Road To Redemption
Road To Redemption
Sheila Guagliardo's Road to Redemption
Sheila’s powerful story resonates with anyone who has endured pain and emerged on the other side. She shares her upbringing, her traumatic car accident, and how these experiences led her to find faith.
- Discusses childhood challenges and family dynamics
- Shares the impact of trauma and healing processes
- Explores the journey to finding faith in difficult times
- Emphasizes the importance of community and support
- Encourages listeners to confront their own traumas
- Highlights the joy of healing and moving forward
For more information contact us at
rtrdestiny@gmail.com
Welcome to Road to Redemption, a show sharing powerful life testimonies, giving hope to those on their own road to redemption.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Road to Redemption. I'm John Martin, your host. I'm here with my co-host, Valerie Peterson, and we're excited to have our guest, Sheila Guiardo. Sheila, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you, glad to be here, very excited.
Speaker 4:We are so grateful to have her here, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, we are.
Speaker 4:We've been just looking so forward to this show.
Speaker 3:Yes, Thank you. Definitely, I'm honored to be here Definitely.
Speaker 4:Well, we want to brag on Sheila a little bit, right, we're just so honored that you're here, because you have literally moved away and you were such a part of Destiny for how many years. The beginning.
Speaker 3:The very beginning 2001,. Yeah, we sat on the floor with Pastor Miss Jackie. The story, if you've heard it.
Speaker 4:Yes, and I look at how you came alongside, shoulder to shoulder with them, didn't you? Yes, so you and your husband, keith, just were such a part of this. I'm looking out this whole Destiny campus and so many other campuses now.
Speaker 3:Yes, we've been here for all of the planting of those campuses, so it's been amazing to see how the Lord works.
Speaker 4:We would love to hear about your testimony. This show is to help people on their road to redemption and you have a tremendous story, Sheila and John and I really would love for you to share your story with our listeners today. Tell us about your upbringing.
Speaker 3:Well us about your upbringing. Well, my dad and mom were divorced when I was about four. He was a very severe alcoholic, so she had three children and back in the early 60s. That's not an easy road to tow, but he also passed away at the age of 39 because of the severe abuse of alcohol in his body. My mom remarried. That divorce didn't I mean that marriage didn't last either, but she had another child, so there was four of us and she was a single mom, not a Christian, so we weren't raised in a Christian home.
Speaker 3:She was a great mom. I mean she loved us. She did her best raising four kids on her own. I mean she loved us. She did her best raising four kids on her own. She worked, you know, and provided for us and cared for us. But you know, she had some depression, just different things that not knowing the Lord came with that. So that kind of is. As far as my home I was, there was a time when I was sexually abused by someone in my family and with the help of a friend I was able to get out from underneath that. But that, as you know, leaves internal scars within you, these internal scars within you. So, but I was still had a, you know, pretty chipper outlook in life. I was fairly popular kind of a sporty person, tomboy maybe.
Speaker 4:Love it.
Speaker 3:I didn't mind beating my boyfriend in a run.
Speaker 4:But, and I want to stop there Sure, your boyfriend is your husband, right?
Speaker 3:Well, maybe not then, but yes we were high school sweethearts.
Speaker 2:Thank you and.
Speaker 3:I did beat him as well, but at the age of 16, I was in a terrible automobile accident. I didn't wear a seatbelt back then, you know, it wasn't required and I went forward in a car and had these two huge holes right here in my face. I almost had my eye cut out. And so at the age of 16, that was a very traumatic and just it was just terrible. I don't even know the words. I still when. I still think about it. I just think about the trauma and how my life was just shattered and torn apart. So I started looking. I had these huge scars. I had like eight surgeries between my junior year and when I graduated, but the scars would always be there. They just said we're just trying to help make them smaller. And so it was just um, and I didn't know the Lord, and so I just tried to walk through life and you know, I just want to say you look at you today.
Speaker 4:You would never know. You know I'm looking at how God does heal. I mean, that's amazing that you can't, you wouldn't know today.
Speaker 3:I have a few more wrinkles, though. No, I'm sorry. No, you're a hoot.
Speaker 4:But what I'm wondering is did that propel you to search for the Lord, that pain in your life?
Speaker 3:Yes, well, I was sharing with Rick and Drew before we started that there was Chris Christopherson, who's in the 70s, so he had an experience with the Lord during the Jesus movement in the 70s yes, I'm that old. And so there was song, two songs. It's called why Me, lord and Help Me, and I would listen to those every night because I really didn't have. I would never hurt myself, I really was just struggling to survive. And so my mom, actually, after I got married, got saved. She was going to a Catholic folk mass and they started talking about having Christ as your Savior, and so she got saved. Then she went to a Spirit-filled conference and was immersed in the Holy Spirit, and so she sent me this huge Bible. You know where my husband's like what's wrong with your mother, I mean. But her depression was lifted and I saw such a change in her that it propelled me to look.
Speaker 3:And so we were moving in New Mexico and we were at a hotel for a couple of nights until we moved into our place and there was a Bible you know Gideon's place in the Bible and it was called the Way way, similar to the message, I think and it said free, take it. And so I did and I took it home and I started reading it and the Lord really started, you know, moving in my life. And so we came home from being in New Mexico and I went to a full gospel businessmen's fellowship breakfast that's a lot to say, but they were huge in the seventies and I heard a spirit filled. Nun, I can't tell you today what she said. All I know is Christ touched me and he pulled me right up front to accept him as my personal savior. And that's when the internal and external work of the scars that the Lord started to touch me.
Speaker 4:You know I look at you, sheila, and you have done your job at Destiny with such grace and just such ease and I'm looking at, wow, what you walk through, the pain that you walk through. Can you share today how you look at it and how it helped you in ministry?
Speaker 3:Yeah well, it was hard and it was hard for me to understand. You know it was hard and it was hard for me to understand. You know why God sometimes allows things to happen. It's a common question. And do I have the answer? No, I don't, but I know that God was there once he revealed himself to me. I know that, no matter what the darkness was, that he was still with me in the darkness, while I don't understand all the reasoning or why I don't need to, because something about his presence gave me a peace. It just started working in my life and he brings back memories of different things in your life when you're ready to face them, to bring the healing. And so you know, as you know as a therapist, in our mind sometimes we squish down memories or traumatic things, and so the Lord started bringing those out. You know it's a process, it's a long process.
Speaker 4:What would you say to a listener today that maybe has shoved trauma and painful memories deep down in their soul and they haven't been willing yet to look at them and just acknowledge them? What would you say? I would?
Speaker 3:say you know, the Lord to me has the deep, calling the deep, if that makes sense. He uses his spirit to reveal things. So don't run away from it. It can be hard but you have to find a trusted person, whether it's a counselor, a church or a therapist, or mine was just a trusted friend in Christ and we shared things with the Lord.
Speaker 3:There was a trigger of something that happened to my sister and it triggered memories of when I was sexually abused. I had just totally just didn't acknowledge it. But you know, it can hurt other areas of your life, your marriage, just different things, if you don't address it. But Lord brings it up and when he does just trust in him that he is going to minister the healing and he'll use other people to help you, not just him, but he to me. He was my counselor, my therapist. It wasn't as as acceptable as it is now to have counseling and therapy and you know, and I'm very thankful for people like you that minister to people. You know, because I'm not a counselor, I mean I'll give you godly advice but I'm not a professional counselor. So you know, be ready, the Lord will do it.
Speaker 4:And, you know, looking at your role at Destiny, through the years you did you walked in wisdom, in the work you did in family care oh, my goodness, it was like, you know, what you walked through definitely prepared you for all that you did here with such grace. You know, I think, sheila, I've got to be honest with you. I think people looked at you and thought, oh gosh, her life's perfect. She has a wonderful husband. They've been married for 50 years next month 50 years. You know just, life has been easy. What did you say when people like looked at you and maybe said that to you Ha, you're wrong. Easy. What would? What did you say when people like looked at you and maybe said that to you?
Speaker 3:Ha, you're wrong. I mean I would laugh. I'm like you have no idea what you're talking about. I said, but the Lord has just brought a joy. You know, the scripture that I always lean on a lot of times is the joy of the Lord is my strength. It not the joy like, haha, you know, laughing funny joy. It's a joy that he comes in and no matter what you're walking through or you know if the times are darker or even not, but he has comes in by his Holy Spirit and wraps you and embraces you and gives you a strength that wipes away the traumatic. I mean, it's there but it brings a joy.
Speaker 3:And you know, it's like people are like, well, you're just happy. Well, I can't help it. I'm like the Lord has just done something in me. It may be different for you, but I just I have that peace. Even when I'm, I'm walking, I still walk through trials. I mean, thank the Lord. It's not like what it was, because I have been healed from a lot of things, but it's his strength through that joy that lifts me up and it's what I want to impart to other people. You know, I want them to know they're cared, that when you walk through a trial or if you're not saved. I mean the Lord used things when I wasn't saved that weren't probably traditional. I didn't hear a pastor right away or read the word right away. I heard a country singer singing a gospel song you know, but it met me where I was.
Speaker 3:It met me where I was. Like I saw Cinderella, the movie, the cartoon, you know, walt Disney. And when the stepsisters were tearing apart her dress, I started weeping because I felt so ugly, you know, from that wreck and everything. And the Lord told me you're beautiful, don't let people or anything tear apart what I've put together. And so it's those non-traditional things sometimes, but it's always the Lord coming in and saying, hey, I can help you, I can remove that, I can save you. I didn't, the Lord told me. I think I shared this with you.
Speaker 3:It just came to my mind when we were in Okina Okinawa and he told me we had watched this movie about a man that was in an airplane crash and got burned and he ministered to people in the hospital and the Lord spoke to me and he said you know, I've saved you more than once.
Speaker 3:I'm like what I'm pretty sure that's not scriptural, but he's like the enemy meant to harm you and destroy you in that car accident Because I mean it was pretty rough and everybody was injured in the car. And he said because you didn't know me, but I kept you, I died for you, I died for your sins on the cross, but I kept you that day because the enemy meant evil for you. And so then when I look back, I'm like I'm just so overwhelmed with the amount of love and grace that he had for my life, for anybody. Yeah, it's not any different of love and grace that he had for my life, for anybody, it's not any different. I did want to say do you mind if I say a little bit about our call to ministry?
Speaker 3:Oh definitely so. The Lord knit us together with Pastor Steve and Miss Jackie like 35 years ago. That's hard to say.
Speaker 2:How did y'all meet them?
Speaker 3:Okay. So we all went to Abundant Life, the church that planted us, and served under Pastor Steve. He was over kids and youth, so we served there faithfully, you know, under him. We weren't like close friends but we, you know, ministered with he and Miss Jackie. But the minute that Pastor Thorne announced from the pulpit that they would be planting a church we had my husband especially, had always felt like we would be serving with them, and so he was the first one up there to say, hey, we're, you know, we're with you. They were supposed to take a church in South Carolina. That didn't work. We had orders to Kansas and Steve's just like I just don't think y'all are going. And my husband was like, oh you silly civilian, he goes no.
Speaker 3:I just don't think y'all are going to go. And Keith said, well, they'd have to cancel the whole program.
Speaker 2:Well, they canceled the whole program and we didn't go.
Speaker 3:And so it was just how the Lord, you know, it's just a divine appointment, you know, and so we were called to serve whatever capacity was needed to help in the growth of the church, but also in the Vigalis family, and so it's been our great honor to the Lord, but also to serve with Pastor and Miss Jackie and their sons. You know, I went from watching their sons to, you know, serving and ministering with their sons, and so they are great people of faith, pastor and Miss Jackie, and I'm thankful for the part they played in my healing as well.
Speaker 4:I bet. I bet you know I'm going to shift to you shared that there was another song. It was called Something Beautiful by the Gaithers. Can you share a little bit about that song and how it ministered to you? Yes.
Speaker 3:When I first got saved and then we were stationed in Okinawa and I already told you about the guy and how the Lord told me and I just felt so I don't know any other word to say except ugly I was very self-conscious. In my face, my scars were just big and red for a long time, even though they did the surgery. But you know how you just, no matter what other people say you, still in your eyes, it's much larger, still in your eyes, it's much larger, you know. And so, um the lord, there was this little pageant and uh, in okinawa for people who worked in a fees which is the air force. They handle everything, military shops, everything, I don't know it's and these little people I worked with, well, I say little sorry, that didn't sound right, okinawans that I worked with and they kept saying Sheila-san, you need to sign up for this pageant.
Speaker 3:And I'm like, no, I'm not going to, I don't want to because you're on stage, you. I mean, it's all about what you do as work, but also what you look like. And I was just not. And so I'm like, no, well, they signed me up and so I was contacting my what I was like I don't want to be offensive to them if you didn't so I did, and it was the Lord used it and he reminded me. You know everything you've gone through and I won. You know it was. It's not a big deal, it's not like you know, but I want a trip to Taiwan, I want all these things and then I.
Speaker 3:I went like when they had openings of stores or different things, I would go and cut the ribbon. You know silly stuff like that, but it it was his way of showing me how beautiful he was making me, and so this song was part of that whole journey. You know, if ever there are dreams that were lofty and noble, they're my dreams. At the start, the hopes for life's best were the hopes that I harbored down deep in my heart. Then my dreams turned to ashes, my castles all crumbled, but then I laid them at the cross and you made something beautiful of my life.
Speaker 3:Oh, man makes me cry. It makes me cry. It's just. I'm just so thankful to be saved. You know, I look at some of my family and you know some of them have been delivered of things, but like of depression and different things, and I'm just so thankful. God, you know, and I'm thankful I let him. You know, sometimes we want to fight when he's really trying to help us, not on purpose, you know, it's not like you don't want it, but you're just. You're scared to to look at things or to do things, and you just have to trust that the Lord is going to impart the joy of the Lord to be your strength.
Speaker 4:You know, I always say that we cannot heal until we acknowledge, until we, and sometimes, like you described, that can be a process, not an event. But what would you say to a listener that has just kept it down in the basement of their soul? What would you say to them today? Would you go to a friend, go to somebody trusted?
Speaker 3:I would definitely pray and say, lord, if there's anything in me that's keeping me from being what you want me to be, to be able to minister to others, but just to be able for me to minister and worship you in fullness and wholeness, then, yes, oh, that's good. You have to ask the Lord and he wants to. He wants you to be whole and so find that trusted friend or a therapist. But I know that I stayed in the word and the Lord provided the people to minister to me. And I still keep in touch with people all over the United States and some parts of the world because of the military and how the Lord just used different things. But, yeah, wherever you're at right now, you know the Lord wants you to be whole. He wants to take out everything from that deep and bring it up and so that it becomes a joy, and it may not be like me, but it's still going to bring a peace and a joy that you would never have. But you have to take that step.
Speaker 4:You know, as you're talking, I'm thinking about the verses in Psalm 139. You know, I know when you sit and now when you stand, I have the hairs numbered on your head and it goes on to say search me, oh Lord, search me and look at the anxious, the ways within me Know my heart. Yes, and I'm looking at. Yeah, search me, you know I'm looking at. The tenets of this show is connect with others. Anything you want to say there.
Speaker 2:Well, just the. You know we come back to. The three pillars of the show is to first get to know the Word of God. Pick up a Bible, just start reading the Word of God. If you don't have a paper Bible, then there's many Bible apps. Just get a Bible app, start reading the Word of God. He will speak to you through His Word. And the second thing is to get into a church, a Christ-centered church, and just go. Just don't worry about what you're going to wear, don't worry about Just go, that's right.
Speaker 2:We encourage you to go, find one, a Christ-centered church, and go and we say give it one year of your life. We promise it will change your life and we believe you'll continue to go for your whole life. And the last thing is to get into a small group, to get into a group within your church that you can make yourself vulnerable, open up to a small group of friends that will help you heal and grow and receive freedom in Christ. Those are the three key things we like people to.
Speaker 3:I've gone from base to base to base and we've always gone from church. We were very I mean, we were always involved, you know, even though we knew we wouldn't stay, we served, we were faithful, because the Lord uses that and he uses the people in church to minister to you and the small groups. Well, you know, back then they just called them Bible studies, but we still had them and I still went, you know. And so those are the things that you definitely need. I mean, you can try to be wild and do it on your own, but the Lord brings it in. He has a plan.
Speaker 2:Well, and even serving in your local church is so important because I've found a lot of folks in seasons of their life they start to feel like they don't have a purpose, and what I love about Destiny Worship Center and a lot of Christ-centered churches is they offer you to serve in that church and you really. It really blesses you. You know as well as others to serve in that church and just such a great thing to do so true.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even before I became on staff I mean at Destiny we served. I didn't come on staff till like 2006, I think. But you know I served because if the Lord ministered to me, I want to pass that on. Lord, let me what you've done for me, let me give it to someone else, let me pick up someone else, let me help someone else. And that's in different things. It could be helping children, it could be cleaning the bathroom. I mean, we didn't care, we just wanted to serve and be used by the Lord in whatever capacity. But certainly family care was definitely my heart.
Speaker 4:And you did it so well. In closing, can you share with our listeners what you're doing today, because you know many people are wondering Can you share?
Speaker 3:Sure, I'd love to. Well, we have moved. There's some people that still don't know that we've moved. Sorry, but we've moved to Gainesville to be closer to our youngest son and his family, and they have two little boys and she's pregnant with a third on the way, just found out. It's a little boy, and so we want to be closer there and still serve, finding a church, but also to impart to the next generation as part of our family. You know there's three boys and you know we thank pastor Steve for that, for always instilling in us. You know we got to raise up our kids to be strong, so we have to raise up the next generation all around, you know. So we need to leave a hope and a legacy, and I want to make sure, with my own family, my own grandkids. You know that I do, keith and I both leave that legacy and so and as you said, we'll be celebrating 50 years- it's not been easy.
Speaker 3:So, any of you out there with marriage. You know we've had some tough times. We've had some hard times, but it's worth the fight. When the Lord brings you together, the enemy's going to try to take you apart, but when you walk faithful, stay connected, like John said, to the church and small groups. You know it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 4:So you have another son that you get to see a lot, and a new baby too in Kentucky, correct, right, louisville, kentucky. Very cold there recently and you've been there often.
Speaker 3:How old is the new baby? Seven months, ok. We went up to help up there and it snowed and it was very cold and my older son had some challenges and I'm still praying that he finds his way back closer to the Lord, knowing the Lord again and his family, beautiful family. So that's another thing. I want to make sure I'm there spreading life. You know the Lord's life and they're very open, you know. So just just continuing prayer, um, prayers for prodigals. I there was a small group recently because someone reached out to me about it and it's a great book to have. Pray for your children, your adult children, your young children.
Speaker 3:But yeah, love it yeah, so two sons and one two will be five grandchildren be five grandchildren.
Speaker 4:I was thinking that's so exciting. Thank you so much for sharing your testimony.
Speaker 2:John, do you want to close out? Yeah, I'll just close out in a prayer. Heavenly Father, lord, we thank you so much for dying for us on the cross. So much for dying for us on the cross. Lord, thank you for Sheila coming on and just being transparent and sharing her her journey. Lord, we, we pray for her and her husband, keith, and their children and grandchildren and their new season of life in Gainesville. Bless them, lord and um Lord, just anyone listening to this show that doesn't know you. We just we ask that they give their life to you during the show, right now, that they come and just give their life and surrender to you, and we thank you that many, many souls are being saved. To you, jesus, in your mighty name, we pray Amen, amen. You, jesus, in your mighty name, we pray, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Road to Redemption, sharing powerful life testimonies, giving hope to those on their own road to redemption. If you have any comments or questions, we would love to connect with you. You can reach out to us at destinyradiolive. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week on Road to Redemption.