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
#275 Kira: The Denim Skirt Scorecard Finally Failed
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We sit down with Kira as she tells the long, winding road from church kid to skeptic to strict religion and finally to real rest in Jesus. Her story is raw, surprising, and full of moments where God keeps showing up when she cannot hold herself together.
• growing up in a stable home while feeling socially “off” and trying to fix herself through effort
• drifting from childhood faith into atheism, purpose seeking, and an identity built on achievement
• a relationship collapse, depression, and a late-night prayer that shifts everything
• getting pulled into fear-based religion and harmful control that looks like devotion
• wandering alone, small mercies, and reminders that God protects even in confusion
• years of Adventist legalism and the inability to feel truly safe with God
• marriage strain, shame cycles, and the limits of behavior-based righteousness
• hearing testimonies that spark hope and the gospel “clicking” through the Adam One and Adam Two lens
• Sabbath as rest rather than a transaction and blessing as something already given in Christ
• learning to speak life to her younger self and to anyone still trapped in performance
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Welcome And Why These Stories
SPEAKER_02The 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_03Yo, welcome to the Death to Life Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Young, and today's episode is with somebody who has been on the Bible studies for I think years now. And I've asked her before, and she was like, Well, maybe. And this week, we got her. It's Kira. She's gonna tell her story, and you guys are gonna be blessed by it. And um, I think it's gonna be really encouraging. So uh the next one you'll hear is Kira. Buckle up and strap in. Love you guys, appreciate y'all. Okay, Kira. How long have you been coming to these Bible studies?
SPEAKER_04It's I you know, I kind of lose track of time. It's either one year or two years. I think I guess it's probably two years.
SPEAKER_03One or two years. And have you ever met anyone in person from the Bible studies?
SPEAKER_04Or well, not really. We have a gospel gathering um down in Missouri where I'm from, and uh in southwest Missouri, and I've met uh love reality people there. I don't know if it's been anybody from the Bible studies, though. None of the the leader, well, Jadra and Michaela.
SPEAKER_03Yep, there's a couple. So then I've have you met Floyd and Tanya?
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. Floyd is so fun to listen to. I would go just to sit and listen to Floyd.
SPEAKER_03He he he's the man. So what part of Missouri do you live in?
SPEAKER_04You Southwest. Um, it's a little place called Jericho Springs, but I'm out in the country, so I'm kind of between Nevada and Joplin.
SPEAKER_03I thought you lived in, I thought you lived in Georgia or near Tennessee for some reason.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I've worked in Mississippi for many, many years in the winter, but I don't go there much anymore.
Childhood Faith And Growing Doubt
SPEAKER_03So, where where does your story start, Kira? When you're thinking about your spiritual life and your spiritual walk, where where would you start it?
SPEAKER_04It starts where I was born and raised, Rochester, New York, upstate New York. And I was raised in a suburb with a you know good parents, steady income, you know, just solid neighborhood, conservative area, and um going to the Lutheran church. And at that time when you're a kid, you you kind of just go along with what your parents are doing, right? And I kind of accepted that. Um, did the things got confirmed in the church, and I envy people that don't grow up. So I was growing up in the 60s, and we just had such a great neighborhood, lots of kids, played outside all the time, did really creative things. I had an older brother, he was kind of the ringleader, and we would have like rocket clubs, and we did like spook houses and made up games outside. We played light man with the flashlight and rode our bikes everywhere, and it was just a wonderful way to grow up. Um, and when I about when I got to high school, I was confirmed in the Lutheran church and started having some questions. And you know, we go to the youth Bible studies and and kind of I would challenge the teacher about some things, but pretty much accepted it until I got to high school. And then there was a group of us that started reading things, like one of them was Atlas Shrugged by Aim Rand, kind of a philosophical book. And then it, I don't know, I just really got to questioning whether all this religious stuff was real or just in our heads, you know.
SPEAKER_03Was Ain Rand an atheist?
SPEAKER_04Yes, very much she believed she she kind of taught there's no um altruism in nature, you know, there's always a game, there's no self-sacrifice, and that just doesn't work in the natural world. And I started viewing the world that way. Um my dad was uh like a adult Sunday school teacher, my mom taught Sunday school, but eventually they kind of drifted away from religion as well. Maybe they watched too much National Geographic or listened to too much NPR, but you know, kind of drifted away from their faith as well. And um I liked school, I was pretty good at school, but ever since I was a little kid, you know, we would like first grade, we would get S's and pluses on our report card. And I would just get all pluses except for getting along well with others. I just wasn't a real social kid, and I felt like there was something wrong with me. So I was really hard at that and managed to get a plus, you know, at the end of the year. But I always kind of was off to the side looking on, you know, at others as they were um, you know, in their their groups and friend groups and everything. And I would have, I was more of an individual friend kind of person, but I always felt like there was something wrong with me in that area, and the only way I knew how to fix it was to try harder. So I would watch other people and how they would get along and I would try to duplicate that, you know, and make friends that way, and then um got to college, um, went to a really good school in upstate New York, and as far as it was very kind of an atheistic school, though, really didn't seek faith at that point. Kind of was going on my way. Um wasn't really one thing about school, once I got to college, I could do really well at school when I was listening and attending the classes, but if I had to write a paper, forget it. I was no good at I didn't have the self-pl discipline to sit down and put together a paper, a big paper. And most of those classes I pretty much failed if it was depending on writing a paper.
SPEAKER_02Oh, mercy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that was, and then again, you know, I'm like, what's wrong with me? Why don't I have any self-discipline? And that would really, really um kind of torment me. And I never I just didn't know how to fix it. So when I I took a year off from college because I wasn't doing really well. I I started out studying microbiology. I thought I was gonna like find the cure to cancer or something. I was just thought a lot about myself. While I, you know, had self-doubts, I also had a lot of pride in the things I do well and um just was not good at micro stuff. I'm more of a macro person. So I took off and I went out and took a class eventually. I worked for a little while, but I went out to California and took a class from the University of California, Santa Cruz, which is like Earth Mothers and and Beach Bums kind of university. And it was a backpacking class, and we went up into the Trinity Alps in Northern California with a wildlife biologist and just backpacked basically, and he would teach us some things when I when we would um you know agitate him to do that, and we had to put together a couple of papers and things, but I learned how to identify plants and we did a little like wildlife project with mice, and I don't know, it was just inspired me though. It was so beautiful, and I I realized how much the outdoors fed me and how much it gave me, you know, meaning and purpose. So I came back and I changed my major to resource management, and I did a lot better, but I sort of became at that point an eco-warrior. That was kind of my um reason, my purpose, my passion. Um, we gotta save the world. That's all I forgot, you know, and um I uh
College Questions And Nature As Meaning
SPEAKER_04but I would be out in nature and I would think about it from a evolutionary perspective, and I'm thinking, oh yeah, this is like millions of years old, and trying to wrap my mind around it. And it just didn't, I just felt so lonely and so isolated out there. Oh, it was beautiful. I I couldn't make a connection through evolution, it just didn't quite click. There was something missing. Um, and I finally ended up graduating. I got a job out in um northern Idaho with the Forest Service. And at the first year, I was like a firefighter going starting fighter fires and then putting them out. And I got the nickname Kyra the Pyra. The the fo the burn bots called me Kyra, he didn't know how to say my name. And um, they'd send you out and you'd go across like clear cuts and you'd have to light it, and then they'd burn all the slash, and then it would get out, and you'd have to go out and fight it. It wasn't as bad and dry as it is now. Fires didn't just get away like they do now, but we had we go out and fight wildfires and things, and it was a seasonal job. And then that winter I got a job down in the Florida Keys, and I was teaching wildlife or um marine biology to school groups and stuff. You take them out snorkeling onto the coral reefs.
SPEAKER_03And how old were you?
SPEAKER_04This is graduation from college, so 22, 23.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this like sounds like amazing. Like, yeah, you're in one part of the country, and then just oh, let me just go here and do this, and sounds pretty free.
SPEAKER_04I did that for four years and just had a blast, learned how to scuba dive. Um did a lot of backpacking stuff out west, and then I got to feeling like I needed to be a little more responsible. I had these seasonal jobs, but nothing was I just couldn't see doing this forever. I just felt like I needed to have a little more security. So I took a job in the Everglades, and I had taken ornithology in college, and that was like one of my favorite courses. I learned how to just love birds and birding and all that. And it was um you'd fly over the Everglades, the pilot would fly over and you'd do like a grid, transects back and forth, back and forth, and you'd look down and you'd take a sample of how many birds. So there'd be like flocks of thousands of birds, like 12 different kinds, all the different waiting birds. And so you had to kind of identify them from the air and then um kind of estimate how many there were of each kind. And we also surveyed um deer, we'd do that once a month, and then we would do in the summer, we would do alligator nest surveys. So we'd fly in and land in a helicopter at these alligator nests because you could see them from the air, and then you'd open them up and you'd count the eggs, and then you'd go back periodically, and they're they're what they're doing is they were trying to see the effects of the water being raised and lowered in in Everglades because it's all controlled. So they wanted to see how it was affecting the wildlife. So sometimes these alligator nests would flood and all the eggs would die, and sometimes we'd open them up and they'd hatch like right in our in our hand. It was pretty cool. And then um, some one time an alligator tried to climb into the helicopter because once in a while there'd be a defend one like a female defending the nest. A lot of times they weren't even there, so that was all kind of exciting and fun. But this is something that happened. I went back up to New York for a nine-year high school class reunion and met up with a guy who I had known since I was in grade school, and we had played music and band together, and apparently he had already had a crush on me the whole time, and he asked me out. So while I was up there, we were dating and going out, and then I went back to Florida and he was calling me and sending me gifts. He came down to visit. I took him out into the Everglades and got more and more involved with this guy long distance. Um, but I was just like, Well, this is kind of silly. So when I went up for Christmas, I was getting ready to break up with him, and he um he ends up. I knit him a sweater, I gave him the sweater. He ended up giving me like this diamond necklace, which was really pretty. And I'm like, wow, nobody has ever really cared about me that much. I kind of liked it, and um I'm like, well, maybe I better like ride this thing out and see see where it goes. So, you know, that was getting more and more getting more and more involved with him, more and more intense. We'd go back and forth and visit and kind of had the understanding that we'd kind of like to get married. And he was at the time, Kodak Company, that is like Rochester, New York's was breadbasket. It was a huge company then. They had an um industrial park, it was like a mile wide and 12 miles long, it was just huge, and everybody worked there, all the you know, surrounding suburbs of the city, and it was what kept that whole area ticking. Well, they were starting to downsize a little bit, and he was afraid he was gonna lose his job, and he was under a lot of pressure, and he was going through a divorce, he had two boys, he was getting ready to lose his house, and he just got so stressed out. Like he would he had been like sending me gifts, and you know, we went on a trip with his kids to Disney World, but I think he was spending more than he was. I think he got into a lot of debt. But long story short, all of a sudden he just ghosted. I I couldn't get him on the phone, um, I couldn't get in touch with him, I would send him things and just didn't hear anything and I didn't understand it. And it really devastated me
Wildlife Work And A Relationship Collapse
SPEAKER_04because I was sort of hanging my hopes and my my um my future, my happiness on this relationship. You know, that's what I I really thought my life was gonna go, and then all of a sudden it was just like pulled out from under me for reasons at that time I couldn't really understand. I got real depressed, and I'm not a depressed person generally. I'm usually pretty upbeat and and um happy, but I would just come home from work and I would just do nothing. I couldn't make myself do anything. I was really down for a couple of weeks. One thing I have to back up in the meantime, I had um started going to these uh seminars. It was called the forum, and it was a new age, kind of like a new age um business kind of um what would you call it? It wasn't new age in the kind of a woo-woo sense, it was new age in a package that would appeal to um business type people, you know, successful type people. And it attracted me because it sort of promised that you would be empowered to have the kind of um control of your life that I always wanted, you know, that I always lacked. And I threw myself into this thing, you know, I was doing all the seminars and getting involved and participating because I really wanted what they promised. And once this relationship fell through, I just lost hope in everything, you know. And I was at the time my housemate was a Christian, she was an Adventist, and she she had been a Christian all her life, but she had finally joined the Adventist church, and we would have these late-night discussions about life and what it meant, and we'd have real similar beliefs until we got to Jesus. Jesus was like a big stumbling for me because I had kind of rejected that and gone in a different direction. And we at that point we just couldn't agree on anything, you know. So during this time of depression, I and I had been thinking more about God, and I had read a book that Jesus had gone to India to learn his miracles when he was 30, you know, like he had disappeared and had come back, and that reincarnation was a thing, and like Ezekiel's wheel within a wheel was an alien space visitor. And I'm like, well, maybe this stuff is true, but I kind of wanted to know what was true, and so I was kind of thinking about God, and I'm like, I one night I was just depressed. I tried to call this boyfriend, couldn't get through, and I just hung the phone up. I'm like, you know what? If you're there, God, I believe you could lift this depression out of my life. And I went to bed. Next morning I got up and I'm going about my business. And now all of a sudden I realized I wasn't depressed anymore. And I'm like, God, okay, if you can do that, you can reveal yourself to me. So I'm like, I don't know where that's gonna take me or what he's gonna show me. I I'm pretty sure that I didn't think it was gonna be Jesus and the cross and Christianity, but I was believing that God was, I just had faith in my heart that God was gonna reveal himself to me. And um at the time, my my housemates church was giving a revelation seminar. And I'm like, well, I had opened up Revelation and it didn't make any sense to me, you know. And I'm like, well, maybe they can shed some insight on this. So I went. They'd already started it, and the first one that I attended was about the Sabbath and how it had been changed, and I it just like wronged true. It's like, what is going on here? There's this one power that's trying to steal worship and um from this other power, and it just
A Desperate Prayer And Revelation Awakening
SPEAKER_04struck me that's really what's going on in this world. This is where this is true, this is really what's happening, just from you know, seeing this change and how the Sabbath was changed and how worship was being, you know, our worship was being torn away to a false worship from a true worship. And that really got my attention. And everything we studied after that, the Holy Spirit was just moving in my heart, you know, all the things we were studying. I'm like, yes, that's true. Yes, that's true. And and everything started to make sense. Life finally started to make sense. And um at the time I was working some overtime, so I would take my Bible studies to work and I would spend the weekend there and I'd work during the day, and then I'd do the you know, Bible studies at night and catch up. Well, at that time, a man showed up into town, John Tuzzolino and his wife Kimberly Ann, and they would go around to Seventh-day Adventist churches and they would stand outside on the sidewalk with signs and they would say, The church is Babylon. The church has, you know, received um, and it's this is gets really crazy. The church has got given uh or received medals from the pope. They provide abortions in their hospitals. Um there was one other thing that they they really emphasized that the church was doing that wasn't right, that that supposedly made it Babylon. And friend invited them over while I was gone. And um, you know, she was studying with them. Well, at the time we were subletting a room to a guy and his son, they would just come on the weekends when he wasn't working or something, but he needed or someplace to stay uh when he had his son. So he called me up. He said, Um you better you better be careful because they've decided they're gonna kick me out and you're next, you know, because I maybe I wasn't a follower. I'm like, really? So I get home and I start studying with them too, and and um I just kind of started we started fellowshipping together with this couple, and they were they were dressed kind of like maybe what you see of prophet, like he was like dressed in in white linen, and she was wearing uh we called them Kimberly Ann's, it was a denim jumper that you know long. And as we studied with them, you know, we started changing. We were wearing all cotton, we were wearing dresses, and I was trying to go back to work, but at this point, it just I couldn't um I couldn't con focus on work when all this other stuff was going on in my life, and so I decided I was gonna quit. Um, and eventually we decided we were gonna sell our stuff. Now, at this time we had Kathy, my friend, Johnny, her friend, another girl, Maritza. I think that was all. And then John and Kimberly Ann, and we were kind of like a group. We were we were gonna go out on the road and share the gospel. And part of that was, and we would go to churches and we would stand outside with the signs, and we're like, the church is Babylon. And um wow, we would be very nicely received. You know, ladies would come out and try to give us steps to Christ, and we're like, we've got that book, and um and we've got that book, you know, we would we would not be harsh, we would, you know, try to be gentle with what we were saying, but we thought that we were on a mission, you know. Sure, we would write little tracks, you know, by hand, and it would say, like,
Signs On Sidewalks And A Cult Spiral
SPEAKER_04uh, repent for the kingdom of heaven is hand and study the what year was this?
SPEAKER_03Is this late 70s, early 80s, or what is this?
SPEAKER_04Maybe 85, somewhere there, 86, somewhere in there, 87, later 80s, later half the 80s. We would go to like the really bad neighborhoods in Homestead. We were living in Homestead, Florida at the time, and we would just walk around and we would hand out these little tracks, and we'd have the greatest experiences, you know, talking to people. And um, this is one crazy thing that happened. So we were kind of trying to sell all our stuff so we could just leave and you know, kind of go on, take the show on the road. Started out at Johnny's house. We were trying to get rid of his stuff, and I don't know where they got this in their head, but they they felt like there was like demons in there in his stuff, and so one night we were over there and they were like maybe trying to cast out demons, and things got really weird. Um and at midnight, Kimberly Ann and Maritza they thought that Jesus was gonna come, so they go running down the street, they're like taking their clothes off because they're gonna get translated, they don't need those clothes. Apparently, according to Maritza, they were like astral projecting to the top of telephone poles and things, and eventually somebody called and got them arrested. So, yeah. So um, when we went to give them back, Kimberly Ann, her parents came from California and got her. She had been raised, you know, new age and even probably worshiping Satan stuff. Well, she she just totally flipped. She went back with her, um, left John, left her husband, went back to California. Maritza came back and was telling us all the things that had happened. And um, but anyways, we eventually got moved out of out of Johnny's house, and everybody moved into our house. The the boys would get locked on the back porch at night. They were making a good attempt, you know, to keep things proper and and all of that. And um in the meantime, Kathy's parents, I think her dad had come to visit, and we had just like really preached hard at him, and he thought we were in a wacko cult, and we kind of were. He uh he went home and he called my parents, he says, There there's strange stuff going on down there, you know, and I wasn't really communicating with my parents then, and I feel so bad about that. They must have been very worried about us, but um eventually we started selling our stuff and we had things advertised, and people that I had worked with would come to our house, and we had a metal gate all or a fence all around our house down in South Florida. You've got the bars on the windows, bars on the door, and people would stand out at the gate one by one. They would come and we'd say, Who do you represent? And they'd have to say, Well, I don't know myself, or and then we'd let them in and we'd have Bible studies with them, and some of it was really cool. I mean, they they really responded to it, they'd never heard some of this stuff before, and they'd come and buy stuff, and and that that kind of happened eventually. We we sold our stuff, we're getting ready to go out on the road, and this is another thing because I really at that point was not much, didn't know a whole lot about being a Christian. I don't know what I was doing, but I would question things, and John Tuzzolino, the the leader, he would like, he's like, You need to go into the backyard and repent. So I'd go out there and I I didn't know quite what to do, but I had a Bible. I was reading my Bible a lot. They would, you know, I got water from the hose, but I'd be fasting out there. And one time, I guess it was so bad, I got sent into the yard and I was there for like a week, and I didn't know what I was supposed to say to get back in the house. Eventually I got kicked outside of the gate, and I just was walking with no shoes, just the clothes I was wearing, and we were wearing like long-sleeve cotton stuff, which was actually a good thing, and then these dresses, these denim dresses. And I spent the night in out in just wandering around in homestead. I think I found some bushes or something to climb into. The mosquitoes were terrible, and I actually think they were somebody had saw me, and there was like a plane flying over, and they were like shining lights in there trying to find me, and they never did. Well, by morning, I I kind of had a revelation. I'm like, you know, I've been taking the name of the Lord in vain because I'm calling myself a Christian, but I'm really don't understand it. Maybe I shouldn't be. Um, I've been doing this, and so I walk back to the house and I'm walking through the field and I'm getting like all this grass on my feet, which is kind of giving me shoes. Everything down there is very rocky and marley, and um showed up at the gate, and it was like right at the time when they had morning worship, and they thought that was really significant. And I I, you know, they said, Who do you represent? I'm like, I represent Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and and what have you learned? I said, Well, I'm but I've been taking the name of the Lord in vain, anyways. Whatever it was, I got back in the house. And isn't that crazy? It's kind of crazy telling it, you know, looking back why I put up with this. But I just thought I I really wanted to throw myself into this. I really thought it was true, and I wanted to find God, and I was gonna do anything it took, you know, to get there. Really primed for a good trip down the legalistic road, right?
SPEAKER_02Mercy.
SPEAKER_04So um, you know, and in in Lutheran church, they never taught that you had to be born again, right? There it's just through the rituals, getting confirmed, going to church, doing the things, and um, but they never really talked about a heart change, a heart transformation. And I realized that I needed that, that that was that was going to be part of it. But that's something you can't do yourself. You can't the emotions, you can't do that yourself. Well, it came time we were getting ready to pack up and go on the road, and we had a we were trying to buy a van. Um, that didn't work out, so we had two cars. Um, my friend Kathy's car, who she had a loan on. She wasn't paying the payments on the loan anymore, but they were just going to take off with it. And then Maritza had this old Laman's, it was just a real beater. Well, something happened, and I could not go with them. They had just cast me out of the group, and I was I was on my own. But they gave me this old car from um Maritza. They took off in Kathy's car. Now it was one, two, three, four of them. I
Cast Out Alone And God’s Surprises
SPEAKER_04went off on my own in this car, but I was just wanting to continue my um journey. It didn't really dishearten me that much. And I ended up finding some state parks. They'll let you stay at the uh Florida State Parks for free, or it was a national national park campground, something like that. So I'd stay for a couple weeks and then I'd move to another campground and I'd be studying. Um, I met an old man and started studying with him and you know, kind of developed a friendship with this person, and then um somehow, so they all took off. They went back to California. They were trying to get Kimberly Ann to come back to the group, and that all did not work out. My friend's car got repossessed while she was out there, while they were out there. I don't know what happened to the other guys, but she ended up back in Florida. Somehow we got back in touch with each other, and um, I'm like, I don't know how we got back in touch, but I called her. This is before cell phones. I said, Hi, Kathy, I'm I'm like hanging out with an old man. And she's like, Well, I'm staying with an old woman, and she was um kind of a into the holy name, kind of uh wasn't an Adventist, but she was into the Sabbath and um, you know, probably Hebrew stuff. Well, we my friend Kathy and I got back together. Um, I still had the Lamans, so we drove back to upstate New York. It was around Christmas time. I was um, I was, it was you know, winter, snowy, cold. She went back to her family, um, another part of New York. I went back to my family, kind of tried to reconnect with them, had an experience where the car, I'm driving on the road, and the car just starts leaking oil like a quart an hour. And I really didn't have a lot of resources to take care of this. And it was snowing, it was dark, and I just got out of the car, got down on my knees in the snow. I'm like, God, please fix this car. Got back in and it never leaked another drop of oil for the rest of the time I had it. God healed my car. Wow, thankful to him. And uh, even though we're going off on these crazy tangents and crazy paths, you know, he was always there. And um, he was ready to course correct whenever I was ready. Um, but eventually we uh Johnny, the guy Johnny ended up down in Uch Pines. He was like a maintenance man. So my girl for girlfriend Kathy and I decided to go down and visit him. Um, we got there and we saw this ad on the board um recruiting people to come plant trees in Mississippi. And we looked at each other, and I had done a little bit of that with the Forest Service, and we both liked outdoor stuff. We're like, well, let's go, let's try it. So we hopped. She at that time she had gotten picked up another car. Um, and we went tree planting, lived in tents out of our cars, and it was with an Adventist family, and it was very conservative Adventists. And um, we would just have church out in the woods, we'd plant trees, and then Sabbath we'd take off, and we'd all just have church together. You know, we were kind of like a little band of gypsies, everybody had travel
Tree Planting Life And Conservative Adventism
SPEAKER_04trailers and cars and tents and things, and and um it was a very precious time. I learned how to be a really good legalist at that point, and I learned, and they were still kind of on the outside of the church. The church was maybe not Babylon, but they were probably liberal, and you know, they weren't really following, you know, the council. So we were trying to do that, but that took us up to Wisconsin in the spring. The family, so you plant trees in the winter in Mississippi when it's cool and wet, and then it starts getting hot, and you migrate north. So we went up to Wisconsin, happened to be in the area where my family lives. They had in in the meantime moved to Wisconsin. He'd my dad retired from Kodak and they had moved out to Wisconsin. So that was a plus. My girlfriend and I um planted trees up there in the spring, and then we got a job at an Adventist health food store in Rhinelander. We we had just happened to be out there shopping, and and um we're like, man, they've got all the kind of Adventisty foods, nutritional yeast, and um I don't know, some of the other stuff that's kind of that we use a lot, raw cashews, you know, that we use our cooking. And so we started talking to her, and and she's like, Yeah, yeah, wow, you're an Adventist. And she was gonna hire us on as um, it was sort of we had a stipend. We had food and lodging, and then we got a little bit of money, but it was sort of a community outreach, and we would have cooking classes and do the Wiemar thing, and that was so fun. Had a really good experience. We, you know, share and try to encourage people when they came in, and you know, we teach health principles and things. Um, but while we were in Wisconsin planting, I met a guy and found out first I thought he was just a punk, you know, out there plant trees. They were living out of their car in tents too, just like we were. But when I talked to one of the guys, he was um he had been working at country life restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin. So he was like a vegan, and you know, they're pretty, pretty straight line, strict. And um I thought, wow, I could I could really get along with this guy, you know. And eventually we got closer and closer, and he came to work at the health food store too, after tree planting, and um maybe we got a little too close at that point, but eventually we'd go to the Wisconsin camp meetings, and I was still very legalistic. I would go to the Adventist church now, but I would sit there and I just have this intense frown on my face, waiting for them to like teach some error, you know. We gotta steal ourselves against all this error that's creeping into the church, and you know, it was kind of fear-based, you know, you didn't want to get tainted.
SPEAKER_03Um were you living you were you living the way you wanted to?
SPEAKER_04Um it maybe for a while, except I really I couldn't have said that I feel saved because when you're depending on your works to make yourself right with God, it's never enough. No, and so I kind of pushed that to the back of my head. I'm like, well, I'm doing a lot better than these people in church that aren't that are drinking eating cheese and doing whatever, you know. Cheese cheese, we'd be wearing dresses, you know, and they'd you know, what if they were wearing makeup or jewelry? Oh no. So we were doing pretty good comparatively wise, but still did not. Um I did had how it works actually.
SPEAKER_03God grades on a curve. And if if they're not wearing denim skirts and you are, well then you're in.
SPEAKER_04We're up on the curve, but we're still not in. Still never felt in. Eventually, this guy and I got married. It was a tree planter wedding. We were down in Mississippi. We didn't tell our parents, we just had the tree planting crew.
SPEAKER_03Um, how old were you when you got married?
SPEAKER_04Um, I think I was like 28-ish, 27, 28. I mean,
Marriage Control And The Exhaustion Of Works
SPEAKER_04I was ready. I wanted to be married, and at that point, I was afraid God was gonna ask me to do something that I didn't want to do. So if I got married, I could be a uh a wife, you know, and keep the home. And I I could do that. I wanted to do that, wanted to have a family. So I thought I'd be all set, but it was kind of like the Israelites when they wanted a king, you know, they wanted the king over them, and that's exactly what I was doing. Um we uh it was a simple wedding. My our our uh the tree planter family that we were working for, she like hand sewed my dress the morning of the uh the wedding. It was we were gonna have it outside. It was raining, guinea pig peed on my dress.
SPEAKER_03We found a place where we could go guinea pig peed on your dress.
SPEAKER_04All these things were going wrong, right? It's like bad omens. But finally, we had it, and we we didn't do a church wedding, we had a like an independent pastor come and he married us, so it wasn't even we didn't even have a license. We were getting married like off grid, and uh, but we thought it was we saw it as being married before God, right? That's important, and um, and at the end, the sun came out, you know, we took some beautiful pictures, everything was beautiful, and that's about as far as that beautiful went. Um, we had I wanted to go like on a little camping trip on a honeymoon. We we like rented a cheap, cheap motel for the honeymoon, and then we were gonna go back to work. I'm like, oh, can't we go for just a weekend of camping, you know? And he gave in to me and he was so disappointed in himself because he's supposed to be the leader and the head of the family, and he had hearkened on to his wife, right? And so the whole time he was like sullen and moping, and I'm trying, let's go have some fun, and and uh he was not happy, and it just kind of went downhill from there. It wasn't like everything was bad, but I was always trying to um fix things, you know, and he would be real moody or real controlling, and it got to the point where he was really being mean like you're stupid, you're worthless, you're useless, you know. Stupe, and um, you know, and I'm trying to be better and trying to make him happy and all of this stuff, and I went through that. We had a daughter just right away, and um she was a tree planter kid, she would play outside in the dirt with rocks and sticks and things while we were out there planting trees, but she was so such an easy kid. I was so blessed. Um, anyways, I put up with it for about 30 years. Sometimes it would get you know a little bit 30 years, stayed married 30 years.
SPEAKER_03I put up with it. I thought you were gonna say some other number. I put up with it for about 30 years. 30 years, that's that's quite a bit of time.
SPEAKER_04A long time. I was I really, really did my best. And through all that, though, you know, there would be times when it would just be horrible, and he would be coming at me with all this negative stuff, and I just started singing Psalm 139, and would just encourage my heart, you know. And I found out I had a really bad temper, which I never would have known before that. But he would I would hold it in and hold it in and hold it in, and then all of a sudden I would get so angry, I would just like explode, and I'd be like maybe hitting him and cursing and all this stuff. And I was so ashamed of myself, but I didn't know how to stop it. I knew that wasn't the right behavior, even if you're provoked, you don't need to respond that way. So I was early on, maybe when. My daughter is about two. We had come across the 1888 message of righteousness by faith. We went to a lot of the seminars that they were giving the 1888 study committee. Um, there was a pastor at the Wisconsin camp meeting that was preaching things from Jack Sequera. And found a lot of hope from that. Um, at this point, I had kind of realized that I wasn't a very good legalist. I wasn't so self-disciplined enough to really have some cheese.
SPEAKER_03Is that what it tipped you off? You had a slice of pizza one day.
SPEAKER_04I was pretty good with the diet thing, diet rules and stuff, but just things like losing my temper and um maybe never was a very, very strict Sabbath keeper, you know. I I would always want to do other things. I just there was things that I just didn't um knew that that weren't measuring up to the standard, so I was really looking for something, and this righteousness by faith message, you know, did encourage me. Um helped help try to see that it wasn't my righteousness, but it was Jesus' righteousness. But I still was left with, well, Jesus did it all, you know, he he paid the price, he he lived the life that I can't live. But it was still like at some point your life has to reflect that. And I never did, and I I never felt like I loved God enough. You know, if you loved him, you'd keep his commandments, but and I could not generate that love in my own heart. And I just saw myself as broken, almost to the point where I'm like, I don't think I'm made for this, I don't think I'm ever gonna um make it to the end. And all I could do is just like throw myself on Jesus, and I'm like, I know you're gonna fix me somehow. I trust that you are, but I'm not seeing it, I'm not living it right now. And um just eventually um my daughter and I started doing the tree planting things ourselves. My husband was just so um dysfunctional, so dramatic, just causing trouble and drama. I couldn't by this time we were doing our own contracting, and more and more I was taking it over because I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm trying to um make all everything work, you know, it's all on my shoulders. And I'm doing a lot of the work myself, and so eventually my daughter and I would go off and um in a pick up in a truck with a camper on the back, we'd bring a friend of hers and we'd go out into the woods and go way up in northern Minnesota with the moose and the wolves, and we would plant trees up there, and we would just have the best time, the greatest time. And I just am thankful for those years and thankful for my daughter. And um, but still, if you'd asked me if I was saved, I would say, well, I am like the disciples, I'm not uh like when Jesus told Peter that he um needed to be, I guess, consecrated. I'm not finding the word, but I did not claim that I was saved. I could not claim that I was saved. I was depending on Jesus, but not claiming it. We used to go, Otter and I would go to the um Restoration International camp meetings, and that's what Carolyn and Paul Rain were involved in for a while.
SPEAKER_03And did you did you know them back then?
SPEAKER_04I would listen to them. I knew them somewhat. We were Facebook friends, you know, and uh I really loved their messages, and a lot of the things they preached were the things I was struggling with. You need to have a um a home that's well regulated and on a schedule. It was like practical things for good life, um, how to train up your children. Um, but I did not have that uh ability to maintain a perfect home or keep on a schedule or any of those things, and I felt a lot of condemnation, and it's like, what's wrong with me? But we would go and back and we'd see these beautiful families on the outside, and it was interesting to find out how much Hannah struggled, you know. You just wouldn't have known, but they kept a pretty good um, you know, they did the stuff. The rains were like following the plan, following the program pretty well. And I was they were doing it, and I was wanting to do it, you know. So I kept going. Um time goes on. Uh I went to massage school. Tree planting was getting harder and harder. Um, all our old friends were quitting, people that were working for us, were moving on to easier things pretty soon. It was my daughter's friends were getting real jobs, you
Death To Life And The Adam Two Breakthrough
SPEAKER_04know, full-time jobs. And eventually I'm like, God opened the door. I've always wanted to do this, but God opened the door for me to go to massage school. I went to the Black Hills School of Massage, which is an Adventist school in Carosa, South Dakota, near Rapid City. It was like going to camp. So I was away from the husband, realized how much stress I was under when I got there. It was just a big load dropped off my shoulders because I was away from it. Um, my daughter was stepped up, she was the hero, she took over the tree planting so I could go to school. And while I was going to school, she met a guy and eventually married him. So God had us on our own paths at that point, and it was so awesome. Um, and so I still do a little bit of the tree planting this spring. It's like me and this other guy that's like older than I am, we'll go up there in Minnesota and in five weeks we planted 83,000 trees. Can you believe that? I'm really proud of it.
SPEAKER_03You did that this this last spring?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we did. We're getting ready when you called me. I thought it was a call from Minnesota because we're getting ready in the fall, you go up in bud cap, so that's like protecting the trees from the deer in the winter time. Wow, you know, people were calling me to tell me they needed work done. I thought that's who it was when you called me.
SPEAKER_03You said Richard Who, and I'm like, oh, she must know a lot of Richards.
SPEAKER_04Going around thinking, who Richard did we plant for this spring? And that I couldn't think of any. But the guy I'm with is Richard, but he didn't sound like you, anyways. We still do it some, but I do the massage therapy now and really enjoy that. So I popped up on Facebook that Carolyn Rain was interviewed on Death's Life podcast, and she's like, Hey, everybody, come come listen to this. This is my story. And I was really curious because at that time they had sort of split off from this ministry, and I nobody really knew why, but we were watching, and you know, Carolyn wasn't wearing skirts anymore, something was going on, and uh goodness, bells, skirts, some more skirts and uh maybe wearing some makeup, you know. Yeah, mercy, and then so I I was real curious what was going on with them and and just really wondered. Um, and when I listened to it, it really got my attention. It's like I want what she has found in her family. That's what I've been looking for all these years.
SPEAKER_03It wasn't uncomfortable at all, it was it was more life-giving.
SPEAKER_04It was more life-giving because at this point I was pretty discouraged with myself and in this place where I'm thinking, maybe I can't be saved, you know, maybe there's something so wrong with me that I'm never gonna make it because I could not comply with all the things, you know. I didn't have that kind of self-discipline. Some people are great, and you know what? I'm thankful for it now, because if I had been a good legalist, I might not have desired anything more, probably would have, but anyways.
SPEAKER_03So you were a bad legalist. What is a bad legalist? What is that like?
SPEAKER_04You you believe in the stuff, but you you're um you're always kind of you know a closet liberal, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Really?
SPEAKER_04Lawbreaker, you are a closet lawbreaker. You try to put up a good front, you know, and you preach preach the legalism, but you know, you know, you're in your heart of hearts, you're not you're not there either.
SPEAKER_03So what then then what does a good legalist look like?
SPEAKER_04I guess maybe there isn't such a thing, but it seems Is there anyone who's really doing it? Probably not. I mean, in the end. Some some people are way more successful at it, I'll tell you what.
SPEAKER_03Well, they might look like they are, and you know why I'm saying this is I just there's only one person in my life that I thought was really doing it. Only one. And then you just heard back and you found out the person has they said they've been living apart from God for about three or four years, and they weren't you know, they it wasn't working out, and in my mind, I'm like um it's because of your poisonous ideology. Like it is like this isn't this is a this is how it works. Like it doesn't, I I don't know if there's a good legalist because the ideology will just lead to either pride that you did it yourself, or it discouragement because you can't make it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I probably had a little bit of both, you know, which is crazy. Um but as I I'm listening to hers, and I'm like, well, I gotta listen to Paul's. So I listen to Paul's and then I listened to Hannah's, and then I listened to more and more. I'm like, man, I don't really get it, but I want it. And um ended up listening to Rodney Long, found out that he was pastoring a church maybe an hour from me, and I ended up sh up there, you know, just seeking this thing, trying to understand it. And they just loved on me and took me in. It was a long way away. I only went a couple times, but Lokayla was there, and you know, they would say, just say these simple things from up front, and it was just so life giving. It's like, ah, it would just like bathe you in peace.
SPEAKER_03Give me an example of like the encouragement. Like, what was the encouraging thoughts that you were hearing?
SPEAKER_04What was I trying to obtain? Well, that I could I guess that I could really know that I was saved, I guess. That I could trust in that salvation, um, and that it didn't depend on my works. I would have said that before, but I still didn't understand it. So um, you know, went went there a couple times. I think they invited me somewhere, went down to the gospel gathering. Michaela invited me to the Missouri Gospel Gathering in Eagle, Ban Eagleville, and um I sat through it, you know, and I still didn't get it. I was really struggling, and again, struggling with these feelings that I just don't get this. I I'm I just can't, I'm not gonna be able to get this. And then I would be all upset, and then well, God, Jesus is gonna, I'm I can't do this myself. I'm just gonna have to trust Jesus.
SPEAKER_03And um what would you say was the thing what was the thing that you were trying to get? Like you're like you can't get this. What what was the this in hindsight?
SPEAKER_04Freedom, and maybe I still thought it would be freedom from my procrastination and my inability to keep the law, but I was looking for the wrong freedom. Maybe maybe I didn't understand that. Question, and I'm not, I'd have to think about that a little bit. I just knew there was something I was missing, and um, and everybody's giving their testimonies, and they're like, everybody's like, come on, go up, go up, well, and I go up and I'm like, I don't have anything good to say. I I know I don't, um, but I'm just mad because the devil doesn't want me to go up, so I'm gonna go up anyways. I'm coming up, but I'm gonna say I'm still searching, I haven't found it yet. And um, but they were so you know, so gracious. And then I started coming on to Death to Life uh Bible study, and you I lurked on there for a couple of weeks, and then you like uh found me. You did, and and I'm like, what do you mean by freedom from sin? What are you talking about? And you taught explained it, and it was just kind of like going over my head. I just it wasn't absorbing at all. You know, you get stuck in a way of thinking, and it's really hard to break it down and break away from that. I was still through the filter of everything I thought I knew, you know, all the things I had studied. You build up this foundation, you think it's a rock, and it's hard to like tear it all down and start over again. Um, but that night I was just like my head was just going around and around and around in circles, and my mind was like thinking about this and thinking about that. I couldn't sleep, but somehow in the middle of the night, I woke up and then I understood. I'm like, I understood the whole dynamic about Adam one and Adam two, and that what Jesus has accomplished was put the whole um the whole world into Adam two with him, and that now we are seated in heavenly places with him, and that there's nothing that we did to deserve it, there's nothing we did to um earn it, there's nothing we did to uh not deserve it, you know. We're we're all there with him, and that that was the thing, that was the thing that I could hold on to, and it was nothing from myself, absolutely nothing, and it was so freeing, it was a beautiful revelation, and you know, I've just been and then you you know you got to deal with okay, so you're on a high for a couple of weeks, and then maybe some bad habit or bad thought or whatever pops up, and and just trying to understand that you know the flesh is gonna habits, you know, ways of thinking, they're kind of entrenched, but that's not what makes me in Jesus at all. I am in Jesus and gonna um as I understand these things and look at them from kind of like a distance and understand what's going on, a lot of those things have um,
Sabbath Rest Without Transaction Thinking
SPEAKER_04you know, become things of the past. And other things, I just don't even look at them like last Sabbath. I get up in the morning and I, you know, so you know, we're supposed to do all this stuff to keep the Sabbath, right? We gotta have our house clean, we gotta have all our take a shower and get our clothes all ready. And when the sun goes down, you know, you gotta be ready to enter in.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, I got up in the morning and I had dishes piled on the counter. I could turn the phone around and you'd see the dishes on my counter right now. You know, the floor was dirty. If somebody knocked on the door, I wouldn't let them in, especially if they were an Adventist. I would not let them in. And why am I causing I'm I'm allowing this these Sabbath rules to heap guilt, case, shame, and condemnation on me. It's like this isn't what entering the Jesus rest at all. I'm like trying to work my way into the Sabbath. The Sabbath has been, you know, bought and paid for, and and I am in Jesus rest right now. And so I felt need to get up and try to get cleaned up for maybe to keep the second half of the day. But I was um I said, forget about all that stuff. I'm just gonna enjoy this time with Jesus and this fellowship because He has um He has paid, you know. I don't have to do this stuff to be part of Him.
SPEAKER_03It's interesting to me that the way we think that God works is that if we do certain things, then God is like, oh, here's more blessing. It's kind of like a Santa Claus way, like, oh, if I show up in the right way, then He's going to bless me in this way. And like, let's let's take the Sabbath for example. The blessing of the Sabbath is rest. God doesn't see you resting, and he's like, Oh, now that you're resting, now I'm going to give you rest. No, the blessing of the rest is the rest. It's it's that's the blessing. We we we stop our work and we relax, but we think somehow that we get more, and we think this way because we don't understand that we've already been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Because we have Christ, we have all of it. Now, if we want to rest, there's a blessing in resting. Like it's good to rest from work, it's good to be with the family, it's good, and then we're thinking, oh, well, now maybe I'll get good with God. Oh, I didn't rest, and so now God's mad, He's gonna withhold his blessing from me. God's not withholding anything from you. You when you rest, you participate in the blessing of rest. When you I don't know, I think we still think of God as this transactional Santa Claus rather than this being that's just love and just gives us everything and wants us to participate in it. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_04Absolutely, and over time, you know, we just come to these realizations and and all of these old patterns of thinking kind of fall away, and we understand more and more and more who God is, you know, and and the truth and the lies we've believed in the past and all that, and it's such a beautiful journey, beautiful revelation. And I think for love reality, because I can always come back to that and and um and I'm not hearing things that set me on the old paths that I've been on before. You know, it's just a beautiful free way of thinking and a beautiful way of uh understanding God's love and salvation for me.
SPEAKER_03Would you be able to recognize the the cura from like if the 80s cura, late 80s cura would see the 2026 cura, would that late 80s cura be shocked?
SPEAKER_04This is so weird. Well, probably, yeah, because I was quite um vocal against mocking of God and Christianity and Jesus, you know, very mocked to that kind of stuff in pride. But it was interesting because when I did accept God at the very beginning, when I started on this journey of trying to discover who God was, I ended up closing the door on all that stuff, like wanting to shut it off, just wanted a fresh start. And just this last couple of weeks, I went back to my 50-year high school class reunion.
SPEAKER_01Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_04And see all the old places and the old friends. And I was it was I was kind of able to reaccept that old Kira back into my life. And um, it was a very healing experience. I I didn't have to be afraid of that person anymore because God was always there leading me. It was more focusing on who God was the whole time and not who I was,
Reuniting With Her Past And Final Encouragement
SPEAKER_04even though I was mocking him and rejecting him, he never stopped loving me, he never stopped protecting me. And um, you know, I could see where he was working in my life and in the past. So I would say, yeah, old me was shocked, but now when I look back, I'm able to re accept that old person, you know, become a whole.
SPEAKER_03What if you ran into, let's say, cura out her mostly. Legalistic where you're trying so hard, but you can't fit kind of like you couldn't figure out why you couldn't write a paper. This this same lady years later is now trying to figure out why she can't keep the law the way that she wanted to keep the law. If you ran into her and you got to encourage her, put your arm around her, what how would you encourage her?
SPEAKER_04I would put my arm around her and I would speak life to her and I would tell her, You ain't gotta do nothing. It's all been done for you. Praise God, you know? You're you're okay. You know, God has you're you don't need to be fixed. You are fixed, you know? And um, and God, you can just rest in God's love. You are his daughter, you are his child.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's been amazing to see you on the Bible studies, and I've seen you, you know, you go to the milk dudes. I I think you've gone to all of them. And you know, I see you, and I I remember the questions you would ask, and I love the questions you would ask, and I love I love your curiosity and how you just your your hunger for for truth, and uh then just hearing this story, I'm just praising the Lord. Uh, you're a blessing, you're a testimony, and so much, you know, my my in-laws they met tree planting and had some legalistic background, and just to see the way you're living your life and how you love people and how you encourage is is such a blessing to me. So, thank you so much for telling your story. And yeah, it that I don't know if you realize how wild of a story it is, it's pretty wild. Do you do you know that?
SPEAKER_04I do, and that that was kind of a long time ago, so um I've kind of lost touch with how wild it really was. I'd actually kind of like to forget some of that stuff because it was it's like, what were you thinking, girl? But um it's all good, and God was there, and that's what I like to focus on. And I just want to thank you for keeping for investing your life in love reality and keeping this thing there so that we can kind of get together from all over parts, all over the world, and um, and especially because it's not that this isn't out there and there aren't aren't other people doing it, but particularly ministering to Adventists because we have a particular um mindset that we need to kind of overcome. And maybe it's just me, but I got it all wrong.
SPEAKER_03And um feeling it's not just you, it was me as well. Maybe it's just us, and everyone else has had it figured out, and it's just you and me, we didn't get it. I doubt it though. I think there's a lot of people. Well, thank you, Kira, and uh I appreciate you.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. Absolutely bless you. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_03Bye-bye.