything, if you don't talk about what the issues are, and you just live a life pretending like they're not there, that's hard. That's that's just weird. And yet, this is what relationally is going on is also what spiritually is going on. You can see something that doesn't feel right or seem right, but you don't talk about it, you just go along and pretend like it's all okay. So this wasn't just something at a relational level, this was also how the spiritual life was. Um if you can't control it, if you can't make it be what you want it to be, then you just sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn't happen. And so, yeah, people left the church because there was some sort of a um a misunderstanding or a controversy. Well, we just never heard from those people again. You never talked about them, you never reached out, they they just stopped being. It's like they didn't exist anymore. Um, you didn't talk through things. You all because there's a right answer, and either you're all on the right answer or you're wrong, and you have to be convinced. And if you're not convincible, then you're um apostate. And I wasn't convincible.
SPEAKER_03:So what would you say is the next thing that happened on your on on the spiritual journey?
SPEAKER_02:God kept showing up.
SPEAKER_03:He does that.
SPEAKER_02:Um that's that's where this went. Um, yes, Ken and I had a form of spirituality. Yes, we went to church, we kept Sabbath, and by that I mean if we did things that weren't acceptable on Sabbath, we felt um especially guilty. Um so that, you know, it's ridiculousness.
SPEAKER_03:Is it like going out to eat, or is it like what is it like? What was the level of it?
SPEAKER_02:We didn't go to church because as a pastor's kid, you went to church. That was part of how you knew someone was a good, uh, a good Adventist. They had, or a good spiritual person, they were willing to give up everything to go to church on Sabbath. You give up your job, you give up your family, you give up everything to be able to go to church on Sabbath. And this is how you know that you are surrendered to Christ, that you have given up everything for Christ. And if you're not willing to show up at church, then then something is in your heart that that prevents you from being fully surrendered to Christ, otherwise, you'd be at church. And so anytime you're not at church, then it's there's something that is that is in your heart that's preventing you from being fully in Christ.
SPEAKER_03:Um did you think you weren't trying hard enough for that to happen?
SPEAKER_02:I trying wasn't an issue for me at that point. I'm just not gonna try. Um, I was just living from what I wanted to do or I felt obligated to do. Um, and you know, it was so ingrained in me. Um, so you know, if we didn't really have anything going on or a really good excuse to not go to church, we probably went to church. Um, and I enjoyed the fellowship. I did. I en this was my culture. This is what was comfortable to me was going to church. It was very much like a warm blanket. Um, I'm so super social. To not go to church is boring because where's your friends? Um, I didn't have an issue with being told in college that I had to go to, you know, this number of services because that's where all my friends are gonna be hanging out. Absolutely, I'm going. Um, because that's afterward, that's where everyone gathers and decides where we're gonna go out, what what we're gonna do. Um, it was super social. So absolutely I'm gonna go. And I love music. So I love to sing. Um, Ken's a great um singer, so it was always fun for us to go to church and sing together, and um, that just really brought a lot of joy to the two of us. So going to church is something that we did, but not because it was Christ-centered. Um, it was just more it brought us contentment. And I love that when you go to church, even if it's for the wrong reasons, God shows up, you know, everywhere. Um, and so that that continual contentment in being in a church building um prevented me from wanting to run away from that as well. Um didn't want to go to church, newly married, what did I want to do with my spiritual walk? How is God still showing up? That's I think where we went from there. Um so Ken works in um in IT. He'd been going to school to get an IT degree. See, he's just such a good guy. Um being young um and going to school is expensive. Um so he took a lot of jobs that he worked really, really, really hard and went to school sometimes. Um because he knew that my my motivation for uh for a particular uh I had a particular educational goal. And he saw that that was important to me, and he wanted to make sure that that I was able to do that. So he really did put me through school. He made sure that the bills were paid, he made sure that we were living um not above poverty, but at least we had food on the table. Um so after I had been out working for a while, he was going back to school, got an IT um degree. Or he back then there was really no IT degree. Um there was no internet, there was no, you know, um, there were computers, um, but not like what they are now. And it was the Silicon Valley thing was just ramping up. And um, getting a job in IT was tremendously difficult in California because everybody was doing IT degrees, and they could pay people just next to nothing, but because they wanted the experience, um, guys were willing to, you know, five, six guys live together down in the Silicon Valley. They would rent a house, live together. Um, I think there's TV shows about it. Um, and then, you know, come home on the weekends. And this is just how if you wanted an IT uh job, that's kind of what you did. You were took minimum wage and and worked your butt off. Um, but that's just not something we could raise a family on. And at that point, we had um two kids. Um of our friends had moved out to Michigan and had called Ken up and said, Michigan is the land of milk and honey, there are jobs everywhere. Come to Michigan. We didn't know anybody in Michigan, zero. Um, but that it was intriguing. I mean, uh we'd like to have a job that made more than minimum wage. Um, so he interviewed um in Michigan and uh was offered a job at it double plus what he had been making. And uh we had, you know, I grew up that if there's a big decision to make, that's when you call on God. Um so we we prayed about it. Is this what we should be doing? And we learned that you throw out a fleece and you say, God, if it's this, then yes, and if it's this, then no. Um I had learned very early how to put God in a box and how to access the box at the right times. Isn't that shallow? Um and sad. Um so we had prayed about it and said, God, if you if you want us to be in Michigan, the thing that would prevent us from being out there would be um the finances to actually get there. Um and we figured we could probably move our family out there for about$1,000. Now, this is not in 2025, and$1,000 was enough to um a couple of motels on the way out, rent a U-Hall, and and get us out there. You know, that would be about$1,000. So we said, okay, if this company calls us back and offers us a moving package of at least$1,000, we'll take this job in Michigan. So a day, a couple of days later, someone from the company calls and says, Um, hey, do you guys own your home there in Michigan? I mean, in California. I'm like, Yeah, we own our house. Oh, okay. Um, well, we'll have someone else call you back. Hold on. So the following day, um, someone calls back and says, Um, and it was they said, Hey, we're from the relocation um team. I'm like, oh, okay, well, I guess they're relocating us. And uh they said, This is the package that we've put together for you guys. Um, if you accept, if you accept the job, this is what we what we're gonna do. We'll buy your house, we'll fly you out to Michigan up to two times to look for housing, we'll pack you up, we'll move you out, um, we'll give you five thousand dollars for expenses in in moving. Um, once you're in Michigan, we will pack you and move you within one year if you want to move again. So, like if you have just come out here and you found an apartment and now you want to move to a house, we'll pack you and move you to a house within one year in helping you to get settled. Um, so call us back and let us know if that would be something that would be agreeable to you guys.
SPEAKER_03:Let me think about it.
SPEAKER_02:We're just blown away. And we attribute this 100% to God, saying, you know, we felt bad that we said, God, if you want us there, here's the minimum that you will do for us. Um, and we really felt like it was God saying, Look, if you want me to show up in your lives, please understand that I don't roll with the minimum. Um, here's what I can do for you. Here's where I here's how I can show up. Um, so we moved to Michigan, the land of milk and honey. And uh was probably five or six months into living here and Ken working, maybe not quite that much. He got a call from the um vice president of the company. Um this is the he was working for AAA insurance company. And uh AAA, the vice president of the company, called him up and said, Would you mind swinging by my office? Ken's like, oh, sure. So he walks in, and the the pres the vice president stands up and shakes his hand and says, I just wanted to meet you and see who in the world you are. Ken's like, I'm thank you. Nice to meet you too. Y'all people in Michigan are super friendly. I said, I want to meet you because um we uh a huge mistake was made, and I just wanted to figure out what had happened and um and meet you and tell you that you got something that we don't offer to anybody but presidents and vice presidents in this company. And you must know something, or I don't know how this happened. Um, but frankly, um, if you don't mind, we would like to renege on any leftover parts of this um contract that you signed. Um, as long as you don't fire me, sure. We were happy with the housing that we had. We didn't really want to move again. Um, we were very content where we were, and so Ken agreed to yes, we we won't hold you responsible for paying out, you know, the the rest of this. And uh, so that was the end of that. And uh, you know, just uh to be called in and said, you know, I don't know who you know, but we don't offer this to anybody. Um, you know, we we just we felt so joyful that we could say, well, we know God, and uh that's how we think we got here. Um we found out that there were huge tax implications to that uh moving package, uh, which we were so like they give you a signing bonus.
SPEAKER_03:We'll give you a signing bonus of$5,000, and then you after the taxes you realize, oh, it's$2,400.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But when it is in imputed income, there's not you don't get money, they just take money. So they give you all these benefits, but it's not nothing went into your bank account. So when tax time comes, you had to come up with your own taxes to pay on that$40,000. Yeah, so that kind of set us back hard, but you know, we shrugged our shoulders about that, um, made it through. Um, finances were hard because of it, but um so we lived in Michigan just on this idea that yeah, God wants us here. Um, we found a church here that was we knew nobody, and Ken is definitely a huggy kind of guy. When we walked into church on Sabbath morning, um, there were people just left and right that just welcomed us and hugged us and invited us home for dinner and befriended us, and we were so um lonely. And to have these people just um treat us that first week like they've known us all their lives, um, and just incorporate us into this wonderful church family was a beautiful thing. My heart is just um my heart will always be a part of that church.
SPEAKER_04:Hmm.
SPEAKER_02:And the beautiful, um, and we met some just wonderful people, and um, it was at that point that we really started to catch a little bit of a glimpse of of who God was. Um there were at that time the church was just really flourishing. There were a lot of new members that had just come in, people who were um unchurched, um just really knew nothing about Adventism. It wasn't like someone had been an Adventist had left and come back and been baptized. These are people who are just um new to God in general. And there would be these Sabbath school discussions between longtime Adventists and brand new Adventists. And you know, that longtime Adventists are just barking up the trees about these nuances. And this poor little new member would like raising their hand and would say, Um, I'm so confused. What does this have to do with salvation? And the place would just go silent. And those were the kind of questions that Ken and I were starting to realize that the things that we were willing to argue about really had nothing to do with salvation. And um this the church itself had a lot of diversity, ethnic diversity, religious diversity, age diversity, a lot of old old people and a lot of really young people. And there were times where a special music would be um maybe Big Daddy Weave. And uh wow, some members would just be like, boo, don't ever let that happen again. And one of the one of the members, one of the founding members of the church, um, I think he would maybe was the head elder, and he would say, Look, I didn't like it either. But it's not up to me to like it. It's up to God to be pleased with with praise given to him. And whether or not you like it isn't the point. Um, so settle down and allow people to praise God in a way that is meaningful to them. If you want different music, then you do music. And you you and you praise God in your way, but but this has to be a church that is inclusive of every style of worship, of every type of member. And uh that was so refreshing to Ken and myself. Um that ability to be inclusive and to see outside of a of a box was just starting to revive us in um in seeing God differently. Starting to see him as somebody who wasn't just looking for trying to cram um square pegs into round holes. That um that they were people that should were showing us that God isn't in a box. And uh we flourished there in our in our walk with Christ. Um had small children, and uh, when you have children, you realize that you want to instill values in them. And then you wonder, well, what in the world are my values? So it was kind of at that time that Ken and I really kind of came to grips with, okay, well, so what is it that we believe?
SPEAKER_03:Um what'd you find out?
SPEAKER_02:Um there was a parenting class that we spake we started to teach, and it was within that parenting class that we really started to see the heart of God in that the whole premise of the class was about training the heart of your child and not training the behavior of your child, that when your heart is in the right place, the behavior will follow along. At a young age, yes, you want to train behavior because in smaller children, behavior begets belief, but as an adult, it's belief that begets behavior, and um, and it just trained us in how to to transition from being behavior modification-minded to being heart motivated, and um we found ourselves being very much more heart-motivated. Um, my heart was very open to God, but um, I still lived with all of the weight of you still have to do the right thing. My heart was was good. My heart had transitioned from being angry toward God, dismissive and and antagonistic toward God, to being someone who someone who desired God, but the desire for God had morphed into I need to show God how grateful I am. You've done this for me. Now let me prove to you how grateful I am. I'm gonna do all of these things to show you um how how grateful I am. And so that really is um, there is some joy in that, you know. I I delight to serve people. I um those things motivate me intrinsically just because I'm a very much of a people person and I I wasn't I didn't feel called to do hard things. And plus, if I didn't want to do the hard things, I wasn't gonna do them, so I was just not I don't know, I never felt like God had called me to something hard. I felt my ministry was always in serving people, but that was always just um my natural bent anyway. Um probably Ken would tell you that um God called him to something hard. Which was putting up with a very stubborn, self-centered, um belligerent um I'm gonna get my way no matter what, uh a social wife. Um and he's very reticent, very quiet, very introverted. Um, if he could never interact with people, he'd be very happy. So God called him to something very hard, which was to be married to me, but um he loves me and I absolutely adore him, so that worked out good.
SPEAKER_03:Um so you're trying to show God that you're grateful, you're trying to show him you're worthy in some way. And how long did this go?
SPEAKER_02:Um probably another fifteen, twenty years of living in service because that's what you're supposed to do. Um, if you had asked me if I had a personal relationship with Christ, I would have told you either, I probably would have told you I don't know. Um, no would maybe have been my next answer because to me, a personal relationship with Christ meant that you read your Bible through every year, you did the Sabbath school lesson, you dressed in a particular way, you didn't do certain things, and you did do other things. And I wasn't doing that. So having a personal relationship with Christ, no. Uh, if you asked me if I was consistently disappointing Christ, yes, but I was doing the best I could. Um, and I didn't want to talk about whether or not I was in a relationship with Christ, because that merely pointed out to me all of the areas where I was not being the square peg in a round box. Um so I would I would definitely reject a conversation that had to do with am I living up to the standards? I was living for Christ.
SPEAKER_03:But you didn't feel like you were living up to the standards?
SPEAKER_02:No, not up to any particular standard that was good enough.
SPEAKER_03:And and I rejected hard in- Did you know that this was going on, or is this just in the back of your mind, like underneath all this stuff?
SPEAKER_02:In in contemplating these things. No, I did not know these things were going on. Not until you live in freedom can you look back and go, oh that's what that was.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, yeah. Not until you have the the light shown in the darkness can you see what was happening in darkness? Um, that would be my take on that, maybe.
SPEAKER_03:So when does the first light start to show up?
SPEAKER_02:I it's hard because there's in many, in many ways, there's such a fine line between being in relationship with Christ, and he just loves you, and you live in this love, whether or not you know you are.
SPEAKER_03:Right, but the prayer of Paul's uh the prayer of Paul is that our eyes are open to it, right? Yeah, so that we start to see it.
SPEAKER_02:So, eyes opened was um probably three years ago. Um my church had asked um me to be an elder. They'd asked Ken and myself to be an elder team, and Ken flat out was like, absolutely not. But if you want to, sweetheart, y'all go right ahead. Um excuse me, I'm sorry for all of the congestion.
SPEAKER_03:You're good.
SPEAKER_02:Um that that ask from the church was like trauma. Um, I I do everything I can to be disassociated with any sort of um are we missing out on the good good gospel?
SPEAKER_01:It's running 10 minutes late.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, is it usually at this time?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, shout out to Justin Coo and that good, good.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, sorry you're running late, man. Get with the program.
SPEAKER_03:No, you're all good.
SPEAKER_02:Just had a notice. Um, so they asked me to be an elder, and that was a hard no because to me that simply meant um we expect you to do all of the things to model for everybody else what a good Christian looks like, and I wasn't about to have anything to do with that. Um, so hard pass, not interested. Um, I enjoyed going to church. Um my kids loved God. Um we were content, we were happy, don't mess. Um, I resented the church hierarchy, I resented that a lot um because I felt like everybody should be considered equal. These are the things I was reading in the Bible that we shouldn't esteem one above another. And yet um if you were at an event and the church conference president was there, it was like Hollywood royalty had showed up. And um, everyone, you know, oh, you want to see him, you want to know, look who's here. Did you see? And I had disassociated with myself with that so much that my parents would be all excited, did you know who was there? I'm like, no. And they would say the name. I'd be like, I don't even know who that is, and take great pride in in not knowing. Um, I don't I don't know who your role models are, I don't know who your your SDA gods are. I don't I don't associate with that. Um, so-and-so was here. You know, he was speaking for the weekend. I was like, so what?
SPEAKER_03:If Dan Muller was there, I'd be like, what?
SPEAKER_02:Dan is here. Like, I gotta get the front row. I gotta get the front row, man.
SPEAKER_03:Um shout out to Dan Mueller.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, oh my gosh, he's the man.
SPEAKER_03:And he doesn't care a lick about that.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, and this is and this is the the dissonance that I lived in of church and religion being one way, and yet my heart and scripture and things I would study were leaning a different way. And I just was having this constant disconnect and not understanding it. There were um, I totally was brought up that we only ever read Adventist books. And I swear that my parents still um are of that. There's blessed books and there's not blessed books, and there's blessed people and not blessed people. And if, you know, if I hand my dad a book that's not published by Review and Herald or Pacific Press, um I'll give him a book, it'll get left here at home. Um you know, and it's a subconscious thing. You know, he'll open a book and flip to the, you know, who's this by? Do I know them? Is this Adventist? And if it's not, then then it's so this is kind of the idea that I grew up with that there's there's right people and wrong people. It colored all of my friendships because my friendships were about um, I was very comfortable with people who were Adventist, and anybody who's not Adventist is is a victim of the necessity to convert them. Make them think like you do, make them have the right answers. Once they have the right answers and are doing all the right things, then then you can truly be um real and open and and yourself with them, but you can't do that unless they're Adventist. So I never had relationships with people that were not Adventist. I didn't know how to, because anyone who was an Adventist was just someone who was needed to be converted. I never saw somebody as a as anything other than non-Adventist or Adventist. That's so awful. I didn't know how to relate to people as people, I only related to people as potential converts. People who who had the truth or didn't have the truth. So that's very elitist in my thinking of um, yeah, I always saw myself as better than I have the truth. Even if I don't want to be associated with it, at least I have it. At least I'm going to heaven. And just this constant lack of of understanding and feeling comfortable in my in my spirituality, there was always restlessness within that. Um, I appreciate that restlessness because to me that's part of God just constantly tugging at my heart to know him better, to know him clearly. The the fact that he's constantly opening my eyes to being able to see this um dichotomy between these two ways of life. Um it was hard. I felt comfortable because it was my culture, but I didn't feel comfortable um in relationship with God because there was just too much dissonance between perceived expectations. Um so probably two years later, the church asked me again to be an elder at church. And uh I said no again. Um, but this time there was a little more push. Um and I had been I'm a natural leader, maybe I'm just naturally loud, and just naturally know how to get my way, um, and leaders need to do that. Um I don't know why they asked me because my my spiritual life was empty, as far as you can't give something that you don't have, and I didn't know what I had. I was still of the mindset that if someone, if you were to tell, if you were said to give somebody the gospel, you know, if you were to invite somebody for Bible studies, that meant that you needed to go through a Daniel and Revelation seminar with them and go through those texts and and get them to understand that the Sabbath is the true day and understand the state of the dead and understand um why you should be vegetarian and understand the Trinity. These are all the things that I thought um were the gospel. And so, if you're gonna put me in a leadership position at church, then I need to be able to give a Bible study. And what if someone asks me about Daniel and Revelation? I'm like, I don't know how to give a Daniel and Revelation Bible study, therefore I'm not qualified. And I and I come from the definitely the mindset that in order to be a leader. For the church, there's a qualification that you have to have. And whether that's you've gone to seminary or you you have, you know, you do the Bible study, the Sabbath school lesson every every day, or you know, you can, I don't know. There was just somehow a criteria that I didn't want to step into having to be called accountable to some abstract criteria. It was offensive to me in a way that was just, it was traumatic, and that I don't, I don't want to be the thing that I've tried so hard to escape from. So then one of the other elders um just kept pressing, um, not in a not in a in an offensive way, but just asking me why. Um and then really encouraging me to understand my value in Christ, that they were asking me to be an elder because of who I was, not because of what they wanted me to be, not because they saw me as a good candidate to polish up for the pearly gates of heaven. Um, but that there were qualities in my personality and in my character that they saw benefit in. Um so I hymned and hawed about that for a long time, and and Ken really encouraged me to say yes. He he saw in me my spiritual growth. Um, I had been um not not reading the Bible, the Bible bored me to death, um, but definitely being part of um Beth Moore has Bible studies that are just in-depth and and wholesome and um healing, and and you get to see God in a way that I've never seen God and man, I just love Beth Moore, and um studied probably all of her different um big lessons that she did and just saw God in a light that was beautiful, and I saw a woman who just um delighted in being her true, honest, authentic self and was clearly being led by the Holy Spirit. I just I found beauty in that. Um and then my my church family are telling me we don't want you to conform to a an outward standard that you think that you need. We just want you to um be who Christ calls you to be. Oh, okay. And then there's a little bit of um I wouldn't say pride. I there was never a pride moment in it, but there was a satisfaction, maybe it's nice to be valued.
SPEAKER_01:Um and then there's a little bit of the stick it to the man, um in that um in any time I can poke the bear, I'm just absolutely a girl.
SPEAKER_02:So being a woman elder um was something that is controversial, and I'm if for no other reason, that's probably why I said yes.
SPEAKER_03:So you said yes. So then what happened?
SPEAKER_02:Then they want you to preach. If you're an elder, you have to preach, and that scared me to death. Um because in order to preach, you have to. Preaching to me was teaching. I have to have a theological statement to make and back it up with scripture and and teach somebody something that they don't know. Um, and and I I didn't feel qualified to do that. I've I don't know my Bible. I can I can repeat the books of the Bible in order, I can sing the songs. Um, I I don't have a favorite Bible verse. Um, in order to preach, I had to know something. And man, I just kept putting it off. Just no, not this. I can't do that one. Let somebody else do it. And um finally, Audrey just said, Verna, just tell your story. Just just and I'll go, okay, I can tell my story about who I think God is. Like I could do that. And so I I preached a couple times just about um I I don't need who God who God was to me, like who he was in the past, who he was now, um, what his plans were for me in the future. Um but in those in those times of sermon preparation, I was opening the Bible.
SPEAKER_01:And God was absolutely showing up.
SPEAKER_02:The insights that I was having were not insights that you gained by reading words. They're insights that come from the Holy Spirit dwelling. And I want to be professional when I when I speak, and so they were hours that I would preach these sermons out loud over and over and over at the car. And I was just absolutely dumped on by the Holy Spirit, just preaching to myself, saying the words over myself of starting to understand who God was in a way that was unexplainable. You just start to know somebody, and it's not because I had scriptures lined up that said the things. It wasn't knowledge, it was becoming wisdom in my heart. And some of it was just cathartic to to understand and to start to rehearse the the story of who I was, who I had been, who I wanted to be, who I thought God saw me as. Um opening this little doorway of understanding. Um and then there was one sermon that I wrote um about the gift of salvation. And that was the one that just that that was that was the one. When I started on when I started trying to tell other people what the gift of salvation was. I had to understand it myself. And when I was and when I was trying to describe these things to other people about what salvation was and what salvation wasn't, these aha moments just kept piling up for me. And I was finding scripture after scripture that just um was was blowing my mind about the difference between performance and a heart for God. The difference between God working through you and you working for God, um realizing how transactional my experience with God had been in that you've done this for me, therefore I'll do this for you, or how how it was contractional, so transactional and contractual, in that um oh, there is a a phrase that's called the debtor's ethic. Okay, so the debtor's ethic. The dead the the debtor's ethic says that since you have done this for me, therefore I have to do this for you. Um and if we accept God's gift of grace as we would a contract, then we're constantly forever trying to pay our interest on that contract. Um, and it completely devalues what God has done for us. Um or or it gives this idea that somehow our efforts are good enough to be pleasing to God, to to pay off this immense debt. Um and I just started to understand that that everything that I was doing contractually for God wasn't enough. Um and then I read the scripture that says, and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, and I realized in that moment that God didn't even need my gratitude, and that blew my mind. First of all, I thought I thought he needed my my good behavior, and then I thought he needed my my gratitude, and he didn't need either one of those in order to save me. He died for me while I was sinning, he died for me while I was ungrateful, he died for me while I was doing all of these all of these things that didn't make any sense. Where does my sin even how does my sin factor into this? And that just blew my mind that my sin didn't factor into it. And if my sin didn't factor into it, and my and my good behavior didn't factor into it, then what was my salvation? And that's when it just blew my mind that my salvation was a gift, I had nothing to do with it, that it was just simply the accepting of the gift. That that's that's what my salvation was. And then I started to use the word freedom. I'm free from needing to worry about my sins. Because God saved me even within even while I sinned, and I didn't have to worry about my good behavior, because my good behavior was never gonna be enough to to to pay for this gift. So when I could finally start releasing my need for quantifying behaviors as either good or bad, I was just free to be loved.
SPEAKER_01:I was free to love.
SPEAKER_02:I was free to act however I wanted to act because God loved me regardless. And and and I it was a conscious choice to say, you know what? I can act however I want to act because God's gonna love me no matter what, and that was so amazing. I have always, always had to act a certain way, and I just threw my head back and was like, screw it all. I'm gonna act however I want to act. I'll be as bold as I want to be, I'll say whatever I want to say, I will, I will be unapologetically me, because God created me to be exactly who He wanted me to be. I am just done slamming myself into some stupid box and just fall into this realm of being accepted and wanted, not condemned for who I was, not constantly holding out for well, you should have done this, it would have been better if you'd have done that.
SPEAKER_01:Um constantly feeling like I didn't measure up over and over and over. I'm like, God's not measuring me, so screw it.
SPEAKER_02:Measure me if you want, but God doesn't measure me, so and you know, right about this time, um I preached that sermon. And again, I preached that sermon to myself maybe 30 times in the car, and I started to believe it. I absolutely started to believe it, and I realized then what the Bible says about belief.
SPEAKER_01:That's huge, just huge.
SPEAKER_02:And I realized that belief is where it's at. Your heart is where it's at, your mind is where it's at. And when God says he's gonna give you a new mind and a new heart, it's so that you can believe right, not so that you can do right, so that you can be right, but so that you can believe right, so that you can belong differently. Oh man, it was just mind-blowing. And I felt like nobody was getting this. I had talked to people about it, and and it was just like, oh yeah, you know, salvation is a free gift. I'm like, no, but but do you believe it? Oh yeah, yeah, you know, I believe that God will come back and take me to heaven and take away my sins, and and um it just wasn't getting any any any traction anywhere. There was no one who was having this aha moment. Um my nephew had come home, I don't know, it was for some vacation somewhere along the way. And um, he said, Auntie, there's this um, oh, I don't know, he was talking to me about religion of something or other, and I was just geeked about what I was finding, and was just talking to him about this free gift of salvation and how it how our how our behavior doesn't drive that, and how our goodness or our badness is inconsequential to God's love for us, and he's like his mouth was just kind of like gaping. He's like, Andy, you get this? I'm like, Yes, I get this, and he's like, I do too. And we're like, whoa, this is so cool, and he's like, Um, I've been listening to this um podcast, um, and and this um this preacher, so he gives me this uh link to um wave one, and this dude's on a beach and he's like blabbling about something, and it didn't make any sense at all. And like, click on this next thing, click on this next thing, and I wasn't finding any continuity between this beach thing that he's doing and like lesson one, lesson two, lesson, it just didn't make any sense to me at all. I'm like, oh John, this is clearly something for younger people, and so I turned that off. Um, I didn't go back to it. Um, but he had also introduced me to this podcast, uh Death to Life. And um I started listening. I drive, um, I do home care and I drive between patients, and I put in hours in the car every day. And uh I was listening to, I think at that time there was about 60 podcasts in the in the set. And uh I listened to every one of them. One and two and three. I was just I was just feeding, feeding on the the life just feeding on the life and um getting a much clearer picture of the death I'd been living in, and slowly being able to shed all of these false concepts of how God. Loved me, or why he loved me, or what the things were that were the criteria that I needed to live under, and um what constituted good behavior, and and uh and just seeing the hierarchy of of mental dis derangement of well if if vegetarian is good if if if eating clean meat is good then then eating no meat is better, and if eating no meat is better, well then eating vegan is better, and if eating vegan is better, then eating raw is better. And if eating raw is better, well then you know only eating two meals a day is better, and and don't drink any juice, only drink water, and then don't drink water with your meals, and and uh oh my gosh, and it's just control of better, better, better, better, better, better, better. And like who's measuring this? And uh being able to see the being able to see the manipulation of the devil within that, of controlling our behaviors in such a way that we think we're being holy and and and better in God's mind. Um it was so refreshing to me to hear so many different people's stories, both uh on both sides of the of the spectrum, people both being super religious, super holy, and finding their way to Christ in setting aside their need for control, setting aside their um hierarchy. Um, and then on the other side, people who had just ditched the whole hierarchy altogether and were just living in a way that was so self-serving, but just in a different in a different way. And hearing both sides of these pictures um highlighted highlighted my growth. Um BB's especially was absolutely transformative for me.
SPEAKER_03:What about hers?
SPEAKER_02:Fully seen, fully known, fully loved.
SPEAKER_00:That was beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:She she had a way of describing how she had how she had thought that the robe of righteousness was something that covered us. We were still icky, we were still dirty, we were still the same ugly person, but we had this lovely cloak over us that hid our ugliness. And this is how God saw us. He just saw this beautiful cloak around us, he didn't actually see us. And and when she learned that that's not what it was, that Christ had actually made her renewed. I hadn't I hadn't seen it like that before.
SPEAKER_01:I had just always seen that it was this, I was still defective. God was just choosing not to look at me like that.
SPEAKER_02:And it was her podcast that helped me to see that God actually changes my heart, God actually transforms me. He doesn't just pretend I'm not um clean and holy and righteous. He actually makes me clean and holy and righteous. And um that that podcast was just one probably one of the ones that just um really helped my um understanding of who I was in the presence of Christ more than any of the others. All the others were phenomenal. I loved the the breaking down of barriers, you know, of the Christian, the the culture of religion, breaking those down. So many people did that, and I was so appreciative. I've never really walked a lifestyle of um worldliness? I've certainly walked a lifestyle of self-centeredness. Um and self-centeredness really is both both sides. I have to be good enough, look at me make my own self good enough. I I'm just living for myself. It's the same thing, just different sides of the road. Um, but to have the layers peeled back um on both sides to reveal the goodness of God on both on both accounts was phenomenal. And um, so then I just felt like um I was just growing and growing and growing in my understanding of who Christ was. And I would hear these podcasts and and and scriptures would be quoted, and um I'd be like, oh, I have to look that up. And um, I had reams of of papers that um I would just holding the steering wheel with one hand and and blindly writing on papers in the seat next to me, notes of these, of these thoughts and concepts. And there's times I would pull over to the side of the road and just like re rewind and then listen and write these scriptures down, and and I couldn't wait to get home and open my Bible and read these things for myself and put these concepts on paper so I could I could go back and and look at them again and go, wow, this is who I am. And and I remember coming home one day, like rushing to get home because I wanted to read my Bible, and Bible reading has always been a trauma for me. I hate reading my Bible because I never followed through. Love ADHD. I think I've read Genesis 1 through 7 a thousand times, but I've never read all the way through the Bible. I could never get through those little cards that you click off everything that you're reading, and my sister would do those every single year. She had those little tuft in her Bible, and she would just piously read her little Bible every day, and I hated her for it. And then there was, you know, at the beginning of every year, pastors would pass out the cards and read your Bible through. You know, Bible reading was just held up as this bastion of glory, and I resented it so much just because I could never achieve that level of uh of Bible goodness. And uh yeah, I would never even try. Once I got to be like a teenager, I just tossed those cards out because uh why start? I'm gonna fail.
SPEAKER_03:Um but now you're you're driving home to read.
SPEAKER_02:And now I'm driving home, and my heart is just longing for get home and open your Bible and read this stuff. And I walk in the house and I'm just cracking up. I'm like, honey, where's my Bible? I'm a church lady, I gotta read my Bible. I'm like, I don't know who this crazy Bible lady is that you're married to, but I can't wait to read my Bible. Get out of my way, I gotta go read the Bible.
SPEAKER_04:That's hilarious.
SPEAKER_02:Just cracking me up. I'm not, I'm not a journaler, I'm not a um an introspective kind of person. And and this um elder had given me a journal. I'm like, good lord, you do not know me. I'm gonna put this journal on a shelf, it's gonna be blank for 50 years. And I grabbed that journal out and I would come home and I would go through those scriptures and I would go through the podcast I had heard, and I would write down all of these things I was learning, and they were just fascinating to me. And I my heart just couldn't get enough of it. And uh, I'm just living on it, just living on it. Couldn't shut me up about it. That's all I ever wanted to talk about. I remember being much younger and going to people's houses after church, and they would want to have a Bible study. And be like, oh my goodness, this is so boring. I don't want to have a Bible study after church. Let's talk, let's let's play a game, let's do something fun. Bible study is just, oh my goodness, so boring. And uh here I am trying to find people to talk about the Bible with me, and nobody wants to talk about the Bible with me. And uh uh, you know, I just felt it loose ends for quite a while. It's just where am I gonna go? Oh, the other thing is while I was listening to these podcasts, they just kept talking about this wave one thing. I'm like, what in the world is wave one? And uh so Jonathan and I had met up again, and um he asked me if I was listening to the um the thing from Jonathan. I'm like, no, that was weird. Um but I'm listening to the podcasts, and uh they keep talking about wave one and where they're learning all of this stuff from wave one. He's like, Auntie, that's the Jonathan stuff. Oh, okay. Well, by that time I had had enough indoctrination into the um new mindset of of who I am in Christ, that when I went and listened to what he was saying, all of a sudden it was just like a well spring of water. I was just drenching in it, and it just totally made sense. And um I I do appreciate things that are much more in-depth, and so the little clips were were cute, but man, once I found PVC churches, oh my goodness, I was just I couldn't go back. Once you've seen freedom, once you've tasted it, it's like when I when I first met Ken, he gave me this freedom, and once I had that, once I tasted that freedom, that because love is freedom. And once I had had found that in him, man, that guy can't get rid of me. And the same thing with with Christ. Once I found that freedom in Christ, man, that God can't get rid of me. He can't shake me loose. Um, it's just been it's been this wild ride of me just like this wide-eyed monster trying to find people to talk to the Bible, talk about the Bible to. And I'm pretty sure that some people are scared of me. But there's been a couple people along the way that have have joined up. Um there's a uh school near here that Jonathan went to um called SMAT. It's Student Missionary Aviation Training School, and um it's a pilot program as well as a um aviation mechanics school. And uh many of the kids will come and they'll do their mechanic part first so that they can work and make money for their flight training. And uh John had gone through that. And uh how did that work? Um we had a new pastor who came to our church, and um, all their family from Washington had come out here for Christmas, and one of their kids, um, he was 19 years old and uh was looking for where he's done with high school and he's just looking for what he's gonna do next. And uh he had talked a little bit about aviation, and I had said, Oh, there's a school right around here that um does this, this, this. And um, his parents and he um ended up saying that this this actually makes a lot of sense. And he moved from Washington um out here to go to that school. Um, his his older brothers are pastor. Um, that was wild. We got a new pastor. This is the first time I've had a pastor that was younger than my children, and uh that was wild, but man, great guy, great family. And uh his younger brother, I just thought his younger brother was the coolest kid ever. So he's going to this SMAT and coming to church over here from time to time, and he brought another kid with him. Um, turns out they had gone to summer school, uh to summer camp together out in Washington. They didn't know each other, but they're like, You look familiar, you look familiar. Oh my gosh, we went to we were in the same cabin together. Um, so they're coming to church here at my church, and I'm just starting to get into these um videos, and I think there was something that um Love Reality had done, like a week-long intensive or something, where every night, or or maybe it was like five nights or five things in a row, um, like a week of prayer kind of thing. And um, it started on a Friday night, and um Seth and Sam had been over here at the church doing some music stuff earlier in the evening, and I had said, Hey, I'm gonna go home. Because, you know, they're 19 years old, they're hungry. Come over to my house, I'll feed you dinner, and hey, I'm gonna watch this thing. Hang out and watch with me if you want. So they they stay and they watch. And uh I'm just I'm just digging this this whole gospel thing is just blowing my mind. I've never been so excited about God in my life, and um uh weird, weird excitement, like that kind of like like just this is so cool. Freedom is just amazing, and um so these kids are here in my in my house just watching me geek out about God, and uh the stuff Jonathan is saying is um wild compared to the the the God and the religion that we've grown up in. And these two poor kids, I'm warping their minds. And um Sam goes home that night, he's like, Oh, I don't know about that stuff, you know. But he's he's looking at the scripture and he's like, doggone, this dude might be right. And uh at first, when he's hearing it, he's like, you know, I've moved across the country, I'm hanging out with people who say they're Adventists, but they're looking at stuff that's like totally, totally not the Adventist that I'm used to. And um he's getting ready to like um dip out on us because this is just too weird. And he's just reading the scripture that goes with it, and uh, he's like, There there might be something to this. I'll I'll listen again, and furthermore, she's gonna feed me again. So we we just keep getting together over and over and over, and we're watching more of this stuff, and I'm feeding these kids good food, and uh, we spent the next nine months together watching um doing that week of prayer, and then doing all of wave one, and then doing because both the kids are Adventist, we did the the um Adventism and the Light of Freedom, we went through that whole series, and then they left. And like these are the two kids that I've been able to really like connect with and talk to talk about scripture stuff with, and and they've got it like I do.
SPEAKER_03:And is this Sam DePola? Yeah, yeah, he's coming up on the podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, he better be. And uh now he is going and he's telling his his sisters about this stuff, and he's telling his parents about this stuff, and they're coming to a different understanding of who Christ is, and and Seth is moving away, and um he's much more introspective, he's not the kind of person who sees something and just jumps on the bandwagon. He's like, he's probably gonna sit with this stuff for a long time before he's like, Yeah, this is this is it for me. And um, and yet this is planted in it in his mind that I'm just geeked about it. And uh, so then on Jonathan's uh Jonathan Benson, on his Facebook page, like a year later, I see some kid on there who says something about, oh hey, I heard you went to SMAT. Um, I'm going there this coming year. I'm like, hey, I'm another victim. So I reach out to this kid, I'm like, no idea who you are, but you know my nephew. And uh um this is the church I go to. It's really near where you're gonna be um based out of. And if you, you know, I'm inviting you to my church, I'll come home for dinner. So snag that boy. We spent the next year um going through the whole wave one again. Meanwhile, my husband's sitting here listening to this again. He thinks Jonathan is just um a little too crazy, just a little too much like his wife. It's enough to deal with one person who's, you know, but then to listen to someone for an hour sermon geeking about stuff. Um, and he believes everything he's hearing, but it's it's just not sinking. And I'm trying to be careful at home about not geeking out about it too much and not doing the do you get it? Do you get it? Do you get it? Do you get it yet? Do you get it yet? I have a group of girlfriends who I'm in a we all went to high school or grad school or college together, and there's a little mingling of five of us who are all friends still, and we were doing um Bible studies through um the Bible app. We would pick a week long thing and and do. A Bible study. And um I'm more techie than any of them, so I was always the one picking the Bible studies to do. And doggone if they didn't all be about Romans or Ephesians or Romans again. And um and then all of these things I'm learning, I would be um communicating and um teaching as we're as we're going through these Bible studies together. And they all grew up with the same kind of parents that I had. Um we all struggle with the same religious I hate to call it religious trauma, but spiritual trauma. I don't know what you want to call it. A misunderstanding, a mischaracterization of who Christ is. And as I'm just you're able to hear coming home, I'm coming home after listening to a podcast. I can't wait to get in my Bible. I'm seeing all of these things, I'm writing all of these things, and so all of these things I'm writing, then I'm just texting all of these thoughts and ideas to all my girlfriends, and they're responding and we're talking and we're and we're figuring these things out. And one of my girlfriends texts me back, and she's like, you know, for the first time in my entire life, I'm assured of my salvation. I know I'm going to heaven. Man, that was beautiful. Just absolutely made my day. It's like it's like um a fl it's like a flame to to gasoline, you know, my my gasoline being my love for Christ, and this, you know, when some of your friends who are hearing you explaining the gospel to them, it's just lights that fire, it just explodes and um yeah. So can't stop talking about it.
SPEAKER_03:So let me ask you this what what do you know about yourself to be true now?
SPEAKER_02:God likes me for who I am. I don't have to try and be somebody else. I know that I am loved and cherished and and I'm comfortable in my skin. I'm comfortable being me. I'm I'm unapologetically me. All of those insecurities about, you know, when you move from place to place to place, do I fit in? Do I belong? Do I fit in? Do I belong? And I've never felt like I fit in. I never felt like I belonged. I always felt like I had to be careful. Um, you know, you go to a new town, you meet new people, and and they have a culture of their own, and you have to remake yourself into the friend for those people, and remake yourself into the friend for those people. And I've remade myself so many times and never just been comfortable in who I am. Um I know that God just adores me, and he's not looking for me to, he's not looking for me to transform myself. He's waiting for me to allow him to live in me and be so genuinely in me that that's what's transforming me. I told you that I I just abdicated all responsibility for trying to do anything, just screw it all. I'm like, look, if God wants me to change, he's gonna have to change me because I'm not doing anything. I'm not I'm not working toward any of this religious piety anymore. If God wants me changed, bring it on, God change me. But I ain't doing a I ain't doing a thing. And maybe that's the wrong approach, but it was it was a response to to the freedom of oh, I can just let all this stuff go. And immediately my husband and I were arguing about something, and I just shut it down. I realized I don't need to, I don't need him to see my perspective. God knows my perspective, and that's good enough. And then that's just that's just done. And these little nuances of I'm completely content not having to make get my way.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so if you could go back and you could talk to Verna in the midst of just the pain of you know getting married and how that hurt so bad, what with what you know now, how would you comfort this this girl?
SPEAKER_01:That's hard.
SPEAKER_02:She was very self-absorbed, self-absorbed. She thought, she already thought she was right in everything she was doing, so she would have been hard to talk to.
SPEAKER_03:What would you say to her?
SPEAKER_00:You're not broken. You are lovable, you belong.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I don't know. I wish you could get a glimpse of behavior doesn't matter. Your heart matters. Your heart's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you know what? Behavior does matter, but only from the right motive. And that's the thing that we never really understood, right? Yeah. We were trying to fix our behavior rather than get that new motive from Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, your external behavior doesn't matter. Your heart, your heart manifestation into a behavior is what it's all about.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you could be doing all of the right things, yeah, keeping the law perfectly. Yeah. And if you didn't know Christ, it would be nothing. But then when you know Christ, you love because he is love.
SPEAKER_02:If I could have told her that someday you're gonna fall in love with Christ in a way that sets you free, that you're just gonna feel so healed. I had to live for that.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I'll tell you, you know, like I said earlier on, I I got to know you a couple weeks ago, and just seeing your heart, and then you and I have been having conversations in the background about some tough stuff, and just to see that while there's tough stuff in life, you're encouraged and you're going after it, and there's nothing stopping you now that you see the truth of this what Jesus has done.
SPEAKER_02:I've just geeked out about it every day.
SPEAKER_03:And you know what? Hopefully, we'll just be getting worse and worse. We'll we'll be more grounded and foundational, but I think we're just gonna be that much more loved.
SPEAKER_02:I do, and I see this fire taking off so many places. I'm just so excited to you know, yeah. I wonder, you know, what's your ministry, Verna? And my ministry is just seeing this in other people and and fanning the flame.
SPEAKER_03:Let's go. Let's go. Well, thank you so much for your time, and um, this was a blessing, so thank you.
SPEAKER_05:Richard, it's a pleasure.