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
#255 Ivonne Weller: From Wreckage To Redemption
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We trace a life marked by grief, shame, and spiritual oppression to a restored marriage, steady identity in Jesus, and a practical way to stop being ruled by intrusive thoughts. We speak plainly about betrayal, depression, and the gospel that heals what effort and fear could not.
• growing up in Alaska amid alcohol, violence, and loss
• sister’s death shaping fear of abandonment and self-hate
• early marriage, poverty, and surprising provision
• betrayal, the crash, and sensing Jesus’ presence
• counseling, separation, and a rebuilt friendship in marriage
• breaking demonic oppression and naming depression
• hearing gospel assurance beyond moral scorekeeping
• practicing observer-mind and taking thoughts captive
• refusing to carry blame that does not belong to us
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Welcome And Trigger Warning
SPEAKER_00The 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_05I remember getting out in the car at night. I drove to the coast. I was purposefully being reckless, and I was daring God to let me die. It was icy, I was speeding, I was driving recklessly. I did not have my seatbelt on on purpose. And I was so angry at God. And I heard a voice. And it was really quite loud and authoritative. And it said, put your seatbelt on. And I put my seatbelt on, and just seconds later, I hit a patch of black ice, and the car rolled three times.
SPEAKER_00Yo, welcome to the Death to Life Podcast. My name is Richard Young. Young Young Richard Young. And today our guest is Yvonne Weller, and um, what a powerful story. What a beautiful heart. Got to hang out with her and her husband Ron this last weekend in Southern California. And just to see their passion, their love for the Lord is so beautiful. And we got a chance to visit and spend some time together. And I said, Yo, we need we need the episode. We got to have it. And so we got it today. Uh, this one is just a you know, mind who's hearing it, it's not for young ears, um, but it is powerful, and uh, it's got me praising God for his faithfulness to us, and so this is Yvonne. Uh, buckle up and strap in. Love y'all, appreciate y'all. All right, Yvonne Weller. What's your middle name, Yvonne Weller?
SPEAKER_05I don't have one. Both of my sisters did, but I didn't. And I was the middle child.
SPEAKER_00What is that about?
SPEAKER_05I was supposed to be Albert.
SPEAKER_00Oh, and they're like, okay, forget about it. That's just Yvonne, no middle name.
SPEAKER_05That's right. N-M-I.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh, I got to see you in person for the second time in about, I don't know, four years this last weekend, and we had a good time. And we're like, let's let's do the Death of Life podcast. I've been bugging you about it on Facebook, but I either you didn't look at Facebook or you looked at me, looked at it and deleted it and and didn't and didn't want to get back to me.
SPEAKER_05Honestly, I just didn't look at it. I don't get into Facebook very often.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and I didn't have your phone number. Now I have it, so now I can bother. Yeah. So um tell us where where where are you taking us, Yvonne? Where does your story begin?
SPEAKER_05Um, well, I was born in Juneau, Alaska in 1961. Um, the middle daughter. Um, I had an older sister, Jeannie, and my younger sister, Helen. I was raised Catholic. My dad was agnostic. And um I would describe my parents' marriage as very rocky. Um, I remember always loving God. Always. Even when I was a little girl, I would um, ooh, that's loud.
SPEAKER_00When I was a little girl, I think Is that your husband going off on a motorcycle?
SPEAKER_05No. Sorry, we live in a condo. Oh so anyway, I just I had a fort that I would go to when times were tough, and I would be alone amongst the moss and just just sit there in the forest by myself.
SPEAKER_00So they they had a volatile relationship?
Sister’s Death And Abandonment Fears
SPEAKER_05Yes, very, very volatile. My dad drank a lot, and um he um I had a sister that died when I was uh seven years old, close to eight. Jeannie was nine, almost ten, and it was a massive AV malformation in her brain. And she would get these horrible headaches, which I always thought she was faking because she didn't want to do the work. Um but she would get such bad headaches that sometimes she would literally pass out. Oh, wow. And um she was gonna go to school one day and she didn't want to take her violin, and my mom was trying to make her take her violin and being, you know, my mom would just backhand us across the face frequently. That was her method of discipline with us. So, and then that evening, that afternoon, Jeannie came home in the back of a pickup, completely unconscious in a coma. And so that was the last reaction, the last interaction that my mom had with Jeannie. And from there, my parents' relationship got even worse. My dad's drinking got worse. I never saw my dad comfort my my mother, never, not once throughout this time. Um, they were very separate in their grief. My dad, my mom blamed my dad because he wouldn't take her to Seattle to get her headaches figured out, which they couldn't have done anything anyway. Um, I remember my sister and I felt very isolated, and there was a lot of survivors' guilt. Um the most traumatizing thing that happened was before my sister died, we were at a neighbor's house, and I had a dream. We were Catholics at the time. I'd never even read the Bible. I don't ever remember reading the Bible before that. I knew nothing about the second coming. I'd never heard anything about it. It was a complete foreign thing to me, like aliens. And I had a dream that I saw Jeannie rise up. I saw Jesus come down from the clouds. I saw Jeannie come up out of her grave, and she was screaming for me, reaching down. Yvonne, Yvonne, grabbed my hand, and I was screaming, trying to reach her, trying to reach her, and she was gone. And then my mom called us the next day and told us that Jeannie had died. And as a result of that dream, there was a lot of fear of abandonment that my sister died and she was my hero. I I wanted to be her. I followed her, I copied her. She was my hero. And then my dad's drinking that was another source of uh abandonment. He would say, I'm gonna go to Australia, and they would fight. And I remember as a child waking up and going to the bedroom to see if he was still there, because I honestly didn't know if he was gonna be there in the morning. Sometimes there was a couple of times where he left us for months and we had no idea where he was. He didn't send us money. So there was always this angst, this anxiety growing up. Um, after Jamie died, I remember my mom would drag us out of bed at whatever time, and she would go from bar to bar looking for my dad. And we would go to the bar and look in, and they would say, Albert, your girls are here. And then my sister would walk on one side of the street helping him walk, and I would be walking on the other side of the street because I did not want to have anything to do with him. I hated him when he drank, I didn't trust him. I saw him choke my mother when he was drunk and angry, and there was a lot of guilt. My mom would say, Well, if you were more obedient, your father wouldn't drink. If you were more obedient, your father and I wouldn't fight. So there was this tremendous sense of guilt and fear in my life as a child. It was very anxiety-producing. Did your parents stay together or my parents stayed together until I was my first year of college, and then they divorced.
SPEAKER_00Was that like a relief, or what did you think about it when they got divorced?
SPEAKER_05I remember as a little girl begging my mom to divorce my dad because things were so horrible. And she, you know, she was from Mexico, she didn't have a degree. Um, I think she felt trapped. Um they were not a good match, they just weren't.
SPEAKER_00So you loved God, but you never read the Bible, you just knew what did you know about him? What did what were your thoughts about God?
SPEAKER_05Somehow I knew he loved me. And in Juno, the mountains are small, but they surround the city. And I remember as a little girl feeling surrounded by God in those mountains. Um and that was a real comfort to me that I always knew God loved me. I saw my mom get on her knees and pray. And um, and that drew me even more to God to watch her her love for God. And even when Jeannie died, my mom never blamed God. Um, but we studied with um Mormons and um Jehovah's Witnesses, and then the Adventists when they had to sign out the state of the dead, you know, Revelation seminar. And we went to that, and my mom and I were baptized together um when I was 11.
SPEAKER_00Did you understand much of what was going on with what they were teaching, or or is it just your mom was like, This is what we're gonna do, and you're like, okay.
Faith Journey And Adventist Community
SPEAKER_05Um, you know, honestly, I don't remember. I remember, I remember we were baptized in a homemade tank of plywood that was lined with plastic. Remember that.
SPEAKER_00Was this outside?
SPEAKER_05No, it was inside. I don't know how they did it. But this little tiny church, um, the people were very loving, very accepting. Um, my parents were older, and um, my mom was gosh, she was 40 when I was born and 42 when my younger sister was born. So she was an old mom. Um, well, they acted. They were just not active and just um, they were just older parents. They didn't play with us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Too tired.
SPEAKER_00You get when you get a little older, you don't have the energy you used to have, right?
SPEAKER_05That's right.
SPEAKER_00So you became Adventists, you start learning a little bit more, or what happened?
SPEAKER_05Um, then we we went from public school to the Adventist School, and um Is there an Adventist school like high school or anything in Juno? No, that they have it went up to eighth grade, and then you went to Auburn Academy in Auburn, Washington.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05So I was a dorm student for the first year.
SPEAKER_00What'd you think about that?
SPEAKER_05I was just glad to get away from home.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I mean, and even after my parents moved down, I moved to Auburn. I did every activity I could possibly be involved in so that I didn't have to be home. Because I was so ashamed of my dad's my dad's alcoholism. I just couldn't, I just didn't understand it. And he became a different person.
SPEAKER_00He was just Have you been able to understand it now, or was it just like he just got a a habit for drinking, or was it just did he believe his life was hard, or what what what was his what was his I think my dad was sanguine by nature and my mom was choleric.
SPEAKER_05And it just, I think it tore him up. I don't think my mom. My mom just never, I don't think my mom ever really felt supported or loved by him. I remember crawling up in my dad's lap and asking him if he loved my mom. And his response was, I stand on the Fifth Amendment.
SPEAKER_00Oh mercy.
SPEAKER_05I bleed the fifth. I plead the fifth. Yeah, exactly. Um also part of my childhood was there was um I never saw demons, but I felt the presence of demons in my life. I had dreams of Satan in the body of my father chasing me and trying to kill me.
SPEAKER_02Oh man.
SPEAKER_05Um, I remember being so afraid to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I would wake up my sister and she would take me. And I could just feel the evil and the hairs on the back of my neck just stand up. And there was a demonic presence that didn't leave me until I was over 30 years old. I didn't understand it.
SPEAKER_00So when you got out of the house, your parents ended up moving down to Washington with you a little later?
SPEAKER_05Mm-hmm. They moved down to Auburn, Washington, and I finished academy out at Auburn, where I met Ron. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00High school sweethearts.
SPEAKER_05High school sweethearts, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So did you guys just was a love at first sight?
SPEAKER_05I there was something about him in his quiet way. There I I went on a choir bus and there was um an empty seat next to him, and I sat down, and he's such a good listener.
SPEAKER_00And he really is. He is. He's a prince of a man, I'll tell you that.
Young Love, Shame, And Provision
SPEAKER_05He is a prince of a man, and I just, I just um I don't know, I just loved him. And and and I remember praying about it like, you know, who would I marry? Or because for years I never wanted to get married. I looked at my parents' marriage and it was like, forget that mess. I don't want that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um, but then after being with Ron and praying about it, I just felt like the Holy Spirit was leading me to this shy, loving man. Yeah, this guy, this smart guy, this nerd.
SPEAKER_00So when did you get you guys got married right out of academy?
SPEAKER_05Um, yeah, I got pregnant first.
SPEAKER_00See, that's what happens when they let you sit next to each other in the bus.
SPEAKER_05I know. And it was so all my life, I never drank, I never smoked, I never, I never um tried to leave the house. I mean, I never snuck out of the house. I was always such a good girl, unlike my sister, who was the naughty girl. And then I got pregnant. And it was so funny because my mom adored Ron, and it was my fault. She blamed me. If you would have kept your legs closed, pardon me, this would have never happened. It wasn't Ron's fault, it was my fault.
SPEAKER_00It does take uh the the poet, doesn't the poets or the songwriters say that it takes two to tango?
SPEAKER_05I don't know. That's what I always thought, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, Ron was probably like, praise God, she's not mad at me. I'll have to ask him about that. So when you found out about that, were you mortified? Were you like, oh no, what was it like?
SPEAKER_05Incredible shame. Incredible shame. All this shame that I automatically take on, well, used to. When something went wrong, it was always my fault. What did I do to cause this? Because I was naughty and my excuse me, and my dad choked my mom. That was my fault. I was naughty and my dad drank. That was my fault. So I I took on things that did not belong to me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05To please other people and to try to smooth things out. I was the peacemaker. I wanted to smooth things out. My parents would get in a fight. My mom would say, Tell your father. She wouldn't talk to him. She would talk to him through us. It was so dysfunctional.
SPEAKER_00Mercy. So how soon after graduation was this baby coming along? Or was it your junior or senior year?
SPEAKER_05My first year of college. Um, I got pregnant on December 28, 1979.
SPEAKER_00That that's the date for sure. You know that that's the date.
SPEAKER_05I know that's the date.
SPEAKER_00And um and Christmas. It was Christmas break. Christmas break, you know. You're at, you know, you gotta be careful on Christmas break. Watch out.
SPEAKER_05That's right. Don't getcha. And it's not like we were super sexually active because if you got birth control, then you would have planned it. Right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05You would plan having sex if you were on birth control. So we would pray and try not to.
SPEAKER_00It's a tough one.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Good luck with that. Yeah. It's man. But you uh were you at Walla Walla together?
SPEAKER_05Yes, we were at Walla Walla, and it was really devastating. Ron's mom took it incredibly hard. In fact, she wanted me to get an abortion.
SPEAKER_02Oh no.
SPEAKER_05Um, and I I I hardly ever said that. But anyway, Ron was her prince. Ron was the child that she put all of her hopes on, and he was supposed to be a student missionary in Israel. Money was coming in, and then I got pregnant, and he had to return all the money. It was humiliating.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So this, but it doesn't seem like from what from what it's sounding, this doesn't sound like shotgun style. It sounds like you guys really did love each other.
SPEAKER_05We did. We really loved each other, and and we knew that by God's grace it would work.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05And when we were in Walla Walla, we were so poor. There were times um we had food stamps, but I didn't, we didn't have money for toilet paper and soap and stuff like that. We would completely run out of everything. And I was babysitting other children for a dollar an hour, hanging, hanging um diapers out on a line to dry. Cloth diapers. Because cloth diapers, because we didn't have a dryer. We just had a washer. And it so poor. And I would get on my knees and say, Lord, we're out of soap. And then I kid you not, 20 minutes later, 15 minutes later, there would be a knock on the door, and the chaplain would be there and hand us a$50 or$75 gift certificate to Andy's market. This went on for over three years.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_05Every time we got low, this happened. And it was like God was just showing us again and again and again and again that He would provide for us, that He loved us, that we were gonna make it through. And um And so my feelings of fear of abandonment, my there was a lot of depression in my life. And, you know, when you get especially when you get married so young, isn't your spouse supposed to make you happy and meet all your needs?
Betrayal, Despair, And The Crash
SPEAKER_00Isn't that supposed that's what they signed up for, right? To meet all your needs and create your happiness.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That is not what they signed up.
SPEAKER_05So we we went through a really rocky time when Ron was unfaithful, when our daughters were young, and that and it was with my best friend, and I loved her dearly, and I was shattered, I was emotionally. Shattered because Ron is the only man I've ever been with in my whole life. I've never been with another man. I felt so abandoned. I felt like an old battered car in a used parking lot. Um and through that time, it was like it was all in my head. There's nothing wrong, you're just paranoid, da-da-da-da-da. And I remember watching it happen and begging God, please, please, God, please don't let this happen. I cannot. I could not bear this. And um, and it happened, and I remember getting out in the car at night. I drove to the coast, I was purposefully being reckless, and I was daring God to let me die. It was icy, I was speeding, I was driving recklessly. I did not have my seatbelt on on purpose, and I was so angry at God, and I heard a voice, and it was really quite loud and authoritative, and it said, put your seatbelt on. And I put my seatbelt on, and just seconds later, I hit a patch of black ice and the car rolled three times.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02How old were you?
SPEAKER_05I was in my 30s.
SPEAKER_00So this like you have your kids early. So they're like 10, 11, 12 years old. Yeah. And this is when the affair happened or the cheating, and this is when you're absolutely shattered. What what did you tell the kids when or or did Ron know, like, yeah, you were did you keep this to yourself that I was gonna hurt myself?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Or I wanted to?
SPEAKER_05I I I don't think I ever shared about that. I shared about it when I got when the police drove me home because our car was totaled.
SPEAKER_00You said I was trying to kill myself to the police? Yeah. But not to your family.
Encounter With Jesus And Conviction
SPEAKER_05I told Ron when I got home that that's what I was doing. After the police drove me home, I told him that I didn't want to live anymore. As much as I loved my girls, I was so devastated and so hurt and felt so abandoned, I didn't want to live anymore. And I remember um during this time frame after that, I was sitting on the couch and I was crying so hard that my chest was aching and I just could not stop sobbing. And I was so broken. And I was like, God, God, where are you? Where are you? And I was sitting on the couch and I could feel the presence of Jesus come through the outdoor wall and come through into the living room. And I was kind of like, wow, Jesus is here. And I was just watching him, and he came closer and closer and closer to the point where he was sitting next to me on the couch, and I could feel a presence next to next to you, like you could feel a person, but you couldn't see, I couldn't see anyone. And I turned and I saw a pair of brown eyes, and Jesus told me, My child, I feel your pain. He knew, he knew what it was like to be betrayed with a kiss. And and as I was coming out of that, the Lord also told me, You, I always said, you know, I was calling Ron a whore and all horrible things. And it was like the Lord said, You have whored yourself to me. And it was like, whoa.
SPEAKER_00What did that mean?
SPEAKER_05It meant that I had been unfaithful to God in the same way my husband had been unfaithful to me.
SPEAKER_00How how did you reconcile? How did you understand that you had been unfaithful to God?
SPEAKER_05By um, I understood it like I was um not trusting him 100%, you know, not really fully trusting him. Um struggling with depression. I don't know. I'm not really sure exactly what that meant. I I never I guess I just took it like you are no better than your husband. You have made some horrible mistakes, and you have sinned against me, and you are no different, and you are no better than he is, and he is no worse than you.
SPEAKER_00Was that helpful for you to reconcile with your husband or for your husband to reconcile with you?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it was it was helpful. I got counseling, but Ron didn't get counseling, which was a I looking back on it, that was a mistake.
SPEAKER_00Um how long did it take for you guys to start rebuilding?
SPEAKER_05Um, it was pretty quick, honestly, because as I look back on it, I was a lot like my mom. I stayed home with my kids. I didn't have a degree, I had no way to no way to support myself. Um, and yet, on the other hand, I had this deep history with Ron, that I loved him, I loved him so much, and I just knew in my heart that God had a very special plan for him sometime down the road, and that um that we were gonna be that we were gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_00So after the all of this stuff with the depression and the suicidal ideation, God is ministering to you, and you think we're gonna make it, we're gonna be all right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, praise the Lord. So then you're rebuilding this thing. Your kids never knew about any of this.
SPEAKER_05I imagine I don't think my girls, our oldest daughter is very intuitive, and she figured it out. Our youngest daughter never did. I don't my youngest daughter at the time um didn't figure it out, but Christy did.
SPEAKER_00So then you just kept going. What happened?
Rebuilding, Counseling, And Hope
SPEAKER_05We just kept going and raising our kids. And um, I went to nursing school, which really helped a lot in my own personal development. And Ron was such a prince, he um I would I would um tell him what I wanted my papers to say, and he would type it out, and he would create tables for me, and he would create graphs and put it all on the computer. My report, my reports were just like awesome.
SPEAKER_00Um you guys had a home computer, is this like the mid-80s?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, 90s, because I graduated in 93.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So the home computer was a little more common in 93 than the mid-80s.
SPEAKER_05Yes, than in the 80s.
SPEAKER_00And so you got through that and and so that gave you a lot of purpose and yeah, and fulfillment.
SPEAKER_05Yes, and because I did love nursing. And um, oh, I wanted to say we went to a a seminar in California with a group of ladies, and in I spoke to this the speaker because she was talking about demonic oppression, and um I found out early in life that my aunt, my my my um oldest aunt was clairvoyant, and she would actually see things before they happened. Um, like she saw her husband die in a fire in in um El Paso Tejas. Um, different events when my mom was growing up, um, and Eve would say, I saw you, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And so it was like this spirit of um, and I had this prayer with this lady and rejected that foothold, rejected that, claimed the blood of Jesus. And I was never oppressed by demons after that. It was like that broke the that broke the bond. Oh, praise God. So that was an incredible relief because I really did suffer with that through my 30s.
SPEAKER_00Were you also experiencing depression all the way up through here?
SPEAKER_05All the way, always, always, always had depression, which um was a real hardship for Ron because he was trying so hard to make me happy and he could never make me happy. I was always depressed. I was always up and down, up and down, up and down.
SPEAKER_00Um what were you uh learning at church? Like what was the the church life like at this point and your relationship with God?
SPEAKER_05Um I learned as we were growing, um I would read the Bible and I felt like the Lord would speak to me. I could hear the Holy Spirit. I knew I knew I knew that God loved me. I knew that that his spirit was with me. I just had this darkness um that pervaded my mind. Um that I'd even been anointed for depression. And it was like it never it never lifted. It never it never went away. It was something I always struggled with.
SPEAKER_00Do you know what like the root of that depression was now?
SPEAKER_05Um so interesting. I this last summer, um, I went to a seminar, and this idea of self-hate, just this self-hate theme, recurring theme that I wish I wasn't alive. And I was really struggling asking the Lord, you know, what is the root of this? Why? Why is this so prevalent in my mind and in my heart? And then um the Lord gave me a memory about when Jeannie died. My mom looked at me and she thought I was Jeannie. And then when she realized it was me, she just burst into tears and ran away. So it all stemmed from this guilt, this guilt of this guilt of um being alive. It's kind of dumb in a way when you think about it, but it was very prevalent in my heart.
Breaking Oppression And Naming Depression
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that of if you're having that kind of experience, if you don't like that can inform so much of how you live.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Taking on others' problems as my fault, um, failing, fear of failure, all of that. It was just so heavy.
SPEAKER_00So after the, you know, you and Rob get back together, does your marriage start getting better, or is it still kind of we're trying to figure out this depression thing?
SPEAKER_05And this depression thing affected him a lot more than I realized it did. He would beg me to get help. I would go on medications, and because of the insecurities that he had about himself, there was another affair. And that time I just got mad. And it was like I told him that he had to leave the house, that I didn't want to have any contact with him until he figured out what he wanted. He needed to figure out what he wanted, make up his mind, and then stick with it because I wasn't gonna do this again. And we were separated for 11 months, and we each had individual counseling with a counselor. Um, we went to a spiritual class that lasted a whole year every Sunday, and we sat on opposite ends of the room. Nobody knew we were married. Um, I was I said the most horrible, horrible things to him. And then one day in the class, he just broke down and started sobbing. And it was like I saw this broken little boy inside, and it was like the anger and the hate and it just dissolved, and and gradually that love just came back and it grew and it grew. And um, I remember one day um here in the house, I was so struggling, just not knowing what to do, not knowing if we were gonna get divorced, if we were gonna be together, because at that point I was willing to get divorced. And I remember the Holy Spirit said to me, Remember, Joseph? What did I tell Joseph? I told him that it was safe to take Mary as his wife. You will know when it is safe for you to take Ron. And it was like, okay. So Ron moved in at things, he moved out in January and he moved back in around Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_00What year was this in the 90s?
SPEAKER_05I'm trying to think. I it was 2000, 2001. 2001, I think. Um and the Lord just it's amazing to me how the Lord has bonded our hearts together that looking back on everything, I would still choose him again.
SPEAKER_00After seeing you guys together, you know, after meeting you a few years back, and then seeing I would have never guessed this in a million years. I would have never God has rebuilt and restored completely.
SPEAKER_05He's my best friend. He's he's so close to me. We have so much fun together. Um we love to go on adventures together, we talk about God together. I I love that man. He is so precious to me, such a gift, and to think of what we have come out of, you know? God is good, he can fix anything. Anything.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So you kept on going, learning about what was the spiritual life at this point? You've been in the Adventist church for a while now. What were you what was being preached? What were you grabbing on to?
SPEAKER_05What was when when John came to our church, um, John Greebel and his wife Rachel, we love them so much. John preaches gospel. He preaches gospel. And it was the first time that I heard um just because you and Ron get in a fight, it doesn't mean you're you're divorced.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_05And in the same way, just because you sin or you made a mistake doesn't mean that God divorced you.
unknownRight.
Rooted Shame And Self-Hate Uncovered
SPEAKER_05And um, and then and then love reality came to our church, and that was um a real paradigm shift for me.
SPEAKER_00How soon? How so? What what what were you hearing?
SPEAKER_05I was hearing that I didn't have to beg God for forgiveness and beg God to accept me. That he loved me, and that he was not ashamed of my flesh, that he took on flesh and came into this world and gave everything, his gave everything, and and that now we can live a new life. And I remember when you and I were talking, and you were talking about seeing things as as an observer, and I've been doing a lot of thinking and praying about that, and the reason why we can be observers is because we live in the heavenly places. How best to observe, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, we can actually, while we're experiencing our thoughts and feelings, instead of just being our thoughts and feelings, yeah, the idea is like we can look down at them. Like, oh, I'm feeling this, and oh, look at this thought that came up, rather than you are the feeling and you are the thought.
SPEAKER_05Yes, and and and so now um I am I'm trying to practice that every day, you know, to practice that looking down seated next to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's well before before we get there, when we came to Corvallis, I don't what do you remember what year it was?
SPEAKER_05Um, 22.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and I remember there was a church member there that I had known because he used to live in Minnesota, and so we were sitting outside, but before the potluck, you were like when Jonathan was preaching, you're quite animated.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so I was like, oh, she's catching the vibe, like she's getting us, like because when people get excited or they get frustrated or whatever, I know at least they're paying attention. Yes. Because it rubs up against some people the wrong way, and some people are just ready to receive it. And you were super excited. Um, and it was just this idea of freedom from sin. I don't know, like you only preached there a couple times, or maybe it was just that Sabbath. It was a it was a tryout. It was just that Sabbath, and then we came back later.
SPEAKER_05Then you came back later, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But the first time when we were hanging out, eating outside. That was just, I don't know if you remember, it was just the excitement of being free from sin, or that Jesus had actually freed you?
SPEAKER_05That Jesus that that Jesus had freed me from sins past, sins present, and future sins.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That learning and I heard it here, it took a it took a while for it to, you know, sink into my into my core. But it it's it's in my core now. I don't have to beg. I don't have to wonder. I will never be abandoned by him.
SPEAKER_00So how does it get to your core if someone's listening to this and like I spoke with somebody today? Okay, and they were like, I've heard the podcast, I've been watching, just like, but I don't it's like I don't think I really believe it yet. Like on your journey, how did it go from like a mental ascent to really like believing it with your heart?
Second Separation And Heart Change
SPEAKER_05Because when I read those verses, um, I would put my name in it. Like Jesus was speaking.
Restoration And Deep Friendship
SPEAKER_00to me and I put my name in those verses and I said it out loud so by speaking the verses out loud it was being um confirmed and I have I have to hear it yeah and words of affirmation it was words of affirmation from the father through his word yeah and that's what really um helped me have that security so when Jonathan came back for wave one you were just kind of building on it oh I was so excited I was so afraid the first time that you guys weren't gonna come like I just had this fear that oh no what if what if what if what if they don't come is it because of the controversy around I don't know if you ever I we haven't talked about this had you heard any of the controversy around love reality I heard that there was some cur concern about the beliefs of um once saved always saved and sanctification um being concerns and so there was um there were some residents um within the church probably a couple of outspoken people that were pushing back you know this this is this might not be safe yeah um but then when you guys came I mean Ron and I went every day came early stayed late just soaked in just soaked it all in because wow this is a whole new way to live a whole different perspective that week was so much fun I got covet by Thursday so I didn't get to go to the last three meetings oh man but I just remember you I remember your husband I remember he he caught me in the hallway one time and was just like like super sincere questions it's it seems like he's he always had these super sincere questions and uh Ed like I don't I don't know if you know Eddie but he was there and he was there and we were all there and and this is uh man it was such a blessing to be there so after we left you were just more kind of foundational with like were you scared about anything that we had said was it still kind of like that's a wild idea sanctification or that's the wild idea forgiveness it was an incredible relief it was like I don't have to struggle and try to get it right and you know it was like I grew up with that whole feeling of I was not good enough and so um to be free from that just Jesus loves me and I am his and that's enough yeah you don't even have to play that game am I worthy like that game that game settled so if that thought comes up like let's not let's not even play the game I don't even entertain that thought yeah it's not even a thought that comes into my head anymore and if it does who cares you can observe it and be like oh there's that I'm like oh brother yeah so then it seemed like you were popping up on our Bible studies online and I remember seeing you and I'm like oh I was just pumped I'm like oh they must have really liked it praise God they must have really got a blessing from it because we see people all the time and then some people end up being a part of the community and some people you know you never know what made you think like oh I want I want to understand more of this or I want to keep growing in this well and then excuse me and then as time went on it was just like um I did struggle with depression again um but it was never as severe as it was before it I would be depressed for months at a time my poor husband the anguish that he went through was terrible um did you feel guilty when you were in depression and you were like sorry bro I can't do anything about it but like oh yeah yeah it was just I knew it was a problem I felt horrible about it but it was almost it was more this is what I feel it was more this is who I am have you been able to develop some compassion for yourself yes it's gotten it's gotten better there um yeah feeling more compassion for myself and um and having compassion for others you know just to to enter into their experience and then affirm who they are in Jesus you know none of this is strange that this has happened this way like when you describe your childhood and your sister and the reaction from your mom and your dad and all of this this is not strange it would be stranger if you didn't experience some of these things and but God because of his riches and kindness and mercy like he has loved you that love is being revealed to you you're hearing it you're seeing it yeah and so why not have compassion for yourself because not having compassion for yourself doesn't give you a gold star you're not toughing it out yeah yeah like it's not like I didn't have compassion for myself so pat me on the back I'm a tough girl like that's not how it works.
SPEAKER_05Oh I remember this one time God would give me pictures um of things I remember um our grandson we had him he stayed with us a lot and he loved scrambled eggs and I would mix it with cheese and um I'd give him a great big spoon to eat eat it with because it was more fun. And he would sit at the table and he would go mmm mmm you know like he was really enjoying this food and and I heard the Holy Spirit say you see how your grandson is reveling in a gift that you that you gave him this is how I gift you this is how I want to bring joy to you and so it was like the Lord always throughout my life would tell me things um out of the blue you know this is how I love you and and um so what we get to do now what I get to do now is I get to remember I mean I've been alive a while and I've I've thought about writing writing a book for my grandkids to say this is how the Lord has led this is how the Lord has protected um and then when I die then then they can have it but not until I'm gone that would be such a gift so you in between time you're going through a little bouts of depression here and there and then you're like let me join one of these Bible studies and just see what's up with these guys and um I I would I loved internet I love internet church I love the Sunday morning Bible study.
Hearing The Gospel Of Freedom
SPEAKER_00When I'm at work on on Monday evening I would um do your podcast um and then when this opportunity I wanted to go to Hawaii so bad when you guys had that gathering there and I wanted to go to Michigan to you know when when that happened and then when California came up I told Ron we didn't get to celebrate our 46th anniversary we didn't really get to celebrate your birthday we're going to California and I'm just so glad we went and um to see the love that your the group the group love the tenderness the um Jonathan's teaching um talking with you all of that was just such an incredible blessing and you know we'll go back again sometime well I walked in and I saw you and Ron there I was like okay let's go and I was like well I better dial it back because I don't want to scare these these people you know because my personality is a little but and then we you know we said we started talking and this is where this idea of being the observer of your thoughts we started talking about how we are not our thoughts we are not our feelings we're not our ego we're not all of these things that we've decided about ourselves we're much deeper than that we're the one who observes that we're the subject and these thoughts these feelings whatever we've decided our perception of ourselves that's the object and in order to break free of that like being in the movie and just letting life like take like hurt you we have to first see oh like that's just the thought that my mind gave me and my mind has given me that thought many times before in this same situation so why would it be strange if it would give me that now and I can just relax and I can release it and it it doesn't have to take my lunch it doesn't have to speak over me. And this is a practice you know Paul tells us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And so if you are your thoughts you can't take them captive because but you're not your thoughts.
SPEAKER_05Because they control you then and so they control what you feel. So you've been putting this into practice then what's that like yes um well like today when I was at work I was just something came up and my first response is to be intimidated oh this is gonna be really hard to learn I don't know if I can do this and then fear of failure you know that pops up and then and then the thought hit me wait a minute I am seated next to my savior who died for me. He's right beside me and I can look down on this and say I don't accept it.
SPEAKER_00I don't accept that lie because that's not who I am in the eyes of my savior the one I'm sitting with he doesn't see me as stupid and so and that was just today so to yeah and it's because we are seated with him yeah how powerful is that so I love that yeah and we're just gonna keep growing and growing in this truth and we don't forsake any of these opportunities and we're gonna get them all day long because life has so much most of it can I mean a lot of it can be uncomfortable because in our mind we had this idea how it was going to go and it doesn't go that way. And so you get the chance and and the mind is so powerful the mind is so powerful both ways right like we can imagine anything like I was talking to you about our galaxy and how we're we're one of 2.2 trillion galaxies like you can imagine that you can start thinking about that and it like it can expand like you can use your mind to do that. And then also you can use your mind to torment yourself like you could just second guess everything and and beat yourself up and call yourself names and belittle yourself. Like you can do that with your mind but don't like don't torment yourself realize that that's what you were doing all that inner dialogue that like that back and forth that was just tiring us out we can actually use our mind to consider what Christ has done.
SPEAKER_05And see that was the thing that would make me discouraged is that I would do that and then I would think oh it's it's done now it's gone. Oh no oh no it's not gone it it keeps popping its head up and then it was at that point that I would get tired and discouraged like tired of fighting.
Assurance, Identity, And New Perspective
SPEAKER_00Well if you're fighting the thought every time it comes up well why wouldn't you be tired? We don't have to fight it though we can see it come up we can look down at it and be like oh there it is and then relax. Yes and so that's a whole new shift of seeing it differently I don't have to fight it oh you're gonna go away be gone be gone be gone in Jesus' name be gone that's just making the thought bigger yeah like I'm not gonna think about you fear of failure fear of failure go away you have no power fear of failure what did you just say three times fear of failure but if you see the fear of failure come up and you're like oh that has nothing to say about me then you don't have to leave fear of failure you can sit right next to me but I'm not like I'm not do your works you hold for dinner yeah it's like I'll watch you walk by I don't have to go by I don't have to open the door invite you in and have dinner with you but if you're gonna have dinner with me you're sitting next to Christ and God and the Holy Spirit and like you can't hurt me. Yeah and that's the thing you can like we can't be afraid of these thoughts if we're gonna be afraid of these thoughts that's the big problem if we're like we can take all comers in Jesus' name we can take every thought captive and if it's there and then it goes and then it comes back okay and relax and release it. Yes take every thought captive and that that is the key for me right right there what you just said yeah we don't have to be afraid we like life has things that will make us scared the problem is if we're afraid of being scared if we know oh yeah there's things in life that are scary and it'll be okay and God loves me and I can handle my life like he let he he gave me a son. Yes and so when we're not afraid and we know that we don't have to center our consciousness on these thoughts we don't even have to participate in that game. We don't have to fight them we can just Yeah yeah I don't have to get on my boxing gloves and start punching at them well because if you do Yvonne I'm gonna tell you this um those thoughts are going to be undefeated you'll lose every time and that's the same with me. Like if you're gonna wrestle your mind your mind's going to win. So like the example is if you were playing Tug of War versus uh Ron, myself Jonathan Justin all the guys from this weekend and you're on the other end and it's you versus them only way you can get out of this just letting go of the rope we're gonna beat you. In the same way your mind if you're gonna play tug of war with your mind your mind's getting like it's powerful so let go just think of your hands just letting go of that rope whatever thought it is you let it go. I like that and and you Philippians chapter four whatever's good whatever's pure whatever's honorable whatever's worthy of praise think on these things yeah and uh this is what we get to do we get to encourage each other in truth we get to lift each other up if you're like you know someone came to me Sunday afternoon I think you guys had already left and they were like this thoughts coming in I was like okay what does that mean? It can't hurt you unless you wrestle with it unless you consider it that way. Yes and so man what a pleasure it was to meet you guys and I know that we're gonna well not meet you but to reconnect and I know that we'll be able to as we're wrapping this thing up I usually take people back and say what would you say to this person? So from what you know now and maybe a day or two after this experience with your mom and you could see that disappointment and sadness in her face if you got to take this sweet little girl out and put your arm around her what would you how would you minister to her what would you minister to her I would tell her that other people's fears and anxieties do not define you they do not belong to you that you are free to be who Jesus created you to be that you are a blessing and that you can be a blessing to other people and to lift them up and love them.
SPEAKER_05Do not own what does not belong to you do not take it do not pick it up it's not yours.
SPEAKER_00Powerful Yvonne I love hearing you sing I love your passion for Christ and you're a testimony to all of us that God is love. We're gonna get the other side of the story and I think it's just gonna be more miracles to hear Ron but thank you so much for sharing your heart your voice thank you for having me Richard thank you absolutely