SpeakLifeAZ
The testimony of Jesus in, with, and through everyday people like us. A father and son who were addicts for over 20 yrs. You name it, WE DID IT, TOGETHER!!!! we used to use drugs together now we share about what God Has done for us to encourage the body of Christ and anyone else who may listen to this that is feeling hopeless and empty. LISTEN TO OUR STORY...and the testimony of others who feel led to share with you.... GOD BLESS YOU....TODAY WE CHOOSE TO SPEAK LIFE AZ!!!!!!!!!!
SpeakLifeAZ
Erin S. Testimony
Imagine standing at the crossroads of addiction and redemption, where a powerful encounter with faith changes everything. On our latest episode of the SpeakLifeAZ podcast, Erin, a resilient member of the Celebrate Recovery community, opens up about her extraordinary journey from substance abuse to spiritual awakening. Her story is not just about overcoming addiction; it’s about the transformative power of faith, love, and community. Through Erin's candid recount of her turbulent past and the pivotal moments that steered her towards recovery, listeners are offered a beacon of hope. Her experiences serve as a reminder of the profound impact that shared stories and supportive communities can have on our spiritual paths.
Our conversation with Erin takes us back to her childhood days in Anaheim, California, where the echoes of Disneyland fireworks painted her upbringing. As she navigates the complex web of family dynamics and silent struggles with substance use, Erin reveals the heartache of watching her father's health decline. It's a narrative filled with youthful rebellion, familial expectations, and the quest for solace amidst chaos. Throughout this emotional journey, Erin’s resilience shines through, showcasing the pressures and influences that have shaped her life. Whether you're facing similar challenges or seeking inspiration, Erin's story is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.
As we explore Erin’s path to recovery, we delve into her daily battles with addiction, the road to redemption, and the significant role of faith in her journey. From the humorous tales of bonding over Volkswagens to the struggles of early marriage and parenting, Erin shares her wisdom on maintaining sobriety and nurturing spiritual growth. Her insights into the power of prayer, community support, and the shared journey of faith with her husband provide invaluable lessons for anyone on a journey of recovery or seeking a fulfilling life. Join us as we unravel these heartfelt stories, emphasizing the importance of connection, faith, and the promises of hope and healing.
all right, everybody. Welcome back to the speak live az podcast testimony of jesus and everyday people. I'm your host, eddie, and always with me is my son rowdy jesus, what up?
Speaker 2:dude, man, dude, what a great day bro yeah, yeah, why so? Share. Uh, I walk like 20 000 steps cleaning this place. Man, getting healthy buddy, how was your day? I built a fire, sat on my butt, worked on a couple cars and yeah, in that cool little fire pit that you made out of the compressor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was pretty cool man, Nice dude, I enjoyed it. It gets pretty hot.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about this one, bro. Yeah, so am I man. Yeah, I say that about everyone, but this one. They're all exciting, they are and they're all special. They are. It's just really cool to get people that we are serving in the Celebrate Recovery community, the Forever family, coming on and sharing their testimony and what God's brought them through. Man. What did you bring with you, buddy? We got our sister Erin. What's up, dude?
Speaker 4:What's up? How are you? I'm great man.
Speaker 1:How you doing, sis. I'm good God made it very clear to us to honor his kids when they come on and give us their yes, man. So we just thank you for your time. It truly is an honor to sit down with God's kids and we know we've heard your story in CR, obviously, but this one's a little longer so we can get into a little more different things than you can in CR. So we know, just thank you, man it's, it's an honor it's an honor for me too, thank you um for me, aaron, um with, with.
Speaker 2:Uh, god has, god has put your husband on my heart and um, we, we have little conversations and we've gone out a couple times, um, but I just feel connected to him and I just love what uh, whatever God's gonna do with that, in his time he'll, he'll do what he does, amen. Um, but I definitely feel connected to him and, uh, when we were up at the summit, um, I I was able to pull him aside and was like hey, bro, I really want to have your wife on the podcast. Man, would that be cool? And and I wanted to get his because, being with married couples, man, especially with the women, respect go to the husband and ask and for him to say, yes, it's almost like we're being entrusted, and for me that means a lot.
Speaker 2:Let me just pray real quick and then we'll kind of just get into it. Jesus, man, holy Spirit, thank you. God, thank you for what you're getting ready to do, lord, thank you for Aaron's testimony, god, thank you that you're literally getting ready to use her story and her words, god, to help people. There's people that are going to watch this, there's people that are going to listen to this, lord, and they're going to find similarities in her story and what you've done with Aaron and what you brought her through and what you can do in someone's life. So I just pray for your daughter right now in the name of Jesus. Just, holy Spirit, use her words, god, share your story.
Speaker 2:Like I always say, lord, aaron's been the pen in your hands. You've been writing this book, um, so I just thank you for what's getting ready to get shared. God, um, we just praise you for all you're going to do in Jesus name, amen, amen, um. So you did share with us that you have listened to a couple of these um before we sat down. Um, so you know it just, um. When God gave this to us during COVID. We started doing what we wanted to do and setting up studios in the bedroom and making messages, and that's not at all what God said, man, it took us a few years to do what God told us to do, but once we did that, this thing just started unfurling and now we got 60, we got 15 episodes online, 70 to listen to. God is good. He's just looking for our obedience.
Speaker 4:Amen.
Speaker 2:But so basically what the Speak Life AZ podcast? It's the testimony of Jesus and everyday people. It doesn't matter if you're like dad and you're cutting up cars or sitting on your butt and burning wood all day, or like myself, man making the wheels spin in a church and facilities and maintenance team, or like yourself with the family and the ministry and the things that God's called you to. We are all everyday people. We've all got a story. We all have a testimony, no matter how many people are out. I don't have a story. I don't have. Yes, you do. If you've been in church your whole life, you've got the faithfulness of God as your testimony. But so what we want is we just want to know who Aaron is. We want to know where Aaron was born. We want to know what Aaron's mom and dad were like brothers and sisters. What was the home like? Growing up was God in the home, church?
Speaker 2:And you know, working in recovery man, the hurts, habits and hang ups and stuff later in life that we go through our healing and recovery process through. A lot of those hurts happen when we're kids. So if you want to get into any of that, let the Holy Spirit lead you in it. But I think the coolest part of this podcast is we want to capture your encounter with Jesus. We want to know the day, the time, the place, the details of how God showed up for you and you're like, wow, dude, jesus is real. Mine was August 26, 2014 at 1515 West Grand, at a Blue Altar in Teen Challenge. Dad's was in a prison cell on a prison yard. We want to know where God met you and when it got real.
Speaker 1:Because it's unique.
Speaker 2:It is to everybody.
Speaker 1:It's unique to you I mean it's unique to him, it's unique to me. The way God gets you is not the way he got me around.
Speaker 2:it's unique to you because he knew what it took to get aaron to get aaron, so yeah that's the coolest part about it, man and then after dad always says man, the, the evidence of an encounter with the living god is a life that's transformed, is life change? Um, so we want to know how your life changed after your encounter. Um, and I think the coolest part, one of the coolest part of this thing, man, is at the very end um, you're still young, sis, you got a lot of life ahead of you. Um, we want to know what God's put in your heart, what are those dreams and those things that that haven't manifested in the physical yet, but you feel God calling you to later in life, because we're going to pray for you and our listeners are faithful to pray for you. So yeah, man, this is going to be great.
Speaker 1:What was it like growing up, erin man?
Speaker 4:I mean, it was fun. I grew up in California I'm a Cali girl Anaheim. We were like a stone's throw from Disneyland.
Speaker 2:We can hear.
Speaker 5:It's a small world you know from our house in the front yard.
Speaker 4:No joke, five o'clock in the morning you're out and it's running we see the fireworks, all of that. I worked there at a certain point. I mean, I'm a Cali girl, we did not go to church growing up, and so let's. I'll start with this. My mom and my dad got married. I have two older siblings from my dad's previous first marriage.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they were five and three when my parents got married and then my uh, my sister was born. This is like TMI maybe, but my sister was like the wedding baby and I was like the anniversary baby.
Speaker 2:So my sister was born, my older sister, she's your full blood.
Speaker 4:She's my full blood, yeah, but I mean I've known the other ones my whole life, so to me it's no different. Right, the only difference was is they went another place every other weekend, but they lived with us full time until my brother was like 13. I don't know he went to go live with his mom, okay, but my sister stayed. So I usually tell people I have two sisters okay we don't really talk about my brother very much, like he wasn't part of my life growing up.
Speaker 4:Okay we only heard from him when he was like in jail and medicated and was like hi so when he left at 13, there was just no, no, not really like he came every other weekend for a little bit, but it's from my understanding I was so young, I was like six or seven and um, it just, it just wasn't a good fit for him at our house, and so he went to go live with his mom because he was old enough to make that choice and you know it wasn't a healthy environment for them.
Speaker 4:But that's that's not my story you know.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 5:So I'll stick to mine.
Speaker 4:But yeah, so everything was good. I wouldn't say that I'm from like a broken home or like a mixed household or anything like that, but I'm like I am because I have, you know have siblings. But we played sports growing up, my dad was like my dad was. He worked for the Pacific Bell back then and he worked there like his entire career since he got out of the Air Force, the electric company, yeah like he took, like if the phone lines went down, he was in the office telling people where to go and what to fix kind of thing.
Speaker 4:So he was like in taking calls so he did that, and then my mom stayed home with us, which was really cool. Nice.
Speaker 2:We weren't like rich, we were middle class you know, like we had used cars that broke down and always had a Volkswagen, so you know we're fixing those often. But yeah, it was good, we played sports.
Speaker 4:I think my dad like he just Softball, softball, soccer. I feel like I was raised like a boy yeah. You know, like we were raised to be tough and we didn't wear makeup and you know like we just we played sports year-round soccer, softball. I really liked softball All the girls, All the girls yep, Okay, and my sister and I are like 51 weeks apart exactly. Really. Yeah, so her birthday is September 9th and mine is September 2nd. Oh, jesus, yeah, so we're the same age for a week.
Speaker 4:Oh, wow, yeah, so we were on the same team a lot of time, but my dad was he was, I feel like he was a great dad. Like I had like a fear of him because he was my dad and I also didn't like loud yelling and you know like I didn't like to be spanked when I got in trouble and so I tried not to get in trouble.
Speaker 2:Would you consider yourself a rule follower? Yes, oh yeah, for being the youngest of the family.
Speaker 4:I think I followed a lot of the rules.
Speaker 2:I was.
Speaker 4:I was spicy, okay, but I wasn't. I my mom might disagree, but I wasn't flat out disrespectful, like I didn't want to get in trouble in school, like I followed the rules. I was like you guys, like everything has to be fair, and you know, I just wanted to have fun and to get in trouble in school, like I followed the rules. I was like you guys, like everything has to be fair. And you know, I just wanted to have fun and not get in trouble, and you know.
Speaker 2:Was school easy for you or hard? What was like your grades? Like it was medium I had good grades. Like I didn't try.
Speaker 4:I did my homework, but I didn't do well on tests. Right test right, but I had to get good grades to play sports and so I had, like I think maybe one time I got a D, my dad was like not in my house and so then I got, I raised it up to an A by the end of the year in English so yeah, I had good grades.
Speaker 4:I just didn't try very much um my senior year. I really loved anatomy and so I got like the second highest grade in the class right because I liked it wow and it made sense and I was like okay, I like this stuff. I'm gonna actually try for this one, so it's just a matter of finding what I actually liked to apply yourself.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I feel like that's most kids right yeah, my middle sister is like a straight, a student right. So my, my first two siblings kind of like mucked it up a little bit, that's what I was gonna say.
Speaker 2:He was the youngest, for his too, man, so it's like he gotta see. Okay, I'm not doing that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like my oldest sister left when she was like the second she turned 18. Like a month later she was out of the house to her mom's house and so she left her senior year and then my, my, my older sister um, the one closest in age to me.
Speaker 4:She was like straight A student, like incredible athlete, like popular crowd that kind of stuff and I was just like well, I'm a little mix of both. Like I just, you know, I didn't really try, and looking back, I'm like man, I wish I would have tried a little harder in softball. Like you know, he took pitching lessons.
Speaker 2:And I was like man right, I was like I could have gone to college like.
Speaker 1:I would have done all that, but um yeah, would you say sports was like forced on you or was it something that you, we loved it? Yeah, I mean I, I'll speak for myself.
Speaker 4:I loved it. Um, there was times when I'm like, oh, I really don't want to play. But you know I'm a child, so it's fun yeah, that's where I made my friends, that's where my confidence was okay it we literally did it like that was. I used to say that was our religion.
Speaker 2:So in in high school, that's what I was going to ask you because a lot, of, a lot of young kids, uh, especially not being involved in church or having God in their life from a young age. Um, as they grow up, the sports becomes their identity.
Speaker 4:Yeah it's all they know it's, it's who they are, it's what they do well and that's kind of like how I felt, like I connected with my dad a lot too. Yeah, um, what's that?
Speaker 2:like you know, he cut out like when we made goals and we were in the newspaper, right you were like cut out the clippings and like tape them to our door, like he was so proud of us, so proud of us so like I didn't want to disappoint him in any way, right, but I also love sports too, you know um would you say he was supportive in it.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, so he showed up to every single game really no joke, like every single game. So he would go into work like an hour early so he can be off an hour early to be in our game. So in senior year my sister and I weren't on the same softball team. She was on varsity, I was on jv, and so he would like stand in the middle of the field, right, so he can see both games and we can hear him yelling you know from both, so now, as a mom and my kids are in sports, I'm like.
Speaker 4:Now I know why you stood in outfield because these umpires do not know what they're doing. I'm sorry that you're 16, but to get it together that was a strike.
Speaker 2:She's over there. That's a strike up. What do you do?
Speaker 4:I think so. My son recently threw a pitch like directly to the glove. The catcher didn't even move his hand and the kid called it a ball and I was like are you kidding me? And I was like I'm walking away this is a child.
Speaker 2:I'm walking away.
Speaker 4:This is is rec sports. Nobody's getting paid here, I'm like oh my gosh. So I get that from my dad.
Speaker 5:I'm very passionate. Yeah, yeah, you know, that's good.
Speaker 4:I'm quick. I have been in the past very quick to get angry. And you will definitely like I wear my emotions on my sleeve in a lot of that sense. Yeah, okay, but I'm also like very I didn to people about like what I was actually dealing with as a kid right closed yeah so like nobody can know anything's wrong. Everything has to be like perfect when you go out of the family, out, and you know you're representing the family.
Speaker 2:You better be doing right and not wrong you know kind of thing and so.
Speaker 4:So yeah, he was super supportive in that what about your mom? I haven't heard you mention, oh my mom, my mom's great was she yeah and I, I can look back and I'm like I'm a mom now, you know. So it's like I can see where it was good for her and it wasn't you know, but overall she's so supportive, Like she's the one that's like. Have I told you I loved you today?
Speaker 2:And I'm like yes, mom, you told me, you know.
Speaker 4:But she'll call me to tell me you love me, but also call me to tell me you love me, right, yeah, for real. So no, she was good, but she was very um. I would say like passive, like their marriage.
Speaker 4:We never heard them fight. Really, I think I heard them fight one time. I was like fifth grade and it was about money, I think, and I was just like my parents are getting divorced right, because I'm 10, I've never heard my parents fight about anything and now they're fighting like, oh, no, like, this is the end you know, and so like I don't think, I don't think I got a good example of what marriage is right which made it hard when I got married and had relationships of like oh, we're fighting, no, this is not good you
Speaker 2:know, like I must.
Speaker 4:I need to keep quiet because you know I'm gonna make you happy if you're not happy, it's gonna ruin, you know, the house basically. So there is that, but I think overall I had a really good childhood.
Speaker 3:We played outside like, had a lot of friends played sports.
Speaker 2:We got hurt you grew up in anaheim the whole time yeah, until about 20.
Speaker 4:Okay, um, I did three.
Speaker 2:I did three years over in anaheim working in a men's home. Oh yeah, we were at harbor in la palma. Okay, I was right by. Yes, that's where my my best friend my senior year lived.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, I know the area exactly.
Speaker 4:Yeah um, the place when I went I went to rehab at, and the place that sponsored me was right off of like I think it was Harbor and Lincoln, so it's like around that area to the church that sponsored me. But yeah, I went to school, I went to church with my best friend sometimes and so her parents were like they went every single weekend.
Speaker 4:They mostly stuck with like Calvary chapel based ones like some baptists every now and then, but so when I didn't have sports on the weekend in high school I was able to go. So it was one of those things like we said, like we didn't say prayers for dinner yeah right, but before we went to bed now I lay me down asleep you know that one have a drink of water, say good night, yeah, type thing. But we weren we weren't like, discouraged from going. Okay.
Speaker 4:So I, I don't know, at the end like I don't know like Make your own choice, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wasn't pushed on us. It wasn't I looking back, my dad had so much anxiety that you know like in the step studies like what's your family secret? I was like I don't know. Maybe I am the you know, but like I was, like, I think it was mental health like all the mental health struggles we had as a family
Speaker 4:and the addiction right, that was a secret. Yeah, right, and so um it was your mom and dad drinkers my dad was okay, so he would tell me like some really wild stories from time to time and so I know like he was not like okay, completely straightened right.
Speaker 5:So he joined the military and he's like, well, if we donated blood and they would pay us.
Speaker 4:And we use that money to go get alcohol because then you, you know, you get drunk faster yeah so like that kind of stuff yeah but as like a kid, I don't remember seeing him like drunk yeah right or anything like that. But he drank Budweiser like every day, to the point where, like he had gear right, I think.
Speaker 2:If you turn budweiser gear. Yes, you turn it into your receipts and you can get gears and you have like a bucket hat and like a visor. They used to have the things on the little 12 pack that you could clip them off and send them in, exactly so he did that.
Speaker 4:He's like oh freakier right and but the same thing like with marlboro so he like scoops his Marlboro Reds every day, and so these guys got a Marlboro bag one time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my dad had all the camel blankets or the towels had all that. You know it, you know it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, us too, yeah, so it was, it was like that, but it wasn't talked about. And then, at some point in time, he just stopped drinking yeah. I think it was um. I was like fourth or fifth grade, about 10 years old, and we did dare right in schools, and which I mean I laugh.
Speaker 2:I was like just say no, it's like well when all your friends are doing it, come on, man.
Speaker 4:Well, I saw that it was something on like you know, on like a reel or something. I really thought I'd be offered drugs more as an adult like you know, like they'll just say no and they're going to offer it to you. It's like, well, it doesn't really happen that way you know, but not for me at least.
Speaker 2:The company you keep Right. That's what it is.
Speaker 4:We heard that one all the time and my mom garbage in, garbage out and I was like, oh mom, oh mom, like I say it now.
Speaker 1:Thanks, mom. I say I can see it right. What do you?
Speaker 4:what you put in is going to come out, so you said a minute ago that you were in rehab at 20.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was, that's where I was going high school.
Speaker 4:You started in high school, so in high school I was very much like you guys are dumb for drinking, like you guys have to do this to have a good time. Like that's so stupid. Like I had very, very, um strong opinions about it and everybody knew where he stood on it. I wasn't very nice in high school. I wasn't like this in high school right it's pretty closed off.
Speaker 4:It was due to insecurity, yeah, you know, like that's real yeah, and so like I'm just gonna keep everyone away so they don't actually know who I am, and I'm just going to keep quiet and whatever you saw isolation uh, a little bit. But like I loved my friends, I had like a core group of friends you know who knew me but they were only getting in so far right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know, you get like two inches when there's like six inches yeah, yeah, yeah so very few people actually got in. So, what led me to rehab was I had. This is stupid. I had a breakup with a boyfriend, so it's like my first boyfriend in high school right and at the one that, like I went to, I had other boyfriends but the one that I went to he told me he loved me and then, like the day before summer graduation, he broke up with me because he partied he was known for it yeah and I didn't, and he's kind of like I don't want you to kill my vibe you know, and so I was like well, uh, it must be better than hanging out with me.
Speaker 5:So I should try it right, and then I can win him back.
Speaker 4:Yeah right, and that's not how it works.
Speaker 3:I know that now Somebody would have told me that you know, but that was my thought process on it.
Speaker 4:And so I like my, very like going.
Speaker 1:It's real. When you're a teenager, man, that stuff's real.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we don't we don't really.
Speaker 1:I mean a breakup like that is devastating and we don't want to. I mean we don't want to lose that. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Right, and we didn't have any conversations about relationships or anything like that in our family. And as far as like drugs and alcohol goes, it was don't be like your sister, and that was it so not the one right above you, but the oldest, oldest one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it was like Mine was don't be like your brother.
Speaker 4:Yeah, don't be like your sister. Why can't you be more like your other sister?
Speaker 2:you know kind of thing, and so that that was basically. I was the one they were saying don't be like rowdy. Yeah, you see that guy, don't do that. My brother and sister, they're literally walking miracles. I have no idea. It's only by the grace of god that they didn't step into addiction in that life too. It was their mom. It was their mom. Their mom raised them well, kept them right.
Speaker 4:I was in and out of prison so I know it wasn't me A good example of what not to be like. Yeah, oh yeah. They're like don't be like your father, yeah. Well, I mean, that works too you know, yeah, it did. But we didn't talk about it either way. In our family it was good or bad.
Speaker 5:Right, do it.
Speaker 4:And if you don't you better not?
Speaker 2:You know, it's just like there's more parenting out of fear than explaining why we don't do these things.
Speaker 4:And that's what it was too, you know, because I know like little bits and pieces about my dad's family, but he cuts them off Like they all got cut off, like he was cut out of the will and all of that, so I don't know anything, but I know there's addiction on his side Right of that.
Speaker 4:So I don't know anything, but I know there's addiction on his side right, and there's addiction on my mom's side of the family too, but again, we don't talk about that. Yeah, um, so I had a breakup with a boyfriend, trying to win him back, and then I ended up not playing sports my senior year because in high school, if you are a senior, you're automatically on varsity, and I didn't the coach. It wasn't a good fit and I like I wanted to play. Yeah, I don't want to just like play varsity. And I didn't the coach. It wasn't a good fit and I like. I wanted to play.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't want to just like play varsity. Be like I'm on varsity you know, I already have my letterman's jacket from soccer. I don't care about that yeah but I didn't want to play for that coach because I don't want to sit the bench. If I'm gonna be here, I want to play you know, and so I stopped playing sports. So there's my free weekends, right.
Speaker 4:And then I met I hooked up with another friend over the summer, a new kind of girl not new girl, but a new group of friends over the summer, and she was bipolar and self-medicated and was not a good example and I was just like, help me not to feel. Right, I'm so depressed over this breakup. I'm like what do you got basically? So like I got. Like help me not to feel, yeah Right, I'm so depressed over this breakup. I'm like what do you got basically? So like I got. Sorry, mom.
Speaker 2:We're laying it all out here today, Ma Well, and here's how it goes.
Speaker 4:And this is kind of like I know. My dad had a rough past because I got high and drunk on the same night and nobody should have. Let me make my own fuzzy navels at all at that point, like I've never drank before I have no idea what I'm doing, and I did that one night, but I had the wherewithal to have somebody else drive my car home. I had a 73 super beetle, oh nice.
Speaker 4:So member of Volkswagen Volkswagen you know Um so I had a 69 and a 65, oh yeah, and so I learned how to drive stick on a 71 square back.
Speaker 1:Those are, those are tricky to learn on, yeah, and they're not straight up and down, they're angled.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah yeah, I was pretty much the only one who was able to like stick it out, tough it out to learn how to drive it with my dad right, because he was a little explosive, not in like the abusive sense, but but like definitely verbally abusive right, but not physically towards me, at least you know.
Speaker 4:I mean maybe different story with the older kids because you know you're a different person.
Speaker 2:As you grow.
Speaker 5:I'm the youngest of four You're going to learn a few things by then, right, they have a unique smell.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 1:They really do. I still get them today. No, seriously, an old German car has a unique smell that you can get in one today and you can still smell that same smell. The car's 40 years old, 50 years old and it still has that unique smell to it. I love it.
Speaker 4:I thought you were talking about children for a minute. No, no.
Speaker 1:They do, they do smelled the youngest especially just have flashback I think I changed one diaper dude and it was like oh, you're true yeah jesus.
Speaker 2:Thank you, lord. So you graduate senior year and that summer you you meet the wrong crowd and you drank and you started smoking.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was actually going into senior year.
Speaker 2:Oh, going into senior year, so junior year, and graduate, so my senior year like on my birthday.
Speaker 4:I like my birthday September 2nd. On my birthday I dropped acid and like for the first time Wow. Right and then through that year of high school I still got like really good grades.
Speaker 2:But you're experimenting. But now I'm experimenting and on the weekend.
Speaker 1:So my friends have a good trip yes, it wasn't a bad one, dude, oh my god, I did it so many times and I never had a good one I have done it a couple of times, but I had it.
Speaker 4:I swore it off that that same year it was, um, oh, it was the next year. No, that same year, oh my gosh. So we um not to glorify or anything, we we I worked at disneyland. We dropped acid and went to disneyland during the holidays.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that was.
Speaker 4:That was really fun, that was really fun.
Speaker 2:All those characters. That would have been great, honey. I shrunk the audience in the very front row screaming and kicking. I mean, I'm not gonna say that I didn't have a fun time right the problem is that ends yeah, and then you're left with like the regret you know and we always made sure we had one person in our group who didn't do anything and so we were making sure you guys were responsible.
Speaker 2:We possibly could sure we had one person in our group who didn't do anything, and so we were making sure that we were safe. You guys were responsible.
Speaker 4:We possibly could while we're doing a crap. Ton of drugs.
Speaker 1:You know like well we're going to be safe about it. I was the only one that had a car, so we would drop acid and they'd always want me to drive around. So I'm driving and I had this little S10 pickup and we're driving down the road and they start doing this right and they're like dude, you got a flat tire. Oh, no, and I'm like oh yeah, I pull over, I get out, I look, I'm like no tires are good, get back in, we're driving. They're like dude it's.
Speaker 5:It got me like four times dude.
Speaker 2:Was that Mike? Uncle Mike, uncle Mike, I love you, uncle Mike they always got me, there's worse things I guess.
Speaker 4:But, yeah, so I started doing all of that. My friend actually got kicked out of school that same year around December and I did have a. Really we took the same drugs that we did months ago at Disneyland. And it was really bad, really bad, to the point where I thought I was already in an insane asylum and that's where I lived. And I just was replaying the same thing over and over in my head. It was really, really, really really bad.
Speaker 4:And so luckily it was just at her house and I was safe, she was taking care of me, but I'm like eh, never again never again, and so I never messed with any kind of like psychedelics or anything else after that. Um, but fast forward to the end of school, the end I graduated, and um, that's when I was introduced to speed, wow what are we talking here?
Speaker 2:where are we at? We're like in the early 90s, 2000, 2000, okay yeah, 2001 is when I graduated, so like june, july, kind of that's yeah when I was found, and so this is what happened before then is that we were going to see a movie.
Speaker 4:It was both. It was like scary movie or something like that. So we're like we're gonna smoke beforehand get it really funny right it's gonna be extra funny. Well, we got rolled up on and um, we got busted so I wasn't 18 yet my friend's 18. She's a known troublemaker. It was right across, it was behind a church, so we got, we got rolled up on and she's like by a cop.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, okay, she's like, it's mine. Well, I don't. I'm thinking maybe A gangster coming or something.
Speaker 5:No, I'm taking all your stuff, those Disneyland gang bangers, just like Mickey.
Speaker 4:Mouse Rolling up.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 4:I'm Ducks Bull.
Speaker 2:You know where you're at Quack, quack over here.
Speaker 5:Oh my god.
Speaker 2:This is great.
Speaker 4:How long do we?
Speaker 4:have you never know what you're gonna get yeah so she's like she's like I'll take the blame right okay she's not. She's not 18 yet either. She is known for like being the one who gets in trouble, right her parents already have problems with her she's like it's my fault, tell everyone it's mine. And so we did. And then I they had to call my mom and my dad, I think, was at work that night. He was working overnight and, um, then my dad was big into like writing us letters, especially when he was like disappointed in us right.
Speaker 4:We didn't actually like communicate like this, but he wrote me a letter of like how disappointed was this your first time getting in trouble like this. But, um, he wrote me a letter of like how disappointed was this your first time getting in trouble like this? Yeah, yeah and so then I immediately go. It wasn't me, it wasn't mine, it was her justification, yeah like like I would never. How could you think that of me?
Speaker 2:right like project project right like don't get caught yeah and so that happened.
Speaker 4:So um and then that. So just before I got introduced to speed, we got busted. So you think that would have been like okay, I'm not doing this anymore, but I was like no, on to the next you know, and so that's, and I really like that I had started.
Speaker 4:I had started college and I was able to like where you're going to college at golden west okay yeah, and so, like I was going to school, I was working part-time, school full-time and able to do all my homework. I got straight A's that first semester of college. Right, while I'm like dabbling in in crystal meth at, like it's one of those things, like I'm I'm only going to snort it, I'm not going to do it this way, I'm only going to free base, I'm not going to do, I'm only going to.
Speaker 4:I'm not going to do this, and so like I was on the track Like my friend was like two steps ahead of me. So, she's like injecting it and like doing all that stuff. And I was, so college was within the neighborhood or something. Yeah it was, you know, like 30 minutes away. We just drove and then I worked down the street at the mall from the school.
Speaker 4:But in that time and this is where I'm glad that you have tissues here In that time my dad retired, my sister moved out to go like away to college. You're not the oldest one, but the one my oldest one was already gone, okay and then so my, the one that close in age she moved out and went to like like cal state channel islands like she was away and then it was just me.
Speaker 4:So I was going to school working full time. My dad just retired, my sister just moved out and two months before I was born my dad had brain surgery. He had a shunt put in his head because he had um fluid on the brain.
Speaker 1:That wasn't a shot. I have no idea okay, so a shunt.
Speaker 4:Think of it like a, like a soap dispenser yeah like this and he had, like previous, head injuries and headaches and stuff all the time and so it was too much fluid in the brain that wasn't being pushed out, so they had to put it's called a shunt to like basically get the extra and so that was two months before I was born okay okay, and so he had um, he had smoked since he was like 14, right, and so he has health issues he can't work out because he just got all this other stuff going on with his body, like he didn't have cartilage in his hips and like just a lot of like, just random things right but he never took any.
Speaker 4:He took like ibuprofen. Like he's never taken any pain pills or anything like that.
Speaker 2:He was just really grouchy all the time and we had to be really quiet.
Speaker 4:Kids were seen and not heard and you know. But I can see why, because when I get a headache I don't want anyone taking my house, you know. And so yeah, so he had retired and then that was in, like from pacific bell yeah yeah, he's been like 43 years there yeah he's a very loyal person yeah very loyal friend but didn't have a lot of friends right um, but he, we were his life.
Speaker 4:That was it yeah like I think him and my mom went on dates twice a year, maybe, yeah, once for their anniversary and maybe for a birthday.
Speaker 2:Wow, you know, like they.
Speaker 4:Literally we were their life. They didn't do anything else um, I think that was just the anxiety in him you know, um, but he had to get some blood clots removed. So in november so, like september, everyone's all moved out all that kind of stuff my dad has to get blood clots removed. In november I had a major panic attack at school, my first one ever. I was sitting in class and I, like my, I felt like my blood was solidifying. Like my, it was turning to stone is how I would describe it.
Speaker 4:And so I'm sitting there, panicked. I'm thinking I'm having a stroke because I'm doing crystal meth and, like my blood pressure's so high, I'm having a stroke right now.
Speaker 4:That must be what's happening, right and so I go to the nurse and she tells me, like what do you have going on in your life, you know? And I told her, well, my sister moved. I'm like nothing really. My sister moved out, my, my dad retired, he's going to have brain surgery. And she's like, yeah, it sounds like a lot's going on, right? And so I ended up driving home about 40 minutes from the school and, um, just get in the driveway and just start crying. I go inside my dad's like what's wrong? What's wrong with you? Because he's never seen this before.
Speaker 4:And the meantime, like okay, to put in perspective the drug use in high school. Right now I'm about like 140 pounds. When I ended high school, I was like 155.
Speaker 3:By the time I high school, I was like 155 by the time I this point happened, I was like 130, so 10 pounds less than right now.
Speaker 4:So I've lost like 25 pounds. And then my dad used to say like where's my little girl, but where's like my bright?
Speaker 1:eye, you're pretty tall, so that's pretty skinny.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's pretty skinny and so like I was, and still like a semi-healthy weight, but it was, that was a big in one year you lose 25 pounds. You know and you're not working out, You're not like.
Speaker 1:It's called the meth diet, just so you know. Oh my God, that's exactly.
Speaker 2:We don't drink we don't eat, we just smoke meth. That's how we do, but I was one of those like I just stayed in my room and repainted my nails.
Speaker 4:I plucked all my eyebrows out. You know, I rewrote my homework, so I wasn't like, yeah, like I I love you. These are tattoos, so I like to tell people I have face tattoos, right, because that's I do I have maybe four, four hairs yeah, but you know that's, this is what it does to you right like some damage can't be undone you know that's one of them.
Speaker 5:Can I get hair implants, eyebrow implants? Maybe it's on my bucket list. We'll see what will?
Speaker 2:It's on my bucket list One day. I'll have eyebrows again. I love you Will.
Speaker 4:That's the best In heaven, do we get new eyebrows too?
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jesus, new body, new brows. Oh my God, it's the little things in life. I don't ask for much, I just want eyebrows.
Speaker 4:I don't need wings Give me eyebrows.
Speaker 1:I gave you some, you plucked them.
Speaker 4:He's like you don't have them again.
Speaker 2:Faithful with you.
Speaker 4:Oh, my God, aaron, god has a sense of humor.
Speaker 5:I want you to know that you have to.
Speaker 4:He does man. How else would you explain my life?
Speaker 1:I'm right there with you, so you weren't like a tweaker that was out doing crimes or nothing.
Speaker 4:No, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Oh she was locked in the bathroom.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was locked in my bathroom at home, like underneath my desk with a candle, with all the lights out. So nobody knows that I'm up still. Like I was very much. I did not want to get in trouble and I didn't want to disappoint my family, but like I like doing this, it helped keep my mind. I feel like I probably have some undiagnosed ADHD at this point Right, because it was the first time in my life that my head was actually clear.
Speaker 5:Like I can focus on one thing at a time and not being distracted by everything, and so like you know it brought balance.
Speaker 4:It brought balance at a certain point and then I was able to like do stuff right.
Speaker 1:I had like the there's a reason why they give those kind of kids like uh red linen stuff because it makes them right it's a balance deficiency that we have and sometimes it yeah made me. It made me crazy prescription meth, yeah, yeah, pretty much yeah and so.
Speaker 4:So that's where I was. My my dad was like okay, like where's my little girl? Yeah right wasting away. I'm like, I'm still here, dad, and so he gets. He goes in for surgery to get some blood clots removed, november 2001, and um, everything goes fine, right he? He? Except for he put on the paperwork. Mind you, he smoked since he was 14 yeah he put on the paperwork non-smoker because he quit three days before oh, jesus so I mean, anyone knows, like what the withdrawals are from nicotine?
Speaker 5:you are not considered a non-smoker for three days of your 50 something year old life.
Speaker 4:It takes time and so that's what he put on his paper. But other than that, like everything went fine. He spent a couple days in the hospital to recover and then he came home. And then, like a week later and you're supposed to take it easy, right, but my dad's like you're gonna tell me what to do you know.
Speaker 4:And so he was out like a week later washing a car because he'd wash a car every other, like switch off cars every week and he was washing a car, and so he was washing a car, I was at work, my sister's at school, and my mom pages me Beep, beep, beep, beep, call home. You know, and she pages me and I call her from like a pay phone and she's like your dad's in the hospital. So he basically had a stroke. Oh, wow. So he went back into the hospital and this was like around Thanksgiving, right? So Thanksgiving is really hard in our family now. But he went back in the hospital and basically like never came out.
Speaker 5:Oh, my God.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so he had just complications. So he had this really big shunt from like the 80s right and they're like it's not working anymore, but we can't take it out because your brain grows around it right and we're not going to just cut it out of your brain. So they put a new, smaller one in, but in that he had tubes in his head to like drain everything they had him heavily sedated and so it would drain all the stuff out as it healed.
Speaker 4:But there was times when he was coming out of sedation that he would like, literally like be in ICU pulling because his hands aren't tied down right and he doesn't know what's going on and so he's pulling. And so my dad's sense of humor you have to know. Like if you know me, you kind of know my dad's sense of humor. It was like I didn't wake up grumpy, I let her sleep in you know that kind of stuff, right, it's a very dry, very sarcastic kind of sense of humor.
Speaker 4:So we let, like the nurses know, like you know, kind of how he is. But he's in ICU and he's just pulling a few times, pulled it out and then he ended up having an infection and so they had to take, and so in this time we don't leave him alone because we're like we don't want him being strapped down and the nurses can't. There's only so many of them, and so we're taking up shifts at the hospital.
Speaker 4:The family, the family so between school and work, and how old is your dad at this time? 51 oh wow, he's still young, yeah, wow yeah, and so he was like 50, 51, 52 ish wow and so he um yeah, we're taking up shifts right.
Speaker 4:And then I'm still in like beginnings of my addiction. And so he ended up having an infection and it is taking part of its brain out, and so now he's got part of a brain missing, and so when he finally wakes up, he's not all there, he's like Alzheimer's and dementia he doesn't really recognize us, you, it was normal we call him, like you know, sick dad or normal dad, like what are we dealing with today?
Speaker 4:kind of thing he spent the lat, the next like three years, in a cycle of like hospital, rehab facility, nursing home. He'd come home for a little bit and it was just like you know, like we're just trying to keep him with us as much as possible. But when you're dealing with a six foot two 200 pound man and you're a wife who's five, five foot four, like you can only do so much you know.
Speaker 4:And then me, I'm not much help, but I am taking up my shifts at the hospital and doing that and still being a part of it. But it was really hard. It was really hard and, um, I just got further and further into my addiction, because that's how addiction works you don't have to feel.
Speaker 4:I don't have to feel. And when I'm there I kind of just am laying in the bed with my dad. I think that he thought I was my mom sometimes with it, because we look a lot alike. He was always angry with my mom. Excuse me, he was always kind of angry with my mom. So I think he kind of had the wherewithal of like you, like you did this to me kind of thing, um, and then with my sister my older sister, not my oldest um he would always make comments like uh, shoot me really, like, take me out, like just shoot me and with me.
Speaker 4:We just laid in the bed and held hands and watched old westerns you know, he was very, just like, very calm with me and just very loving and so I don't, I don't know. I don't know if he thought it was me, I don't know if he thought it was my mom. I'm I'm not sure, but in this time, like I know there's, I know there's a God, right, because I've heard about this God. What are?
Speaker 2:you at this time. 19 18 wow 18.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I graduated at 17 and then I turned 18 like just after that summer, so I know there's a god because I've heard about him yeah, been at church with your friends. I've been at church, my friends and like how can you explain the mountains?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know, like, how can you creation?
Speaker 4:and like I, I just I've never been like well, it's just all came to be like poof, it was there like right, you know the way like flowers, and their insides look a lot like our veins and like trees and your lungs like there's.
Speaker 1:How, come on, just how the veins on a leaf look like our lungs.
Speaker 4:I mean, how can you deny it, right? But I didn't know like what that looked like. And I, I, and this is what I've heard throughout my relationship with jesus is like you look at god a lot, how you look at your, your like earthly father right so for me it was like I had to earn that. What was I doing wrong? That God was doing this in my life? Right, like I'm not like you did this God. I'm mad at you, but like what did I do?
Speaker 4:yeah you know, like I see that people have their dads and they're like pardon my French like really shitty people. Yeah. Like why do they get to live? Yeah.
Speaker 4:Right, and so I'm like hey God, I was like God, like can you just like I'd be laying in bed, be like I'll quit. I'll quit, I'll get clean Like heal my dad. Heal like please just do something, because I know that you can, because I've heard stories that you can, but like okay, I'll get clean and you're gonna heal my dad right, oh wow and then I couldn't, I couldn't get clean yeah I didn't know how. Yeah, I didn't admit to anyone.
Speaker 4:My sister, my sister was like something's going on with her, because I'm at this point like two years into my dad being sick. I'm like 115 pounds there's no denying that something is going on and all other sorts of things happened at that time.
Speaker 4:Uh, my mom took me to like the doctor at one point and she's like, oh, I'm just here for a checkup. And then, um, they called my name. I was like that's funny that they're calling my name for your checkup. And then she went and got, was trying to get me drug tested and I was just like I can't believe you I'm your daughter, like how could you think this of me?
Speaker 4:and we walked out there no drug tests, wow okay, and then I that was, and then right after that like we went to the doctors and then she was sending me away to my aunt's house for a few days, um in like San Marcos area. So then she put me on a train and sent me down. But yeah, just so much like denial, like you're wrong.
Speaker 3:I can't believe you how could you say that Like you're?
Speaker 4:turned against me this and that, but I'm like full blown, I don't want to do this anymore, Like it's taken over my life.
Speaker 5:I taken over my life.
Speaker 2:I'm still going to school failing. I'm working, but at this point I've had like three different jobs.
Speaker 4:I've gotten like payday loans so I can like help my dealer get stashed so I could have it. You know, and like I didn't, I've never stolen from my mom Like. I, I did, I did take and I told her about this. I did take one of my grandma's bracelets to the pawn shop with the full intention of like, getting it back, like.
Speaker 4:I just needed money, right then and then I was going to go back and get it. And then my friend did the same thing with, like her, diamond earrings. You know like we had every intention to go back and get it. It wasn't like, I'm just going to take what I can.
Speaker 1:That's the only thing I ever besides, like spare change got it no addiction man, but like I didn't, like I wasn't raised that way. Right, we don't lie, we don't steal none of us are, but that does everything that we. It steals all your moral value we have, and it just pisses it down the drain man it really does.
Speaker 4:And then in the middle of all this I was dating a guy who um in the National Guard and so we were together all senior year and then he went away to advanced training in the summer, came home beginning of September and then 9-11 happened. So on top of dealing with my dad, my addiction, school work, now I have this boyfriend who I swore up and down that we were going to get married someday.
Speaker 4:He's now overseas in, like Saudi Arabia yeah, you know, and so now I'm missing him, and then there's all that mess. Yeah right oh yeah and so yeah um that's a lot of feelings.
Speaker 2:It was just a lot.
Speaker 4:It was just a lot, and so one day are you using meth every day? Every day. Oh wow, every day sleeping, yeah, when I got tired enough, well, like my wife could use all day and then go to bed at night.
Speaker 2:Every day, every day, oh wow, every day Sleeping, yeah.
Speaker 1:When I got tired enough. Well, like my wife, could use all day and then go to bed at night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was great. You know what?
Speaker 4:I mean, we'd stay awake for weeks, and I mean, I had to function. So too. I think there was only like a handful of times. I feel like there was one time and it really freaked me out where I was up for like three days at a time and then felt like I was delirious. I'm like we went to the beach. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5:Okay, so I'm used to it. Shut up, dad I loved it, I love shadow people. I hated it. Did you guys see that I would be on?
Speaker 4:the phone with a friend peering out my front window. Yes, there's somebody behind.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're in the trees.
Speaker 4:They're in the, the trees. My light's flaking on and off. I think they can see.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, they can see me I used to tell my wife let's go out front, look at the shadow people. Oh yeah, and she'd be like, oh my god, I'm like the demons you mean.
Speaker 4:Yeah let's go play with the demons I would.
Speaker 1:I'd go lean on the fence out there and I'd watch the neighborhood.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's real so I I never really liked weed because it made me feel out of control. It made me feel numb, like I didn't want to feel out of control in my body. And so I think that's one of the reasons I liked meth, because I felt very in control in my body. Right, I could do anything for hours. But then also like the weight loss that came with it because I did struggle with bulimia for a little bit in high school and I was like oh well, I don't have to throw up.
Speaker 4:Just do drugs, you know, and so, but that is a common thing that women deal with. And like not a lot of people talk about right.
Speaker 1:I had a lady come at me one time. Did you really lose weight on meth?
Speaker 4:I'm like, yeah, you lose weight, your car, your job, your kids, everything else too Tons you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like 2,000 pounds worth, at least it turned me out that she was even considering doing it for weight loss.
Speaker 4:And I'm like yeah, don't do that man. Well, they have Fetamine. That's what it is. Yeah, I had a friend that was on.
Speaker 5:Fetamine.
Speaker 4:I was like did you take that today and she's like I did. How can you tell I was like go away from me, literally go anywhere but here Legal dope.
Speaker 2:Well, it was my best friend.
Speaker 3:I was like please leave me alone. Go to a different party. You're triggering me, man. Go away.
Speaker 4:Well, we worked together too. So I was like go to the other side of the office. I don't have a cell phone Because I'm old and they didn't have those things available to everyone, and so I am at work. I get a call and it was like a tip off Mom found your stash.
Speaker 4:And I was like I don't know what you're talking about, man, you know, and she's like like whatever you had, mom found it. Wow, I'm just letting you know. And so I told my work. I was like I need to leave there's a family emergency right I went to I from there. I went to like uh, my dealer of sorts house and he's like, do you want to smoke? I was like no, because I'm probably gonna have have to go somewhere anyway. So I just chose not to. I'm like might as well start now.
Speaker 1:I'm not doing it. Oh wow, that's usually the polar opposite for most people.
Speaker 4:Let's just go to town it was almost like a moment of relief, of like, oh, I don't have to hide this anymore too Subconsciously right, and it's like no, I just picked up a pizza and went to his house and I'm like well, I guess I probably won't see you for a while, you know, and I ended up going home when my shift was off. You know when I'm trying to get there early, and so I walk in and I walk in, and so when you walk in the house, there's like a room right here and then the hallway.
Speaker 2:And then you have to turn a corner a little bit to get to like the living room area, and so I walk in and I go to my room and have no door.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they've taken that off, oh yeah you don't need to be in your room. Oh no, my door was locked.
Speaker 4:My door to my room was locked and I was like okay, and so then I went to the living room and it's like on the mantle we had, like this fireplace, a bunch of like geodes in it just on the mantle front and center and then my mom's. Like you know, one of these yeah, yeah cross arms dances and it was, and she's like I'm gonna give you two. At first I was like that's not mine, that's, that's my friends and this and that.
Speaker 4:And she's like I don't believe you and she's like you can um go to rehab or you can leave oh, wow but you can't. You can't stay here and you can't take your car yeah because I'm like, how you know, like I can at least take my car and go somewhere and like. So I called around to a few friends hey, like, can I stay with you? They're like no, because they all still live at home they don't, you know, they don't want that there and at this point I'm 20 years old. Wow.
Speaker 4:And so from 17 to 20 is kind of when. Your bad years. Yeah, 16-ish Right. And so I was very much on the track of like doing all the other like really bad things, like selling my body. That like if that didn't happen, I would not have stopped.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 4:And so.
Speaker 1:You have no idea you were heading in that direction.
Speaker 4:I was, yeah, no idea so I was like okay, like what's, what are my options, what are my rehab choices? And she's like well, there's a place in santa ana, right, you can go to, it's all women. Or there's this place in in paris, not france oh no, it's paris, california, california, p-e-r-r-i-s.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:A place in Paris, California, called U-Turn for Christ, associated with Calvary Chapel, California right.
Speaker 2:There's that Calvary Chapel from my childhood and I was like okay, well, here.
Speaker 4:In reality, my dealer lived in Santa Ana. I know these numbers by heart. If I go there, I'm leaving there.
Speaker 2:I'm not staying there right and then I know you made a good choice.
Speaker 4:I know Calvary Chapel and like I didn't want to do it anymore, right, but like I wasn't gonna be, like you guys were right yeah, you know I had so much shame, I was like I can't disappoint them. Now my dad's sick. Like I can't put this on my mom and my dad. She's taking care of my dad. Like what kind of person am I? Yeah right. Right man, yeah, and so Dang yeah. It was a lot, it was a lot.
Speaker 4:And then here I'm thinking I was like oh, that's my testimony. Like it's not like that great, you know. And I'm like okay, but it is. Yeah.
Speaker 4:So I go to Calvary Chapel. There's a church that we program. It was on a ranch, the. A lot of the stuff there was like um, um. We helped myriad of bible colleges in the area so when they have events we would like flip the rooms. Right there's a food bank that we would help at. We'd help on the ranch, like there was chickens and goats and stuff like that.
Speaker 5:We would go protest Planned Parenthood. That was fun.
Speaker 4:Not ideal I mean that's not the way necessarily to get. People's hearts, but One is awful because I had one recently. Then I had gotten pregnant and now my dad's in the hospital I'm doing drugs, don't want to get found out, and like I'm found out, like so found out, I was pregnant. It was with someone that I knew, but wasn't really like with yeah and um and uh, I didn't want to get found out. I was thinking like, oh, I can, like uh, give it up for adoption, right? But.
Speaker 4:I was like this is going to be like a crack baby. I don't want that to happen either. Right, I can't have my mom, I can't take care of it, I'm not gonna put that my mom, my dad's like dying. And so I ended up having an abortion and I was 19 yeah yeah and so, and then that was in like April May and then. December is when she found my stash and so, like I you know, yeah, it was, it was bad but, I mean, it's also like at that time, what I felt was the best choice.
Speaker 4:So um, but I still remember being like before surgery, being like god forgive me like in the waiting room. Like god forgive me like I know this is wrong, but like I like, I'm stuck.
Speaker 2:I don't know what else to do yeah, and so your father's brain surgery that what you're talking about?
Speaker 4:no, my, my surgery, yeah, okay, yeah, so I was like please forgive me, and so as a man, I could never imagine being in that position.
Speaker 1:I would never even try to tell a woman how to make that decision or not to make that decision, or you know, I mean yeah that's.
Speaker 4:That's a lot man when I think it would have been different if it was with, you know, the boyfriend I was with at the time. Everything would have looked all different but it wasn't. And the guy's like do you want me to come with? I was like no, like I don't even know you in that sense right. And he's like no, do you? You like, just stay away from me, basically.
Speaker 1:Me and my wife had to have one because she was really sick, yeah, and she was going to lose it anyways. Yeah, and we were on drugs and it was like $200. Yeah, and I had to rob a guy. I had to rob a guy to get the $200 so she can go get it done. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Addiction man yeah.
Speaker 4:Nothing I ever dreamed of, you know.
Speaker 2:They don't tell you about this, yeah. I want to be a drug addict when I grow up. What do you?
Speaker 4:want to be A doctor. I'm going to do drugs. You know, it just takes over.
Speaker 1:I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. For me, I just wanted to be liked. Yeah, you know what I mean. So I went and started using just because I could be around someone that might like me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I like yeah. It definitely built my confidence right, because all those like negative self-talk kind of went away. I was shy reserved.
Speaker 1:I could come out of my shell. Same and I loved who. I was when I was there. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:I didn't like the after effect, but you know, that's why, you do more Right.
Speaker 1:That's why you never go to sleep, oh my.
Speaker 5:God, you never hung over. If you don't stop.
Speaker 1:I would literally stay up so much until I fell asleep. Yeah, your body's like no, we're not, you fall out, you're done Behind the wheel of a car doing 70 down a freeway.
Speaker 2:That's scary.
Speaker 1:Stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. Yeah, wherever it was at the time, I would fall out.
Speaker 4:I did almost get caught one time I was driving home from I think it was like the library or something like that, and apparently I was going like 50 in a 40 and I got pulled over by a motorcycle cop and I'm just I'm in my bug and so I had my little contraband in like a eyeglass case right in my glove box very smart place to keep it as I get pulled over and he's like do you know why I pulled you over?
Speaker 4:I'm like I don't sir you know, and he's like you were going fit, you were speeding, you're going 50 a 48. I was like I don't think I was. And he's like are you calling me a liar? I was like no sir. No sir, I would gladly take my ticket.
Speaker 5:But I look back.
Speaker 4:I was like I just downshifted from fourth to third. I wouldn't do that 50 miles an hour, but I'm not in a position to argue with you either.
Speaker 2:So I'm like no sir you know, and so I'm like no sir.
Speaker 4:Like I almost got caught. I almost got caught like a bunch of times but by the grace of God you know he's like you can't handle jail Like you would not. Them girls are rough, well, and I'm like very much a person of like I can get along with any group, but like who would I buddy up with in there?
Speaker 1:Like so, yeah, he's like no, we're going to keep you out of there. That's not part of your story. It's not for everybody, Right? Not for everyone.
Speaker 4:So I went to rehab. I got there and like one of the things.
Speaker 2:Up in Paris? Up in Paris, yeah, and you're 20. I'm 20, yeah, is it up in Paris or down in Paris? It's technically down from where I was at but um, but uh I um.
Speaker 4:It was just before christmas and when I walked in I got like admitted it's in a like, a little like ranch house, so kind of like a manufactured home kind of deal, and then they had like 10 bunk beds in one room. We shared one bathroom, kind of thing you know, but I, um, I went in there and like laid on the couch and then all these girls started coming in and the first thing I see is these bright yellow shirts with abortion is murder on it oh, jesus, yeah because they just came from protesting and I'm just like and so I wrote in my little journal abortion is murder like this is my first experience.
Speaker 5:Like well, I guess I'm going to hell um. So then?
Speaker 4:what what's amazing, though, is that like um, okay, so I'm there, like it's around Christmas time, like man. This is my first Christmas away from my family, like we've had Christmases in the hospital before, but this is first Christmas like away from my family somebody had donated like a bunch of stuff, like like big shampoos, conditioners, like body wash, like they donate a bunch of stuff. So we came out on Christmas and like we all had a gift and it was really cool.
Speaker 4:So this place is really cool because it's like a deep dive into Jesus right, like I got a lot of Jesus really fast, like we wake up and you do the proverbs of the day and you pick, everybody picks one verse that stuck with them and then you tell them why. And then we have like a memory verse we have to memorize by the end of the night and then, if you don't memorize it, you got to write it out 10 times and try it again.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 4:Before we left anywhere, we did Ephesians the armor of God Right. And then if you didn't get sent out somewhere. You're doing. Bible study at home, right You're listening to scripture, like like sermons and stuff, online. There's no secular music. There's no talking on the phone. You can you can write letters, but they're reading and opening those letters before they come in right.
Speaker 4:And so they're there. So I'm like I'm saying goodbye to my dad right Before I leave and he's kind of kind of like a two-year-old at that point like didn't you don't really know what he's understanding or not, but gave him a hug, tell him I love him, like hopefully I see him soon yeah so I went like he was really sick and I went like not knowing if.
Speaker 5:I was gonna see him again, wow yeah, so I encountered Jesus there yeah right and there was one point.
Speaker 4:we were in service and I was like I said the prayer, I received him.
Speaker 2:I received him it was like January.
Speaker 4:I received him like a month after being there and I remember being in service and my friend that lives here. Now that I met in rehab, I was like, hey, I, I'm gonna put my hands up. Are you gonna put your hands up? Can we? Should we put our hands up? And so they were like okay, like let's do it. So we both like raised our hands and like, just like received
Speaker 2:him right and so from there, like just immediate heart change right I felt like it was like I was understanding what I was reading.
Speaker 4:I was able to like talk to with my family about it when they came to visit Like it was just a whole. What I went in there as was not what I came out as.
Speaker 1:Come on. Right.
Speaker 4:Like truly a new creation.
Speaker 2:You had the Holy Spirit with you, Truly like yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean, I don't even remember a lot of the stuff that happened there, I just know that I met Jesus there.
Speaker 4:Right, amen, and so about, like I would say, maybe a couple of weeks later after receiving Jesus, they got a phone call from my mom and it was at night and my friend, um, was up and she had she had lost her mom, um, before coming into rehab. And she's like, let me, let me tell, let me tell them. They put my dad in hospice. And um, they were like, do you want to go see?
Speaker 4:him got the offer to go see him before yeah and say my final goodbyes and I'm like I don't, I don't know, I don't know what to do. Yeah, right, because I know in my mind, like he's not there, it's not necessarily him.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna go and I'm like I don't know what he's gonna know, and then I'll be home, and then what? Yeah right, because I was very much at the point like I don't know what I'm gonna do when my dad dies, like I will probably kill myself before rehab, like I will not make it through this because he was like the best to me and he was like the only one who understood me and my you know sense of humor and I never wanted to disappoint him.
Speaker 4:I thought he was gonna live forever, you know, and so I'm like I don't know, what his name was kent clark. His name was kent Clark. His name was Kent Lane Clark.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 4:I'm not even joking, you were not allowed to call him Superman because we called him Superman one time and just like, don't ever call me that. I was like okay, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:But your dad was your Superman. I mean, that seems like he's the strongest.
Speaker 4:Nothing's ever going to get me. He hardly ever got sick. He broke his leg in like 11 places on a quad and like still like was like okay, guys, like let's wrap it up and drive home. You know like I remember him slicing his finger and it like in a catfish trying to get like the lure out, and he's just like okay, you know like yeah yeah and so that was really hard and so, like I, I said what does my said, what does my mom say, what does my mom say?
Speaker 4:Like I don't know what to do, what does she recommend? And she's like, just stay. And so I did, because I'm like you know what I go and then what I can't prevent it from happening. Yeah, right here, like I'm safe. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Right, if I go back I relapse, you know. And so I stayed, and then I got to go for the funeral um, and then I came home or came back to rehab after that, and so it was all kind of a blur and then I ended up staying like the second phase of rehab, which is like the sober living house. Right, they, they, they take whatever percent of your paycheck you have to get a job.
Speaker 4:Your job until you find a job is to find a job and like it was very like you had to go to church two or three times a week.
Speaker 2:All the stuff that you just learned in first phase. Now it's time to start applying it to your life, like go be a human Right, don't be irresponsible.
Speaker 4:Right. So from there my mom moved out from California to Arizona. So then I left rehab. I left rehab and went up to Washington because my aunt and uncle lived there, so that's where I went after rehab. I didn't come here with my mom because she wasn't ready for it. I wasn't ready for it, so I lived up there for about a year and then I moved out here. I was like mom, I want to like, I want to come home.
Speaker 2:But you'd been sober since you went into rehab.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I had been sober like a year and a half almost yeah yeah, and then I moved out here. So she's like, okay, I got a job here like petco and then I started going to medical assisting school and then I did that. Medical assistant, yeah, oh wow, yeah, so by by trade, like that's my career, whatever if you were to call that, but I don't do it now, but I still work in the medical field in a way.
Speaker 1:Um, does that stand from your love of anatomy when you were in high school?
Speaker 4:love that well, I mean when my dad was sick, like his lung collapsed, and so we had, like he had like a tube and we had to suction him because the nurse is going to get there fast enough and so I'm learning all these things too you know, and so I. So I'm like I want to do that, I want to be that for my family.
Speaker 2:Not everybody can do that kind of stuff, no, and I'm just like, well, it's my dad.
Speaker 5:I'm not going to let him choke to death you know, and so like.
Speaker 4:I'm just going to do it and I really loved it, like I love the body, and then that was just like how could you say there's not a God?
Speaker 2:you know, when you learn how your body works and all that kind of stuff. And that's real.
Speaker 4:It's just wild. So I'm sober this whole time, like I met a guy and we started dating and moving in with him.
Speaker 1:Here in Arizona.
Speaker 4:Yes, and then I worked with him, and then I moved with him for like a year, almost two years, we were together.
Speaker 2:So when you left the rehab and you go to your aunt's and then you come back here because in rehab you had a Jesus moment, yeah. When you go up north, was there any church or any Jesus up there? When you come back to Arizona, did you find a church?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I went to church up there with my aunt, my uncle, and we did like a couple of like in-home bible studies, but it's really more like I just worked and kind of got on my feet. I had like one group of one couple of friends that I worked with. Um, they his, he was Jewish, and so I got to do like Shabbat with them and stuff like that that was really cool um, but I didn't really get like, I didn't know what to do yeah, right because, like I, I got invited to go out, but I was like I don't want to be around alcohol, so I just would stay home yeah
Speaker 4:uh you know like I would hang out with the family, my uncle had six kids, so it's like we just I was basically the oldest- now of you know, over the six, and so I just helped with that. I took him to school and stuff. I was really just like it was really just family related and then I came out here and then just school work, family. We hung out in like my aunt and uncle's house a lot, cause now we had more people moving out here from the family.
Speaker 4:And um so, like I was in school, I ended up like I was still sober, but then at some point it was kind of like old, are you? 21, okay, so like at 22. So I was sober for two years basically, and then the friends I was hanging out with from school and then my boyfriend at the time drank a little here and there. So I like dabbled a little bit like Jack and Coke, like right, I didn't go to rehab for alcohol even though it's full-blown alcoholic but for me, like you found, my stash right.
Speaker 5:I'm here for crystal meth and crystal meth only as long as I don't do that, I'm going to be fine.
Speaker 4:Right. And so like I just just I'm going to dip my toe in, oh yeah. Can. I get a Malibu and pineapple and then I was like can I get like?
Speaker 2:can I get like, just give me the whole bottle of wine, will you?
Speaker 4:I'll just take it.
Speaker 2:I'll just get two street shooters before I go, I mean, you know, and that's kind of where it led.
Speaker 4:And it happens quick, man, I ended up dumping my boyfriend at the time and he wasn't a bad guy, but it was like and this is a funny part he's like we're gonna send our kids to catholic school and I'm like like hell we are you know, I'm not sending my kids to catholic school he told me at one point I couldn't take communion at the Catholic church and I was like I've been baptized.
Speaker 4:He's like you haven't been baptized. I was like I was baptized in the ocean that God created. I was baptized, you can't tell me. I can't take communion and so it was just that kind of stuff. He was like 11 years older than me too. And he kind of lived his life life and I just staunch catholic, then no, no he's just trying to control her.
Speaker 5:Yeah, just like this. What we're gonna do is like.
Speaker 4:This is not actually yeah, and so like I said you got baptized in the ocean.
Speaker 2:In the ocean, is that in rehab? Yes yes, dude, so they brought all the girls out there, all of them everybody men.
Speaker 4:Oh yes, god, they have a men's camp and a woman's camp and everyone went out and had a big barbecue Like they baptized a ton of people.
Speaker 5:I love it. Yeah, love it.
Speaker 4:No, it was amazing and so, yeah, I came out here and then just started drinking again.
Speaker 5:You know, never did drugs again Boys, boys, boys.
Speaker 4:Self-esteem. Right, that was self-esteem stuff, and I still had hurts. Yeah, had hurts. So, like our rehab, like deep dive into Jesus, but like we were talking about before this wounds and are healed and covered up Right, and so I still have all these hurts. Then I meet my husband Right, and I'm the woman of his dreams, obviously. So he proposes and, but like in between then, like we're going to church a little bit. I found it he's raised LDS, but in between then we're going to church a little bit I found out he was raised LDS and I was like, yeah, I'm not doing that with my kids.
Speaker 4:He's not practicing, he doesn't want to. And I was like, well, I'd like to start going to church and so we did.
Speaker 5:We went to City of Grace.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, at the time it was City of Grace, and then it was Hillsong, the grace he's willing to go, though he was willing to go and not the LDS, so that's cool, because we had plenty of conversations of like this is how I want to raise my kids, like I want them to have this.
Speaker 4:And then we got into the conversation. So I'm like do you really believe that you're going to get a planet? And I'm not going to go into that.
Speaker 2:But he's like, no, he's like. I don't know what I really believe.
Speaker 4:I was like well, I don't believe that and I'm not going to teach my kids that You're talking about your husband now.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you guys met when you were like 23?
Speaker 4:Well, he's significantly older than me. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:He's like four years older than me. He's an old man, but you were like 22, 23?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was like 23, 24. We got married at 25.
Speaker 5:Had my son at like 28. So yeah, you guys have been together for a while, for a while Like 16 years, 15 years.
Speaker 4:We had 15 years of marriage in. October.
Speaker 5:Praise God yeah.
Speaker 4:And honestly like this being in recovery and like healing and doing it like this is the best we've ever been.
Speaker 1:Hold on, how'd you meet him?
Speaker 2:Okay at like a friend's house.
Speaker 4:He calls it a house party. There was like 10 people there.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't, I wouldn't call that a house party, but we'll let him have his moment. Was there a keg? No, it wasn't a house party.
Speaker 4:Somebody's house who there was alcohol, so he walked in. I'm telling you guys, like he is, like he's it for me. So I have never double-taked on a man ever. Like, oh, like they're cute, okay, but he walked in and it was like winter, so he had like a black hoodie on and he had a beanie on and he has like a baby face. He didn't have this beard that he does now, which I love but he had he's just a baby.
Speaker 4:Right and I look at him and I go and I double-take him. And then from then, we've just been inseparable right and I'm an idiot. So this is I don't know how to act around men at this point or ever in my life, and so I like write him this like childish, do you like me?
Speaker 2:yeah, you wrote the letter, just like your dad the letter. Yeah, you said earlier, if you've known me and you met me, then you know my dad. Yeah, oh, wow dude, so I. Pull out the old letter game Slip, give it to my friend. Circle yes or circle no yes.
Speaker 4:I gave it to my friend to give to him.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 5:Because, again.
Speaker 4:I'm ridiculous at one point during the night before. I did all that I like changed from, like, my going out outfit because we were at a bar earlier. So I changed into my pajamas because his friend was kind of like giving me weird vibes. So, I went and changed and then he's like why'd you change? You looked cute. And I was like I still look cute you know, and he was like OK.
Speaker 4:And so that we just then from then on, like I could show you guys like the very the picture of when we first met, and it was just like you could see it, my friends were like sparks were flying right and so then, like we end up like dating it was like a loose dating. I was like hey, like kind of like um conversation at a certain point a couple months after. Like hey, like, because we were both like we don't want a relationship, like he just got out of a really bad like toxic one and I just got out of one.
Speaker 4:I'm just trying to live on my own for the first time, my whole entire life right, and be good, so I was like hey, I just want to make sure that you're not like seeing anyone else. Right, I didn't put it for the sake of being proper here that's not how I put it, but that's the idea I want to make sure I'm the only one yeah, and if I'm not at any point like please let me know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right, because I've been burned in the past. And so he's like, yeah, yeah, and so we were very much like I don't want a relationship, okay. And then we spend like new year's eve together and then, like a month later, he's like hey, I like I like you. And I was like yeah, I like you too, bro.
Speaker 4:And he's like no, I like really, really like you, and I'm like I really like you too you know, and then maybe, like a couple weeks later, we went to um bugarama right because bugs right so we're watching the track races and we're up at the top and he just so you love the dune buggy yes all of it I was like, hey, I've never lived without a volkswagen. So like I'm all for it yeah, you know like, maybe not buying like one every other year would be nice, but like that's his thing, and I love him for it right like you got your own money to spend just don't dip into the family funds you know um, and so there's worse things, right, he can spend his money on.
Speaker 1:That's right. When you guys took the dune bug out, did you have fun? Yeah, that thing is so sick man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was so fun. Did you do the exhaust? Nice bro, yeah.
Speaker 1:I got to rip it around the parking lot oh nice.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I got to drive it too which is funny when I would go and I'm like I know nothing about cars, but I know Volkswagen yeah. Right, and I know how they're supposed to sound. Yeah. And I know how they're supposed to smell, yeah Right, and so we get in and I'd be like this doesn't sound right, like this isn't running right. And he's like well, what is that? I was like well, it shouldn't make this whatever.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 4:And I and he'd be like, okay, sorry.
Speaker 5:My wife says no, that's good but.
Speaker 2:I mean I've had Volkswagens my entire life, you've been in them, you know your experience.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and so it's been fun with that and he was always like, yes, like one a Cali girl, because he always wanted a Cali girl right. And then, now that I love Volkswagens too, he's like what more could he ever want in? And so living the dream for him. I'm so excited for him.
Speaker 1:Don't you guys have a bus?
Speaker 4:No, no, mm-mm, I thought I saw a bus at your house.
Speaker 1:Oh, our friend has Does it, yeah, all right, I thought I saw a bus when I went to go look at the dune buggy.
Speaker 4:Oh, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2:Maybe, yeah, our buddy does, I'd like one and like spun.
Speaker 4:Like he was kind of like T-boned a little bit this lady's coming out of the parking lot. When I was in sixth grade this is when my OCD started, sixth grade I know the exact moment of seeing my dad's bus like on its side. So this lady hit him coming out of a parking lot. He tipped over and then spun.
Speaker 2:A Volkswagen bus? A bus, no, it was a Westvalia it was a camper bus.
Speaker 5:Oh wow, yeah. And so he's like just spinning right. Wow.
Speaker 4:Then from there they're like you got to get to soccer practice.
Speaker 2:I was like I just saw my dad spinning on the ground in the bus. I literally like see a bus.
Speaker 4:My dad's like get in the car. We got to drop you guys off. At practice we're like what?
Speaker 1:Sports is pretty important. Those things go for good money right now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can get a beat-up one for $20,000, $30,000.
Speaker 4:I know you got to go to California to get a, a really nice one for like $80,000. Yeah, they're better prices in California.
Speaker 1:Are they yeah?
Speaker 4:That's like the one thing that's better priced in California.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because there's just so many out there everyone oh nice had the uh, the sliding door or something on the on the wrong side oh and it was like a unique, like you'll never find one again, kind of thing yeah and dude wanted so much money for it was crazy because I mean you know what you have at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, yeah there's a house out by where we live in santan dude has like four or five of them in the driveway. I drive by it every day and I'm like give me your address I asked him dude. I told him when I get this shop?
Speaker 4:dude, I'm getting me a fleet of volkswagens yeah, well, now he has my son all hooked on like buying and selling things. He's had a quad, he's at a sand rail, he's got another quad, then he has a go-kart. Now he's selling, wants to sell a go-kart to get a mini bike. He literally just picked up a little shell of a mini bike today. It's like a. Google Buddy or something like that. I want a square back. I want a square back.
Speaker 1:Those things are so sick.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:My buddy had one when we were kids Brian on acid, and the throttle linkage broke.
Speaker 4:Oh no.
Speaker 1:So I'm sitting in the back seat holding the throttle and I'm like are you ready, let's go. I'm like what? He's like let off what.
Speaker 4:I was a blast Shifting oh my gosh. I was working the throttle oh I love it.
Speaker 1:And while he was shifting Right, yeah, it was unique While frying on acid.
Speaker 4:It was pretty crazy. Oh, like 18 right I'm driving the square back because we would switch off days, so it was like 11 o'clock at night. I'm driving the square back and this like uh, sports, whatever, like it's civic whatever it was at the time right, he pulls up next to me and he's like you know, he's a racer.
Speaker 5:You can tell that he races put it in neutral.
Speaker 4:I look at him and I rev the engine and he just laughs but I beat him off the line, and so that's all that matters some.
Speaker 1:Some of those things are quick. You get like a 1250 or a 1280 in there those things are spanky.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, you can make it go as fast as you want. Yeah, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:I could talk about those wagons all day.
Speaker 2:You could talk about cars all day.
Speaker 4:Well, come over for dinner and keep my husband company, I'll go shopping or something. It'll be good.
Speaker 1:What's the other one? That's not the car-looking one, it's not the square back, but there's another car-looking one A hatchback. It's called a hatchback. Is that what?
Speaker 4:it is, there's a hatchback. Yeah, it's kind of short, bubbly-looking, maybe it's a notchback. I like those two. Yeah, the only thing I don't like is a car.
Speaker 1:Have you seen the Carrero Carrero Cabrero, volkswagen Cabrero have you seen those. It's like a different version of a rabbit, but it's called a Cabrero.
Speaker 4:Oh, I'll have to look that up. Yeah, look that up. I feel like you're making that up. No, I'm serious. No, I'm serious, no, I'm serious?
Speaker 1:Yeah, look it up, I think.
Speaker 2:Okay, Try me so where you've. You are living here. Your family's all moving here. Yeah, you meet Will at a party. Yeah, and you guys are inseparable. You guys are just two peas in a pod.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh, because we're at the drag races and he looks over. This is kind of a funny moment for us and it's like an inside joke and we'll let you guys in on for us and it's like an inside joke and we'll let you guys in on. So he tells me like I love you and I was like whoa, okay, he's like I love you too, and then he says I'm not gonna tell you every day.
Speaker 2:I was like okay oh wow, you do you you know, yeah, I don't know you got that every day from your mom right, but literally like five or six times a day yeah, for the rest from that moment on.
Speaker 4:Good morning, beautiful. I love you Like.
Speaker 2:It's literally like love bombs all the time Right and so it's kind of a funny thing like at our wedding, or, like you know, I love you.
Speaker 4:I'm not going to tell you every day, though. Yeah. So like don't expect that, I'm not that kind of man you know.
Speaker 2:So it's just that kind of man.
Speaker 4:He's just yeah, he's a very he's very free with his love towards me. So Amen, amen, yeah, yeah. So we're, you know, we're just kind of living life.
Speaker 2:We're partying together and working and when you say partying no, using drugs, just drinking no.
Speaker 4:And he like he's.
Speaker 2:When you went to rehab. Was that the last time that you used drugs? Okay, yeah, all right. And so he. Um, well, I've had like an edible like one time. You know that's a lot different than meth right.
Speaker 4:So no to that I was actually out one time I was out one time and we used to hang out with like comedians and a lot of them are like total cokeheads. You know, and so we're hanging out and I was. I was just a little gone and somebody offered me some and I was like I don't do drugs and they're like I'm like literally falling over you know, drunk. I was like, oh, I don't do drugs, so anyways.
Speaker 2:Have another drink.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 5:I'll drink all day long. I'm not doing that, yeah.
Speaker 4:It's like meatloaf. I'll do anything for love but I won't do that. No, but I yeah, so he's, but he's like a pothead right, so he's awake and bake. He's like all day long, since he was like 14. And you'll have to have him on to hear his whole story.
Speaker 1:Is he from Arizona?
Speaker 4:He's from California. Oh is he. Yeah, huntington, and then moved out here and then up to Utah and then back down here, All right, so yeah, he does that. So he'd offer. I'm like hey, like I'm cool, like I don't do that, like I went to rehab I don't do that, but like I'm not going to tell you you can't you know, and so.
Speaker 2:Well, you said earlier that weed made you feel completely out of control.
Speaker 4:It just wasn't for you. Yeah, no, I don't like the way it makes me feel.
Speaker 2:It was kind of like hey, you do you, buddy, I'm good though, yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm going to tell you you can't, but I'm too much of a smart mouth, and so weed dumbs me down right so how can I be funny when I'm dumbed down?
Speaker 2:I won't do it.
Speaker 4:I have standards, you know. So he's he's doing that and I'm drinking, and you know. We ended up getting married. We had a dry wedding, but then we went out to like graham's central station afterwards for trash 50 cent drinks right.
Speaker 4:Well, because all of our friends are like alcoholics, right, so I was like we are not. We cannot afford to have these people at our wedding and so we'll just like have our wedding. It was like three o'clock and at seven we go to the bar, and so that's what we did, and you know just nothing too crazy yeah right and we play pool a lot we.
Speaker 2:That's pretty much all we did what are you guys in your middle 20s at this point? Yeah, until late. Yeah, so, um, then we move out of our town home at the time?
Speaker 4:no, it was an apartment. We move out of our townhome at the time. No, it was an apartment. We moved our apartment into a townhome and then our plan was to be married for a year before we tried getting kids Because we want to establish. And here's the thing about marriage is that it's totally different than living with someone yeah right. So I lived with will before we got married, because we are heathens yeah and so we, we're sinners, heathens, and we live together aren't we?
Speaker 4:all married and but like then, we got married and, like it, there was a shift right and I can't really explain it, but if it's kind of like, this is it because I, we don't do divorce in my family. That's one of the things. He asked my, my mom, my sisters for my hand and they were like be sure, because she's a forever kind of girl.
Speaker 4:I tell him there's two, there's three ways out of here yes you, you cheat on me, you beat on me or you die, but if you do the first two, consider yourself dead right like those are your ways out otherwise like we're in it and we're doing this and so and it's hard right, but like we.
Speaker 2:That's the commitment like we both made till death.
Speaker 4:Do us part and so in the beginning I'm like, what did I do? Because we were like arguing a little bit more. We had a roommate at the time and it was just kind of like a shift in the beginning of the marriage, the beginning of the marriage. So sometimes I was like oh, my gosh, what did?
Speaker 2:what did I do? What did we do?
Speaker 4:You know, like this is it, Like it was real rocky for a little bit.
Speaker 2:Would you say that the first year of marriage was the hardest.
Speaker 4:I would say yeah, from a lot of people and like nothing really changed except for on paper right, except for the vows, and like we made our vows in front of god.
Speaker 1:And like the covenant it's that commitment like yeah, and so it's one thing to commit to a relationship, it's another thing to commit to marriage this is my whole life right, and if you make the wrong choice like that, you're in it. You know, and so I'm the same way I always said I'd only be married once yeah, and and. I'm still only married once.
Speaker 4:I mean I joke at my second, like my second wedding but, my second wedding will be like just a renewal of vows you know, so, no, we got almost a year in and then we're just like I ran out of birth control.
Speaker 4:We're just kind of like F it, like it is what it is. And then, literally, two weeks later, I was pregnant. Literally like two weeks later, I was pregnant. Wow. And so on our anniversary, we went out to California and I was able to tell him before we left. I put like a I think I did it in a card and I handed it to him before we left the house and he like dropped to his knees and was just crying because he was so happy right.
Speaker 4:And so he didn't have like a very good example of what a father is right, and he, but he's always wanted to be one Right. And so he's living from, and we've talked about this before the example of what not to do and so he's in the space of like I'm not going to do that, but like, what does it actually look like? And I will say he was not the best husband during my first pregnancy. Yeah, because he nothing changed for him yeah right, I'm the one who can't drink more coffee I'm the one who can't drink alcohol like you, still get to go out do you?
Speaker 4:bro but then you know like we played softball on the time when we were on a men's league together I was playing third base for a men's team when I got pregnant and he was like you can't play and I was like like hell, I can't. And he's like no, you can't play. What if you get hit in the stomach? I was like I have played softball I've never got.
Speaker 4:For 15 years I've never been hit in the stomach with a ball like and, but he was adamant and out of respect for him right I. I was like, fine, it won't play, but then he still got to right and so nothing changed for him.
Speaker 4:And then it was very much. He didn't have the example of what it looked like to be an involved dad. And so now I'm with a new baby and it's two months. Like I took my two months maternity leave, I worked as a medical assistant. I worked 50 hours a week up until, like, my water broke. Like my water broke in the morning of June 9th and I called in to work. Be like I'm not coming in today. My water just broke. So like I was just working.
Speaker 4:We moved, Okay. So we bought a house Like we moved in two weeks before my son was born and that was all God. We had zero money.
Speaker 4:This is at like the crash right Of of the housing, like everything's super cheap and we're like we have no money for a down payment, like we are just trying to pay people back for our wedding yeah, no money. His dad gifted us some money for a down payment and my mom gifted us money for a down payment and we found a house. Everything in our price range was like literally garbage, like there's no way we're moving in here in this situation with the newborn, okay, so we looked at a house across the street from where we're at and we walked in and I am not.
Speaker 4:I cannot, this is not an exaggeration. It smelled like human feces in there like it was I can smell it right now how bad it was and I'm like seven months pregnant and I was like nope, not doing it.
Speaker 4:he's like we could. Bad it was, and I'm like seven months pregnant and I was like, nope, not doing it. He's like, but we can clean it. I was like, no, absolutely not. Then our realtor was like there's one right across the street right, and so we go look at it. It's literally remodeled like completely flipped. It's got like a newer roof, a newer AC, brand new carpet, new paint on the walls, and he's a painter right.
Speaker 2:And it's in your guy's price range, it's in our price range.
Speaker 4:It's actually like we made an offer, they countered, but then it only appraised for what we offered, but then so they couldn't ask for more than what it was appraised at.
Speaker 2:So we paid what we offered.
Speaker 4:Plus they paid like closing part of the closing.
Speaker 2:That's a God thing, that's a total God thing, because our lease was put you in this new house, so our lease was up in like may right.
Speaker 4:Our lease was up at the end of may and we moved in like two weeks to the point where like which worked out for perfectly for me, because I'm like nesting, so I like work 50 hours, come home back all the house like I'm like let's go you know, and so that was amazing, wow.
Speaker 4:But then, on the flip side of that, like I'm I'm a new mom, it was very hard to like, nurse him everything. Everything was hard and I, like I've wanted to be a mom my whole life, like will used to say like you have a kid magnet like literally anywhere I go, kids are like like right on me and it's just because I give them the time of day right, I make eye contact, make them feel seen and heard and they're fun because kids are like just fun little things.
Speaker 1:It gives you a chance to be a kid again, right and?
Speaker 4:I'm like I can't. I don't take myself too seriously when. I'm in a group of kids. Right when I'm with adults. I'm like oh, I gotta put on my big girl pants and you know, be normal for a minute, but when I'm with kids it is fair game, right and so um. I forgot where I was with that.
Speaker 4:I just love kids, so I've always wanted to be a mom, right and and. But I also found a lot of like just how, with sports, that was a lot of my identity. My work became a lot of my identity too. So I was very adamant of like I am going seeing my mom go from not ever having to deal with finances and not really working full time in her like married life Right To having to do all that.
Speaker 1:All of that Was really an eye opener.
Speaker 4:And I was like I'm never going to let that happen. Wow. So cue control. Yeah. Right Out of fear, and so I'm like I'm never going to let that happen. I'm going to have I'm'm gonna be two years in my career before. I get married and I was, and then I was gonna like have that established before I did anything else because I'm not gonna have my husband die and not know what to do, okay, and so I'm going into this like marriage, of like at some point my husband's gonna die so I need to prepare for that.
Speaker 4:Now, right, and but that's an underlining thing that I've found through recovery is I can't live in that fear.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 4:That has prevented so much um relational damage, because I'm like I'm only going to let you in so far, Right, Cause I'm just I can't trust on you and lean on you too much, because you're just going to die and then I'm going to be here trying to pick up the pieces so. I'm just going to be in charge and I'll tell you what's what?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:So our roles got kind of like flipped Like. Even now I still do the budget, but that's just because I'm better at budgeting.
Speaker 1:How long did it take you to recognize that trauma? Oh, gosh, hmm, I mean that stems from your dad dying.
Speaker 4:That was recently.
Speaker 1:Now you're in your marriage and you see it taking place in your marriage.
Speaker 4:So, like my first step, study. So 12 years into marriage, almost Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so your first 12 years of marriage, you dealt with this fear of just wow. Yeah, Really.
Speaker 4:And so. But then there was like now I'm felt like the sole provider of this child, right Like he was working as um he was. He's a painter right like a commercial and industrial painter at the time and so long hard days. Especially our son was born in the summer.
Speaker 4:He's getting up at like 4 30 and so I was very much like I'll get up with him because you had to get up early, but then I went back to work yeah and so we had this battle of like well he, he does physical labor all day, he needs to sleep at night and I'm like I deal with people's lives Not to be traumatic, but you know, like it wasn't like a life or death situation, but like I'm dealing with, I'm walking around all day long at work. I don't sit down and I'm dealing with like mental and physical right and emotional because people are coming in.
Speaker 2:They're sick, they're tired, they're scared and they're taking all out on you, and I was like bro.
Speaker 4:I need sleep, you know, and so we fought with that and I felt very alone and I felt like my son was the only thing that I had wow like eventually, like we'll just like be apart, but my son will always be here.
Speaker 4:You know, I was very alone. I was very. I think I had like postpartum yeah, like it was more than the baby blues, and that was really hard because I'm like I've always wanted to be a mom and it's supposed to be so easy, like I see people having it so easy and I'm like I'm just not. My sister had a baby the year before, two years before, and like I saw her struggle a little bit and so I could talk with her, but I was just like I didn't want to leave my house. Everything was really hard. I couldn't like I felt like I had to do it all. Like I went to work, I took care of the baby and I cleaned the house and I made the meals and I did the grocery shopping on my days off, which was Wednesday and like I did, everything right and he just kind of like whatever you and Will struggle with communication.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, all the time yeah, but like we talked a lot before we had kids, but it was kind of like it was one of those things where his needs aren't being met, because I'm tired and overwhelmed and stressed, and like my body changed and like you know, I'm not meeting his physical needs, which is really important for a man. And then he's not meeting my emotional needs. Because his needs aren't being met.
Speaker 2:And at some point, like something's got to give.
Speaker 4:And so it's like I would be like asking for help, and then he'd be like well, what about me? So it was one of those things of like. I just need help with the dishes, bro, and he's like I did the dishes one time. Why aren't we getting in the room? You know it's like no, but you did it one time.
Speaker 2:Like it's not a tit for tat.
Speaker 5:You do the dishes, you know you get some. You do the dishes, you get more.
Speaker 4:But in his mind, that's what it was Like you think of, like the importance of being physical with your wife and your spouse and you're holding a lot of identity and self-esteem in that and your wife is not reciprocate, reciprocating yeah, that. And like his self-esteem dropped, so, and then he misses me. So he would be a complete jerk and take it out of me. And then it turns out, oh, he just misses me so then, we'll do a date night and it's just just kind of like you know the circle of insanity all the time, and so then, fast forward.
Speaker 4:We're like, hey, everything's going okay. I ended up losing my job, which is such a God thing, like I was at this place that was really toxic for like six years and I hated it. I absolutely hated it and I was like, okay, god, and we're like back at church a little bit in this time, but like when, when my son was born, church was right at his nap time yeah, and so I didn't want to interrupt his nap time and so I'm not going to church, right?
Speaker 4:and so I'm like back and forth with God still drinking still drinking yeah, but not, as like I stopped like drinking during the week and just kind of binged on the weekend right because I still have my son, like we still gotta like take care of, like do things like I can't be that right like I have too much to do to just be drunk all the time meanwhile we'll be surprised we'll be like this is stressful.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna go take a minute. In the garage I was like okay, that's nice, go hit the bong his take a minute is like I'm just gonna go zone out okay, get my mind right.
Speaker 2:This is a lot.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's too overwhelming and then I'm sitting here like must be nice.
Speaker 5:You know, like where's my outlet? That's real though.
Speaker 4:You know that's real and so, but that's still like the needs communication all that kind of stuff that we should have established before we brought a baby into it, you know. It doesn't work that way sometimes and so. I ended up losing my job, being let go and then getting severance.
Speaker 5:And this is a place like I. They maybe signed like a thing that I couldn't sue them right and they're like kind of thing, not an NDA or anything but like you can't sue them.
Speaker 4:We're going to give you like a month's severance this place. I was the only person in six years to get a raise every single year, and it took three people to take over all of the things that I was doing so like why did I? Get fired, right but but god right so I'm like I'm gonna trust this. I stayed home for like a little bit and got like unemployment and stuff for about six months. Eli is like three or four. Three, he's three.
Speaker 2:Three-year-olds are like three majors yeah, yeah, three they're terrors yeah, right, like they say terrible too, but three is like I'm gonna I thought we were done with this.
Speaker 4:No three and four, nobody prepares you for that three and four I would imagine like a lot of teenagers are gonna be the same as they were at three or four yeah. Yeah Like wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I just, I have no words for it other than like just Well, they say up to five is like their crucial times of development.
Speaker 4:Which is great, because I totally messed that up for my size.
Speaker 1:So they're learning themselves and their character and their personality. Yeah, oh yeah. You're the best dude. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:No, but like, and also, kids don't understand sarcasm, yeah, and so I'm over here going oh, he's the worst, right, and he's like oh my gosh, the worst.
Speaker 4:So now my son has like anxiety, you know, and I was like oh my gosh, like you're gonna need like your own recovery just from like the first 10 years of your life but we do, we have that conversation of like hey, hey, man, like I did it wrong and I'm so sorry, and like I will help you through this, but like I did it wrong, I did a lot of things wrong, amen that's amazing that you're able to have that conversation things my parents did wrong and not a single apology yeah right, hello somebody right and so I'm we're very much like I'm gonna apologize when my kids to my kids, when I'm wrong because, it's not like what I say goes right
Speaker 5:and I don't want them getting into a relationship in marriage come on, man put up with that, because it's not how it is right and so I lose my job, will ends up um breaking his hand, his right hand.
Speaker 2:So this is, oh, his painting hand, his painting hand, praise God. Okay.
Speaker 4:Praise God, so he breaks his hand. Is it the punching machine? How hard can I punch Right? It's like two days before. It's the day before New Year's Eve.
Speaker 1:He broke it on the punching machine.
Speaker 4:He broke it on a punching machine.
Speaker 1:He just went through, like his reach is like an eagle's like an alcatraz just so long right
Speaker 4:and it just went right through and you can see like the bump on his hand. I was like, can't you push it back?
Speaker 4:he's like I tried and so like he's at the hospital two days before and all I'm thinking, all I see, is dollar signs right because I'm like deductible, like we, just like we owe for this, the kid we don't even own, yet like it was just like deductible, and then this and that and so that was a wild ride, but it ended up being paid for the all the surgery by, um, the place he had it at, the pool hall because they have insurance for these kinds of things. So the whole thing was covered and I ended up getting a going back to work, getting a job at that time because I'm like, hey, like if you can't work, I need to right.
Speaker 4:And then he was able to do. He's such a rock star. He never asked once for like help tying a shoe. He never is like, hey, can you help me out in the bathroom here? He's just everything with this left hand. I'm like.
Speaker 4:I don't. Even I can carry a grocery bag. Yeah, I can hold my phone oh yeah and I can hold a child right, that's all my left hand is good for right but he did it all. He still worked yeah like they've just found work for him, so he was not out of work maybe for like a couple weeks, while he was like whatever and just took like ibuprofen, because that's what helped more like didn't even take the pain pills and stuff like he's a rock star so then I'm back at work and then we're kind of at this point where like, hey, you can get me a baby, or you can get me a puppy.
Speaker 4:And then he's like, okay, like let's get a puppy. And then we hit that spot again hey, you can get me a baby, or you can get me another puppy. And he's like, oh, he kind of did it to me. He's like I'm kind of ready. He's like I'm getting older, I don't want to have a kid when I'm too old. And I was like I hate to bring it to you, you're not having the baby, I'm having the baby, right, like this doesn't change for you at all sir so we decided that we're gonna have another child, and so we did, and then, from then, I was able to just stay home.
Speaker 1:He got was he better on that one much better yeah much better.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and just knowing, like just knowing, I didn't have to like do I didn't have to be super mom and super woman and knowing I wasn't going back to work, so I didn't have the stress of that Eli started kindergarten and so then he was whole or he was gone, so I had like downtime, one-on-one with my daughter was able to sleep and stuff, and that that part of it was much nicer.
Speaker 4:I knew what was coming, hormone wise of like just the drop and like the sadness of it. But I was able to nurse her and so like that was a lot less stress and I just knew what was coming. Yeah right, because I like I I've been through it. I know that this is going to be hard. I had a c-section with her. I was put on bed rest two months before she was born and so that really like humbled me a lot. I'm telling my doctor she's like you have to be lying down. I was like, can I vacuum? She's like you have to be lying down. And I was like, can I fold laundry? She's like, if you can lie down and fold laundry, then you can do it. And I was like, oh, this is gonna be really hard because I'm a people pleaser and you're taking everything that I do come do away from me.
Speaker 4:You mean I can't do any of it. So I'm just going to sit here watching TV and I felt like useless Right, Because I'm like now it's on Will and that's not his job, he's the provider even though I'm still working full time, right, like it was all messed up. So then Ellie gets a little bit older, and she's just so she's fun, we call her our honey pull through.
Speaker 1:What's that? Did he pull through for you? Yeah, he did really good like he did really good.
Speaker 4:I had some friends like drop off, like meals and stuff for us and we had a lot of of help come on too, and it was just like, it was just different, and I just felt I was in a better place mentally. Our marriage was in a little bit better place too. It's the stuff that we had to go through. But I was feeling like still alone, right? Because now I've lost work and all my friends there, nobody's coming to visit me, right? They? Only want to see the baby and I was just alone again.
Speaker 4:And I'm not good alone.
Speaker 2:I will isolate and I will do things I'm not supposed to be doing, like drinking Right.
Speaker 4:And so the second that Ellie stopped nursing I was um drinking again like 10 o'clock in the morning Some days. Like Eli at that point could like walk himself to school, so I don't even need to leave, right, he's just like on his little bike or a scooter just going around the corner to school and there was a girl across the street who was like 20 years old and we just would drink. I would sew like um, I got like a little side gig sewing some like rv screens with my mom, um, so I do that, and then, once I was done with that, I just start drinking.
Speaker 4:I'm not going anywhere right, and so it's just like every day. Every day was a drinking day and um, it was awful, yeah, you know like I should have had so much joy, and I did. My kids are wonderful. But, like, what am I doing, right? And so I was invited to. I was kind of like I don't want to do this anymore. God right, like I know there's something more for me. I don't want to feel this way.
Speaker 1:Are you guys still dabbling in church a little bit, or not? Really, not really no.
Speaker 4:No, because just life. Yeah, right Cares of life man Well, and we would work during the week and party on the weekend. We're not going anywhere Sunday, you know.
Speaker 2:We're recovering Right. We got to get ready for Monday, that's right.
Speaker 4:And so yeah.
Speaker 5:So I had a friend invite me to her mom's group and I invite me to her mom's group and I was like, no thanks, I don't do other women things Like. I know how women are. They're catty.
Speaker 4:They're only out for themselves, right. And so, um, she invited me like a few times and I didn't know this at the time, but she like heard from God, like, hey, you got to invite her. So I hooked up with this girl through, uh, like a mid-level marketing company I was with, so she was like in my neighborhood and like that's how we got connected. I was trying to do a side hustle, right, and then God kept telling her like you got to invite her, you got to invite her, so she did. And finally, okay, she invited me to like a movie night.
Speaker 4:Oh the women's are doing a movie night. They showed the movie priceless. I don't know if you've seen that one. It about a guy who rescues a girl from human trafficking and it's based on a true story and it's kind of like how God rescues us right, and so I'm like sitting here.
Speaker 4:I'm sitting here and this movie is great, and they had discussion. They made it really cute like popcorn, like little candies and stuff. It was really inviting and I was like, okay, like this is nice. So like I felt really comfortable there. I was like this okay, like this is nice, so like I felt really comfortable there. I was like this is great, I'll check out your mom's group. And that was at Central Mesa campus, and so I joined the mom's group and then I ended up like just being like oh my gosh, this is exactly what I needed.
Speaker 2:Right People. God just sends me people Right. Sent me a person in rehab to help get me through.
Speaker 4:My dad. He sent me my best friend that got me into, like introduced to church, right, and so he sends me people constantly and um, so I went and I, I just told will. I was like hey, like, um, I am feeling like I need to get back to church. That's the missing piece for me.
Speaker 4:And so then I like stopped drinking during the week and just did like the weekend kind of things, because now I'm like getting filled a little bit more Like my cup is getting filled, I'm having friends and getting an outlet, um, but I was like hey, I'm not isolated anymore, right and I was like hey, I'm going to go to church and like you can come or you can stay home, like I'm not going to force you to go but, like I'm taking the kids.
Speaker 2:The kids the kids and I will be at church on Sunday, so if you'd like to go, this is where we're going to be well, at the beginning of the earlier before, before you got married to him, you said that I'm raising my kids in the church and he was good with yeah, it not being LDS yeah, so now here we are at that very moment, yeah.
Speaker 4:And so I was like, hey, I'm going to take the kids to church because I'm missing. But he was like football's on Sundays, I knew it. Yeah. So he's like, well, like he would go unless the packers were playing, you know which is fine right, which is fine because I'm like hey, this is for me, it's not for you, right?
Speaker 1:how old are the kids?
Speaker 4:um, I think ellie was like four and one one and a half and then like five and a half nice, all right, yeah they're five. They're five years apart. Six and a half yeah.
Speaker 1:They're five years apart, all right, and so yeah, so your youngest is walking and moving around and stuff. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, she had like hip dysplasia when she was born, so she ended up being in like a brace.
Speaker 5:Oh, wow.
Speaker 4:Okay, this is right. You see those kids they have kind of like overalls and their legs are in it. Yeah, so before that, I feel like God likes to prep me for things that are coming for the future. Before that, my sister was babysitting like years before, like four years before.
Speaker 4:She's babysitting a little girl that's in that brace, oh my and so I watched the little girl one time, so I've already learned how to like change the diaper and stuff in it, then fast forward. My little girl has that like how is that not god? Right, yeah he's like okay, you can do this, because you've already experienced this right so she was in a hip brace for um like six months, and then out of it for six months and then in it again for six months.
Speaker 1:So she learned how to walk in a hip brace she's like a little goblin that's just where the bone's not set in the hip.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so like it will come out of the socket easier. And so, but she's fine now.
Speaker 2:Like you never would have known.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so praise God. But yeah, that was a hard, that was an adjustment too. Cause now I'm like, okay, I feel a different, like lie down comfortably in this thing so that was an adjustment too. And um, but I never felt like, oh, I failed my daughter Right, like it was just, like it is what it is. Like she was, she was breach and this was what happens, and I can do this because I've done other hard things already Right. So so we're back at church, right, and I'm just praying like what.
Speaker 2:What church are you guys at Central? Okay?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we've been there this whole time and so we're at church and I'm just praying in the meantime Like I'm doing like a book study with my mom's group and I forget what it's even about. But I've just started to get into my Bible, started to like just pray more, listen to only like, starting to like listen to only Christian music a little bit. At that point I still listen to like country but Did you ever do the K-Love Challenge? I didn't, but I just listen. That's all I listen to now.
Speaker 4:So I listen to other music, especially stuff I used to listen to. I'm like, oh, I can't be listening to that. He made me do it when he was in Teen Challenge.
Speaker 1:It's so good, right? He's like can we go back to listen? I'm like no.
Speaker 4:Listen, garbage in garbage out right. Thank you, Mom.
Speaker 2:Ear gate, night gate and lucky for me.
Speaker 1:I found Christian rap, yes. So I'm like boom, jesus loves you. Boom. I'm like, yeah, the kids are like really Dad, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:The kid, the Gen Alpha. Jesus, you're busting, straight busting.
Speaker 5:I don't even know.
Speaker 4:I can't.
Speaker 2:My kid's going to hate me for this. No, cap.
Speaker 4:No cap oh my God, oh my gosh, I'll go on a whole other tangent. My son hates it.
Speaker 2:He's like please, don't, please, mom.
Speaker 4:He's like I hate it when other kids do it, I don't need my mom doing it All right, I pick up my daughter and her friends and I'd be like, hey, check this out.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They'd be like well, my, my son's really into Eminem right now.
Speaker 2:And I was like he has like maybe five songs he's allowed to listen to Right, because that's a whole nother thing.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 4:And so I'm trying to. I was like, hey, like trying to tell him, like you know, he's like well, I think he's a Christian because he talks about God in some of his songs and I was like, yeah, but son God said you'll know us by our fruit right and how we love one another. Is he promoting love, you know, or is he promoting like I'm going to become my ex-wife?
Speaker 2:You know, like what is he promoting what? Like what is he promoting? What is his fruit?
Speaker 4:Right and I'm like you may like the beat.
Speaker 2:Let's find a different source. Dad's got some great Christian rap artists he can hook you up with. Send it our way.
Speaker 4:Because I mean I don't want to take everything away from them.
Speaker 1:You ever heard of Andy Munoz.
Speaker 4:No.
Speaker 2:Brian Trejo. Brian Trejo Bizzle. Oh yeah, we got a whole list. We'll send you dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, andy Minos is kind of a Lecrae.
Speaker 5:Lecrae, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:He's kind of a harder Christian rapper dude and he's got some good beats that are like yeah, eminem-ish, you would think it was mainstream. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5:And he's not so NF, nf yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we're trying to get him, like you know, like leaning more towards that Like yeah, I'm not against it per se, but like, what are you? What is it promoting? Right and so okay, so we're going back to church. I'm praying for Will. Like God, like I can't, you can Right.
Speaker 5:How long ago is this? Like 2000? Well, ellie's eight.
Speaker 2:Ellie's eight and a half. So 2016, this is like six years, seven years ago 18 yeah 2018, yeah 2018.
Speaker 4:So I'm like, okay, god.
Speaker 2:So I went back like around march, april, march, may, in there, and then I'm like, okay, god, like just change his heart, because my heart's changing right, because I'm back in the word and I'm back at church and community and being surrounded and lifted up by other believers well, this, this from what I'm hearing, this is the first time that you're actually in community in your life.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes, besides rehab, yeah, this is the first real life when you're choosing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I want to be a part of this.
Speaker 4:This is IRL for me.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 5:So yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm back and it feels good and I'm drinking less, because now I like have an outlet and I'm just praying for him like god, change his heart, like just change his heart. I don't want to push this, like, just change his heart and so that's just a very simple prayer, yeah right, but very powerful god hears his girls, man yes and so we get to like october he's coming with us more consistently and we get to october and they're talking about like this men's challenge, not a retreat, because men don't like men don't retreat, right, it's men's challenge.
Speaker 4:So I told him, I was just like, hey, like would you go to that? And he's like, oh, I don't know. And I was like, well, I want you to think about it, you know. And he's like, oh, think about it. And then at one point I told him, because we have like a family fund and then we give ourselves like an allowance- right.
Speaker 2:So we don't have to question like how much that person spent, right, that's really good. So you have a little bit that you can do. He's got some, but then there's a family.
Speaker 4:That's really good. So bills are paid, stuff is in savings. That's wisdom.
Speaker 2:Here's a little fun for you, and here's a little fun for me you and here's a little fun for me.
Speaker 4:That's good.
Speaker 5:We started that because he smoked at the time, and so I'm like quit spending my money because I made more money at the time. I made like a good five dollars more an hour what are you doing with my?
Speaker 4:money right and I was like anti, I'm not gonna smoke. I watching my dad and like sectioning him. I'm so anti, I've never I've done a lot of drugs.
Speaker 2:I've never smoked a cigarette right and so I mean cigar, yes, but I feel like that's a one-off, yeah right, not like a chain smoking kind of deal.
Speaker 4:It's like a couple puffs and then I throw up yeah but um yeah, so so we have our own stuff. And I was like, hey, this is so important to me that I will buy the ticket with my own money wow is how much this means to me for you to go, yeah, and so at the time, like we're like hanging out, oh, the the men's is coming out of your my.
Speaker 2:I will pay with my personal funds and it wasn't a lot like yeah, I didn't have a
Speaker 4:lot right, but like it's 200 it shows.
Speaker 2:It shows, though, what this means for you, right?
Speaker 4:this is how serious I think that this is, and so he had an option to be in a cabin with some other like the spouses of the women that I do mom's group with. Like he's met a few of them at this point so he would know people there right.
Speaker 4:So he had an option and he was just kind of like I'll just gonna, I'm just gonna like wherever god wants me oh okay, and so he went, and that's like a long story too, I won't get into that, but he went and he was with this group of men that, like he said, he ended up getting baptized there. Right. And he called me in the morning I was at church serving and, um, he called me as like, would you be upset if I got baptized? And I was like no, like no, go, do it. Right, do it. And I was like why? Because he wanted me to be there, kind of thing and he knew it was important to me.
Speaker 4:I was like no go. Like, if you're like, don't wait.
Speaker 2:Go now. Why are you even on the phone for right.
Speaker 4:But out of respect for me. I is that go be in baptism? Yes, I want to be there but no, go like videotape it for me, so I can see right the dove ascend onto you. That comes later but he but he got baptized there and because he was with this group of men, he's like if I was with the other group of men, I wouldn't have gotten baptized, right, it wouldn't have been the same experience so you got to trust god to know what people that you need to be with right not try to control everything which is what I like to do
Speaker 4:and so he comes back and he gets baptized and like a whole bunch of stuff so the men he was with were not the men he knew. They were the different men he didn't know he, I think he knew one person, but that was because he was like the associate pastor at our church at the time.
Speaker 2:So he's met him like a handful of times, but everybody else he didn't come on now, yeah, and so it was amazing.
Speaker 4:and then from there, like we kind of like, he got connected with a different work through one of the guys he was in the cabin with. He started working for his company. We started a life group and like we were like you know, we were in it more Wow. And then COVID Ooh yeah, covid happened and I— the world shut down. The world shut down and my whole life shut down again. So at that point I was still drinking and not eating healthy. So I was having like gallbladder attacks and like pancreatitis or whatever and so I stopped drinking for six months.
Speaker 4:I had gotten a job at our church in September of 2019. I stopped drinking from like September for six months. Like in January it would have been whatever six months back, so July, yeah. And so I stopped drinking completely because I'm like I'm having these attacks. It's painful I know it's not my appendix, because I had that taken out when I was four months pregnant with my son and so I'm like it's got to be that right, but and I know what I need to do to make it better, I just need to do it.
Speaker 4:I don't want to, but I need to, you know, I even tried like if I just drink, like.
Speaker 2:A little more water If I don't drink, like Water down the shots If I don't drink beer, but I drink like.
Speaker 4:I'm literally Googling like best alcohol for your pancreas Wow.
Speaker 2:You know you got a problem when you Right. I was like, so if I stick to clear liquors.
Speaker 4:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's wild, it's real, though At a certain point that's real.
Speaker 4:But I was kind of in that moment of like God, I don't want to do this anymore. Right, I don't want to live like this. I was drinking so much before that that I was like I had a panic attack one night while I was watching one of my friend's kids, but like a drunken panic attack and I was like I gotta is this where you felt, did the blood start turning? No, that was like it's.
Speaker 2:That was okay, way back, yeah I've never had panic attacks so I was wondering, like two of my entire life.
Speaker 4:But so I ended up going for a walk, but I was just really drunk and I was just, you know, like need some pressure and yeah, okay and I just was really down still and I was like I like I don't want to do this anymore. He's like okay here, you. He's like boom, you physically can't. You know now, you physically can't you have no choice but to stop. So I did and so, and then covet hit and I was just like how am I gonna do this sober?
Speaker 2:how old were the kids at that point?
Speaker 4:so ellie had just gone back.
Speaker 2:Ellie had just gotten into like a preschool for the first time so three, four first time three yeah, two yeah, and the other one's five years, so eight, nine, yeah yeah, he was in third grade, so like nine ish he had his 10th birthday during covid.
Speaker 4:Yeah, will had his 40th birthday during covid. Yeah, ellie had her fifth birthday during covid, so it was like it was a lot. You know she was four. She was four because she turned five during covid. We had all the big birthdays in covid, right, thank you, but um, but yeah, so then I just started drinking again, right?
Speaker 2:during covid during covid yeah we just?
Speaker 4:what else are we doing? Right I went from finally getting some time to myself and like away for the kids now everybody's home. I know everybody's home and now I gotta like figure out work and then I gotta. You know, I ended up quitting my job and then I had to like homeschool, right. So now I'm homeschooling two kids during covet well, one officially and the other one's like five. So what is what you do?
Speaker 1:you know color books and stuff?
Speaker 4:yeah, exactly, she likes color and count and do puzzles and stuff, so, but yeah, so I just started drinking again during that and it just got to the point where I was drinking like just one or two glasses on the weekend. To covet is like I'm buying a box of wine like every three days. Wow, yeah, and so it was a lot. Yeah, right, and so it finally opens up again and the world a little bit and our church comes back to in person. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And so I remember hearing one of the services about like Celebrate Recovery not Celebrate Recovery, but just like recovery in general. And so I remember hearing one of the services about like celebrate recovery not celebrate recovery, but just like recovery in general. Right, like I heard, like the seed the seed was planted at a certain point in January of like 2023. And then no 2021, 22. I don't know, I can't. You know math?
Speaker 2:is hard sometimes three years sober.
Speaker 4:so whatever three years ago was, so like 2021. Yeah. Right, and so I. It was planted. I was like I got to do something and then in June my friend from the mom's group.
Speaker 1:Did your church have Celebrate Recovery before COVID? Uh-uh, oh really.
Speaker 4:No, I heard something about it. I think before covid oh really no, I heard something about it was I think they did a mental health series is what it was and like everybody, struggles kind of thing, so, um, so I heard that and so that seat was kind of started.
Speaker 1:You guys just started one, didn't you?
Speaker 4:yeah, just yeah, all right and so I heard I was kind of like to see his plan, like mental health, like I got to get back to that, like just a healthy place. And then my friend from the mom's group that I met, that we got really close during COVID. She's like, hey, I'm going to go to this celebrate recovery found it was at two rivers. And she's like, do you want to go with?
Speaker 2:I was like heck, yeah, like extra worship and I don't have to take my kids with me, like I get an automatic break from my kids for four hours and and I know that sounds awful but it's real for a mom, I mean, I've been there for, like you know, years, years straight.
Speaker 4:I love you and so yeah and on, and, quite honestly, they need a break from me too, right? Because at a certain point I'm just not funny just for the record.
Speaker 1:It doesn't make you a bad parent because you need a break no, it just means you need a break and my kids are like mom, you're not fun anymore can you?
Speaker 4:go yeah, you know except because she'll like run out and chase the car if. I leave anywhere Like she's better now at eight and a half. But, even like six months ago. She's like clinging to my leg. I'm like girl, I got to leave.
Speaker 2:I'll come back, I promise, right Like.
Speaker 4:I've always come back kiddos yeah, they're great, right um and so yeah, so I started the celebrate recovery so two rivers is where you went to cr in your first experience yeah, and it's literally like right around the corner from our house, like it's out just outside our neighborhood, it's like maybe half mile away from our house and so I'm like yeah, and then my friend would just pick me up on the way we get to hang out, we get that, and so then I would go into, like the mixed issues, right, because I don't have a problem yeah.
Speaker 4:I was already addicted. I don't do addiction because I'm already clean for so long I don't have a problem and it's just, life is really stressful, right, um? And so I start going and then I'm like, okay, pick up a chip that day, because I'm like I'm just ready to like be back and do something. I don't know what it is, but I'm gonna do something and so, and so I'm going for a little while june is when I started and then come like this is 2020, 2021, 21 yeah, and so then at that point will was like in this kind of space of in between, of like we're back at church.
Speaker 4:He wanted to do more. He felt far from God. So when he got baptized, he quit smoking.
Speaker 2:Cigarettes or.
Speaker 4:Weed. Oh yeah, he quit smoking for a little while and then he also had to like, if he tests dirty at this job, he'd lose it Right. So he can't risk that, so he stopped. But then also he started up again during COVID and he's like I just don't hear from God anymore.
Speaker 1:Amen.
Speaker 4:Right and from God anymore. Amen, right and he's like I just feel far. And he was like I think I want to do counseling or something. And I was like, well, why don't you come to like CR? I was like they have a kids thing, like we'll just all go.
Speaker 4:Just bring the kids Come check it out, right and I was like just check it out, and he starts coming, and then he somebody, somebody mentioned like the step study and then he was like I want to go deeper and he's like well, there's this and then so we start a step study at the same time you and the women and him in the men. Yes, and so we started the same time, at like um mid-october, and so I was like, hey, we're trying to like heal right, and so how can we do that if we're drinking every day? And so we're like, okay, we're going to do this. Come on. Just during the step study. Yeah Right, we're going to not drink.
Speaker 2:Once we finish and we graduate Fair game right, we're going back.
Speaker 4:Once we heal, we're just going to go right back to it. It's fine.
Speaker 1:Because forever know. A step study is 10 months yeah, and forever.
Speaker 4:Like it's an intensive, it sure is the idea of not drinking forever yeah was just scary yeah, and didn't seem doable, right and so we're like, just like, just during this. So we had an end date like we had something to look forward to right, as bad as it sounds yeah, and so I'm maybe halfway through. Mine was like seven months and I'm like four or five months in and God's like, uh, you need to stop drinking. Yeah, and.
Speaker 4:I'm like no, I don't God, that's funny, I'm fine. I don't have a problem and he's like no, he's like you're useless to me when you're drinking yeah. I can't use your testimony yeah to reach other people if you're gonna drink come on and I'm like okay, so I tell Will. And I was like hey, I feel like God's calling me to like not drink. And he's like yeah, we're not drinking right now. I was like no, like forever yeah and he's like well, he's not telling me that.
Speaker 5:I don't think he's telling me that, and I was like okay, so here I am again.
Speaker 4:God changed his heart, God changed his heart and so, like I think it was like a couple months go by, a month or whatever, a few more lessons. I don't know what it was, but he was like, yeah, I feel the same too. He was like but what does that look like? I was like oh, I don't know, you know, oh, I don't know, yeah, you know, but like we got to be better parents, we have to be better people.
Speaker 2:And like we can't keep going on like this Right.
Speaker 4:I don't want my kids dealing with the same things. I don't want them turning to drugs when they're older because they don't know what to do. Otherwise, you know we can't be that for them. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Like we're decent parents. Now, yeah, now, yeah, right. Like we don't like beat our kids. Like we're there, we don't drink and drive with them. You know like we're decent parents by the world. They're also watching. They're watching everything right and when my daughter's like sticking her finger in my wine, you know, and like my, son, what'd you, what'd you remember?
Speaker 2:with your dad, I mean budweiser the budweiser, the, the gear three when I was three, I drank like a sip of beer and I like ran around.
Speaker 4:It's like one of my first memories is pretending I was drunk running around the front yard, so like I obviously have seen it, from somewhere right, but like that's one of my first memories, I don't want that for my kids. My kids had like their own little, like plastic shot glasses that we would put like juice or whatever, and we would cheers. You know I'm like what am I?
Speaker 4:I always thought I want to be the cool mom I want to be the house, like as long as my kids here and safe right, like I don't care if they drink. And then at this point I'm like yeah, I've heard this story, right, like as long as I know where they are, when they're doing it. But the problem is, if I'm condoning it at home, I'm condoning it elsewhere yeah, right, yeah and so, and then then they're safe at home. Then what they're? They're friends yeah and like I just can't I can't be that one, and so will at this will.
Speaker 4:What's gonna go the so fast forward? There's in august. He goes to this black powder shoot. Every year it's called jones mountain days. It's men. I call it the he-man-Woman-Hater Club.
Speaker 2:You've got to be invited, you have to be invited. You better invite me, dude.
Speaker 4:Good bro, this is your warning you have to be invited. There's no women, no children, no animals, no drama.
Speaker 5:Right yeah.
Speaker 4:But what could possibly be drama with a bunch of men drinking and shooting guns? I don't know. I've never been. I couldn't tell you. What happens in the mountains stays in the mountains.
Speaker 5:That's great yeah.
Speaker 4:But, so he's coming up on this event right, and this is like we're not a year in yet to our sobriety, and he's like I'm going to go and I was like I'm going to pray. I.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm going to pray for you, right, and he goes and at this point we're like, um, when you're 15 or 16, you get to go. So Eli is like coming up on that age and he's like I can't wait for him to go and he's going to be able to have his first drink and I was like why would you want to be the parent that introduces that to? Your kid Right.
Speaker 4:And so he's just kind of fine, like he got some nas right kind of things, which is I know people have their own idea, like uh thoughts on that right, but at the time that's what he had, and so that's what he drank, and so he did fine, because everyone else is drinking and smoking and right and so you do what you got to do and he came back and had still a good time but was different right and so these past like three times he's gone, he's like it's just different Right, but you're also growing with the Lord more.
Speaker 4:Right. And so I get a lot of like hey, you guys are in recovery together. I wish my husband was with me in recovery.
Speaker 2:I wish my spouse right, I get a lot of that. You're so lucky.
Speaker 4:No, like I, I I'm not lucky. He chose, chose this path.
Speaker 4:I'm blessed that God heard my prayers and my husband amen was willing to answer right and so, but it wasn't like, wow, I had to give up control of him and I forget where in it, like, if you have an unbelieving spouse, you can be the example. It's like Corinthian somewhere, I'm sure, but like I can be the example. So, like my walk with Jesus is my walk with Jesus to grow in him. But a byproduct has been now my husband has his relationship with Jesus, and that's not my doing. That's like me going. Ok, god, this is yours. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Right, I gave you my sobriety and you've done wonders with it. I gave you my finances before COVID. We gave them all our like, started tithing. Like that's the first thing that comes out regardless. We don't touch anything regardless. He's blessed our finances Right. I've been able to be a stay at home mom in this economy. Yeah. Right For like eight years. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I just recently went back to work just because I wanted to, not because I had to, right. So he's blessed my finances, he's blessed my marriage, right. And so the next one was like the kids and stuff. But my faithfulness and serving God was just an example and like I think my heart softened and my responses softened so much with him and with the kids. It's like he is like, oh, like this does make a difference, right.
Speaker 2:And so like I think that Well, you said, man, so I can not be fun sometimes. I cannot be fun sometimes and I still can't, you know, but I know Jesus helps.
Speaker 4:Right, I have enough wherewithal and, like that first year of recovery, we were each other's accountability. Right, I have enough wherewithal and, like that first year of recovery, we were each other's accountability.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:Like I would come to him man, I really want to drink right now. And he would be like what do you need? And I would say I need you to pray for me, and then I'm going on a walk. And so being able to be in recovery with each other like now, we get to pray, pray over each other. And we need to make a better habit of praying together as like a couple yeah like we pray over our kids at night and over our space and we pray at dinner time.
Speaker 2:We pray for other people, but I think when you guys are in the room alone with each other, him praying for you and you praying for him.
Speaker 4:Yeah right, that's good or like when he has some like big meeting or he's anxious about something. I'll pray for him in those moments. But like the daily right, the daily habit of so it's been really that's the hardest things for a husband and wife.
Speaker 2:I watched my dad and how much he would just love to pray for, but sometimes Well, it's weird, right.
Speaker 4:It is. We spent 16 years of our marriage not praying for 15, you know like our relationship 16 years not praying with each other. And now, like all of a sudden, we're like I think we should pray together. You want to pray? My wife has a very private relationship with Jesus. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And when she does pray, like she'll like at dinnertime, we'll ask her to pray sometimes and she'll start out very bolsterous and then by the end she's like this it's like keep it up, baby, don't stop. You know what I mean. So, knowing that she has a private, her own private life, like that with Jesus, and she's very private about it, there's times that I go in and I feel like I'm invading her privacy. You know what I mean, even though she's my wife. But when I do get to pray with her, it's always awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he comes out with this big old smile. I just pray with my wife, yeah, and she's seen her mom have a private relationship with Jesus, so for her that's the example she was seeing.
Speaker 2:That's what it looks like, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's my relationship with God. It's private. You know what?
Speaker 4:I mean yeah.
Speaker 1:I pray for you, but you're not going to hear me. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:And it's like I want to hear it though, Right, there's something so special about like okay, who wants to pray for dinner, and? Ellie was like four raising her hands. And then we'd all have to copy what she said and so it looked a lot like. Thank you, jesus. And we all thank you, jesus. And then she'd be like I pray for the world, thank you for my new bike. And so we're all repeating this right, it was like Thanksgiving. We're like okay at you.
Speaker 4:like I said, you're repeating Thank you for my bike Right Thank you for my thank you for Ellie's bike, but it's really sweet, though, to see my kids start growing in that, and so it's really challenging right now with the parenting because we're realizing what we did wrong already. We're trying to be different, but our kids are like this is weird. Yeah. Especially for Eli. Yeah. And Eli's gotten his own gifting of the spirit. Yeah. That I'll let him talk about when he's ready.
Speaker 4:Yeah, To the masses but, um, he's got his own gifting and, um, just relationship he needs to with jesus and he's having a lot of like struggle in that and anxiety and self-doubt and unbelief and it's heartbreaking and he's dealt with mental health of like I don't want to be here anymore and I've walked through that and it's really hard and as a parent like I can see where I've done wrong yeah right and I can see the damage I've caused but also like my God is the God of restoration come on and I've gotten a promise on his life yeah that I'm standing strong so and this is what I told him the other day is really struggling.
Speaker 4:I was like, hey, it is not going to be like this forever.
Speaker 4:I was like. You may not believe that, but I do. I got a promise for your life. I got a promise on your life and God is going to use you and this hard thing that you're walking through right now is going to be your testimony and you have to go through it to grow. And so, like don't lose heart Right and it's hard. I spent a lot of my life. Versus like Jeremiah't lose heart Right and it's hard. I spent a lot of um, my life first is like Jeremiah 29, 11, right, for I know that the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope in a future. It was the first one. That was the first scripture I ever heard and remembered, because that was on my friend's answering machine. Right.
Speaker 4:Growing up. I call her like she's not home. I got to leave a message. Today is a day that Lord has made.
Speaker 2:Let us rejoice in the God, and so like they would put scriptures on there.
Speaker 4:That's first one I memorized.
Speaker 5:I have it tattooed.
Speaker 4:My friend and I got matching tattoos when she came out. But, um, recently, with all these things and like, I just got this yesterday, this scripture from the Lord, and I wanted to share it because I just this is a season that I'm in right. So I went a lot of like trusting God, like I got to trust him with this, have faith, build a relationship, and being called to do things like start another CR, like I led my own steps not my own, but I led a step study last year that the enemy really pushed hard back on, didn't want me to do it, and I can see why.
Speaker 4:On the other side of it, right, he attacked my kids. He attacked my parenting. My marriage was really rough, Like my kid wanted to kill himself. Like made a plan and everything Like it was bad. And I can see all like looking back, like all like God has made it clear, like this is what the enemy did and this is what I brought you through. And so, like the promise of like, I have a plan for you.
Speaker 2:It is good, like that's true.
Speaker 4:But now, like there's a lot of things coming up in just different areas of my life that God's like calling me to, like stand firm and fight Right and like don't shrink back. And so I was spending time with him and it was Hebrews 10, 39. But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved. Come on. And so like being in recovery, a lot of people don't like it. Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 4:It makes them uncomfortable because we are setting boundaries and they, because we are setting boundaries and they don't like. It makes people nervous, right, and it makes people feel more accountable for themselves right just across the board. Like I've lost a lot of friends being in recovery and not because of my recovery, like not because I go, like they're like you, like you like Jesus now, like we're not going to be friends, but like I don't drink anymore and so that means, I'm left out.
Speaker 5:A lot.
Speaker 2:And that's fine, because God's going to send me new people, right he?
Speaker 4:sent me new people in my recovery Right he sent my husband new people. I was like, hey God, like send his people during during COVID I was like he put this homeschooling family like across the street from us that are Christian God fearing people.
Speaker 2:that like became our kids best friends, right and so he.
Speaker 4:He will put people, he answers prayers. Right, so I look back and I look at like all the things God has done, and the enemy just was telling me, like you don't have a story, Like what story do you have? And as I'm like remembering and like telling you guys about it and I was like screw you.
Speaker 2:I got a story come on, that's, that's real story and it may not be like.
Speaker 4:I may not have like a bunch of like sexual abuse and all of that stuff that happened, but like thank god, very real pain. Yeah, everybody does yeah and I have a very real, like normal everyday issues that people don't talk about. Oh, I'm fine, I'm not fine. Like, being a parent is hard, being a wife is hard. There's a lot of times I wanted to give up and I just I didn't Come on Right. But God carried me through and he's showing me that like he'll keep carrying me through, yeah, right and recovery through.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, and recovery is not easy, otherwise everybody would do it right. And it's hard and it's easier to give up and just stay in it it's so easy.
Speaker 2:It takes so much work to do recovery right, it's so much work.
Speaker 4:It's so much work it is, but it's so worth it I get people like this is all you talk about is yes yeah, yes this is my life now Like God has saved my life. And because I wasn't so open about what I was struggling with. Now, when I get to share my testimony, I'm like he literally saved my life. I'm not being dramatic about it Right and like it's just, it's for everyone.
Speaker 1:Because if you would have kept drinking, who knows what would have happened Exactly.
Speaker 2:The meth where you were going you were working the streets and men were selling you, and it was just it was all bad.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I just like look at the kingdom impact now right that my story gets to have because of God right and so, like you mentioned in the beginning, like our future right, what?
Speaker 5:is God kind of?
Speaker 4:like stirring in my life. I don't know. I've had this idea and kind of this passion for relationships, right like I've had the passion for moms for a long time and I led the moms group at my church and kind of stuff like this, but then God like led me to recovery. But I have a lot of um just people in my life that like like marriage is on my heart, right Marriage, like marriages are under attack right now.
Speaker 4:And that's like I feel, like that's where maybe I'm being called in the future like Will and I of like maybe we do like a marriage. This is why I was like hey, I want to do like a marriage step study right, so we can meet and do the lesson, like go through the lesson together, but then when we answer the questions we go in separate rooms wow right, and then, at the end, we can come back together and do our pray, our praying out right like something like that that's to get couples in to a study healing To healing together.
Speaker 4:Because it's Wow, there's just so much hurt. And all that hurt affects, like every relationship. And then you think like your marriage is struggling and now your kids. Yeah. And then their future marriage is going to struggle.
Speaker 2:Wow, right, because I literally am still single because I've watched their marriage. Yeah, how crazy it's been.
Speaker 4:You're like nope, it scares the shit out of me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's like, no, god's got me. Yeah, and God's got me.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so it's good, I want to encourage you on something you said earlier, that God gave you a promise for your kid, and so when I was getting out of prison in 2010, god gave me a promise when I was getting out to walk this faith walkout before my family, and they will follow.
Speaker 1:It's been 14 years and I've been doing it faithfully for the last 14 years and he's in church. My youngest son is coming more regularly to church and I'm still waiting on my wife and my daughter to faithfully become. They come every once in a while, but I still, to this day, show up every Sunday because God told me to walk this out faithfully before them. And even though it's been 14 years and I see some of the answers in it, I don't see it all yet. I'm still believing in that prayer, the promise that God gave me, and I know that there's going to be a day and I don't see it all yet I'm still believing in that prayer, the promise that God gave me, and I know that there's going to be a day, and I have men around here that are praying for it to happen and they get to see it sometimes when the whole family's going to be in the front row.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, jesus, and they get to see some of it.
Speaker 5:Like there was a.
Speaker 1:Sunday, the other day, where it was my granddaughter. It was my youngest son jesus and so hold on to that. Man don't, don't, ever, no matter, even if it's five, six seven years down the road and you don't see it 11, 12.
Speaker 2:Hold on to that promise for god is always faithful to his promises.
Speaker 1:It may not be in our time or when we think it should happen, or god, why it hasn't it happened yet? I've never got to that point where, like God, why hasn't it happened yet? Why, god you know? And it's always like hey, god, you said, you said I'm believing God. I haven't lost my faith in that promise that you've given me and I still, even to this day, I come every Sunday faithfully. I haven't missed a Sunday in Jesus, god, who knows how long.
Speaker 2:You know I mean, yeah but I'm here every Sunday and whether they come or not, I come. Yeah, we see him told me get up and leave on Sunday. Where's dad?
Speaker 1:he's at church. They know they can find me here on a Sunday morning right because God told me to do this thing and I'm still doing it. Until I see that promise completely 100 satisfied in god's eyes, I will keep doing this every sunday, yeah, and so I want to encourage you that keep hold on to that man, continue to do what you're doing, be faithful and be faithful in that promise, because, even though you may not see it yet, there's going to come a time that you'll get to see that yeah but know that it's in his time and not yours absolutely hold on to that.
Speaker 4:Don't let that go. I keep saying that every time my son's like having issues or whatever, I'm like okay, one is like not forever you know this is not forever. This is not the end and like I just keep going, god you promised yeah, and there's some times where I'm breaking down of like god you freaking promised and I'm gonna stand on that but, that's real, yeah, and I talk to god like that because he's he made me he can handle it, and I tell my son too.
Speaker 4:I was like hey God, are you mad at God? Like we had a, a friend, a close friend, whose baby passed away like like two days after it was born he was mad at.
Speaker 1:God and I was like you can handle it, you can be mad at. God right.
Speaker 4:And here's the thing, son, like you get mad at me sometimes, right, and I get mad at you, but I still love you, right? And it's the same for God you know, it's good. And just trying to show him like I don't know, god's not us right.
Speaker 1:And he can have a plan and we cannot understand it but, like we still got to just trust and walk forward you know, we had a guest on that was a couple guests ago where he taught his same thing. He lost a baby right after it was born and he said he came to this cross point and in in a moment where it was, I'm either gonna be mad at god or I'm gonna acknowledge that god is still good, and he said he knew in that moment he had to acknowledge god, you're still good. I don't understand why, but you're still good yeah and it's God, you're still good.
Speaker 1:I don't understand why, but you're still good. And it's just to hear someone in that moment still acknowledge that, even though this happened, God, you're still good. I'm like I've got no reason to believe that God is anything but good.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:No, matter the circumstances, Because if that man who just lost his daughter that was a couple days old can sit there and say, God, you're still good even though I don't understand why this happened. Why I?
Speaker 4:have no reason not to believe that god is good.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and he promises right like he'll work all things, all things to the good for those who love him, like for his glory, right?
Speaker 4:yeah, and also like how can I comfort somebody when I don't know what the heck they've gone through? Yeah, right, how can I?
Speaker 4:I be like an effective comforter in those moments and have true empathy If, like I, haven't walked through some of this crap myself you know, and so that just makes it like for me, it just makes me closer to God and seeing like, yeah, I can be mad that God took my dad away, but I still have my mom, you know, and like, honestly, if he would have found out that I was using I would have been disowned, and so he didn't know right.
Speaker 4:And so I just I have to be thankful for the time that I got with him and with my kids. I just have to trust that they may not always make the right choices, but god had made the promise right and I know that I'm gonna have to pray for them hard because they both have a call in their life, and so that means the enemy is after them too, extra right and so I just I have to take up that position of like, of guard, right like you can't cross here like this is the bloodline, and this is what we pray over our house now I see her doing that thing that leola used to do.
Speaker 2:So we have this aunt leola and he used to go and visit this house and she'd be in this room and he would literally stick his ear to the door so he could hear what she was praying she'd'd be praying person from person in his family, and I feel like that's what God wants from you, so your kids can hear it. Just close your door and start praying for Ellie, start praying for your son, start praying for will, start praying for their futures, praying for their kids.
Speaker 1:She would even pray for her future son-in-laws. Yeah, that's what we've. Yeah, it's added to my list.
Speaker 4:I do pray like God put people in their lives that are going to lead them to you, not away from them, you know.
Speaker 4:And because it's very real, like they can definitely be pulled away anytime, just because I have the promise doesn't mean that they don't have free will. Right, and I heard this in one of the like parenting books that I was listening to. It's like what a son needs from his mom, or something like that. And, um god, I had asked this mom of like her. So she's praying for his son. Her son's like an addiction or whatever and she's praying for him and he's like will you still love me, even if?
Speaker 4:yeah, right so even if I don't like, make it out. See it, yeah, right while I still trust and love him if I don't see the promised land, knowing that the promised land is coming. Yeah, right, so I'm like I just, I just have to be okay with my kids struggling. Yeah, um, but I don't have to be like a bystander and watch either like I can warn the spirit for my children, and I think that's a lot of like.
Speaker 4:what God is teaching me through recovery is that I don't have to be a victim in life, that yeah, things have happened and I've carried a lot of weight and baggage and like hurts that are healing and still need to be healed and I'll get new ones. Because it's life. But, I don't have to be a victim in that I can take charge. I'm in charge of myself. Right, I'm not in charge of anyone else what they're doing.
Speaker 4:Like can I love them? Yes. Can I pray for them? Yes. Do I have control over what they choose to do and say no, no, and it's the same thing for my kids.
Speaker 4:And it's the same thing for my husband. So it's just kind, recovery Right, and so I can pray for him in that, but like he still has days that he struggles and he's not so nice, Like I am, you know, and in those moments I just have to. I did a lot of this prayer too, of like, um, help me to see them the way God sees them Right, so I always knew, like I always saw like greatness in my husband.
Speaker 4:I don't think I've ever told him this Like I've always seen in him the man that he could be Right, and it's my job as a spouse to encourage him and push him towards that Right. So good he doesn't always like it because he doesn't like being pushed around. But like I can push him towards that and encourage it in the way that I treat him, so I can treat him the way that God sees him Right.
Speaker 4:Even in the moments where, like he really sucks and that I could just still treat him the way God would treat him, and that's going to push him towards that and not in a nagging way, because, like I don't want to be bossed around and I don't want to be a nag, you know. But I can, I can just love him through it, right I?
Speaker 1:can just yeah Water it Give him some miracle girl you ever heard of, dr Miles Monroe Love.
Speaker 5:Dr Miles Monroe.
Speaker 1:This dude's an amazing preacher on relationships but he talks about how God never gives you a spouse. That's a finished product.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:It's your job to cultivate and to shape and mold this perfect person, perfect, you know, wife or husband. It's your job to cultivate that.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:God gives you this workable product. It's your job, my job, to cultivate and shape and mold the spouse that we desire. You know what I mean by being encouraging, by you know things.
Speaker 4:Know things like that yeah, I love that analogy man yeah, yeah too, I think of like ceramics. Right, they just have this mold you throw down and like how you want it how much time and effort and care are you gonna put into it if you're just gonna half-ass and kind of smack it around a little bit. That's not going to be a very good pot for you, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, but there's so many times in relationships that a a wife or a husband will get to a place in their relationship where they look at their wife or their husband and they're like what the hell is wrong with you never really look at them selves the words that they said, the actions that they did to help create what they're getting now.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And it's like you kind of help shape and mold what you're getting there. Buddy, you know what I mean. So yeah, look in the mirror and change some things, and that's what you think like in celebrity recovery.
Speaker 4:Like the step four is huge right making amends and writing down your inventory and then like I can see right, I can see that because my dad died, that was nobody's fault. Yeah, Right. My dad died and I put up that wall of like I'm going to just be responsible for myself and I'm going to take care of myself and not let anyone in, especially my husband.
Speaker 4:So I had to apologize to Will about it and be, like hey, like even still, sometimes when he goes on his trips, I like think about okay, so he's probably just going to like careen off a mountain and then I'm going to get a call, Like I go there.
Speaker 5:My mind goes there.
Speaker 4:Like every time he goes away on a long trip I was like, okay, well, he's going to die on this trip. And then I have to be like I rebuke you, satan in the name of Jesus Right. Like you know, and then take every thought captive and it took a long time to get there but I realized that that's like my anxiety and that's the enemy telling me lies, but also like that's a wall that I built because of, like the trauma of losing a parent at a young age.
Speaker 1:At 20,.
Speaker 4:I'm just a baby still right.
Speaker 4:I feel like a baby. I'm 41. I feel like a baby. I'm 41. I feel I feel like a baby. Still, you know, there's so much I don't know and haven't experienced yet. But like I had to apologize, hey, like I'm so sorry for not giving you my all. And there's still still times when I have to come to him and be like, okay, I'm going to let, like I'm going to let you in, right, and so I have to be like, hey, this is where I'm feeling with this right, and he gets to choose in that moment of trying to fix it or take it personal or just you know, because we have that choice right.
Speaker 5:And.
Speaker 4:I'm like hey, like, sometimes I'll be like hey, this isn't an attack, this is just how I'm feeling, right, I know in my brain, like I know, that this isn't true, but this is what I'm feeling, right.
Speaker 2:And so I, but I need to get out. It's good that you guys can express that with each other.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I need to get out to you, because it's just going to ping pong in my brain if I don't, and it's going to cause bigger issues. So this is what I'm feeling, and then sometimes we we've implemented like small group guidelines, right, so we Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 2:Right we don't interrupt now when the other person's talking and I'm really like we're really trying to listen to respond and not just listen like listen to understand, we do. Yes.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:That's great.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so if someone's like, hey, I've got something and it's kind of like the person that brings it is it's you're focusing on that issue. You're not focusing on whatever issue you have with that issue. Like that's, that person gets kind of like a free pass to bring this like okay, you're taking this. This is something I need to like work on and I you have to. It's a daily battle to choose not to be, offends like offended by it right
Speaker 4:so I have to think the best of my husband at all points during the day, because there are some times where I'm like, wow, you really left your shoes right there again, and so it's just like their shoes right.
Speaker 2:Get over it.
Speaker 4:But it's like for me. I'm like, wow, how disrespectful. You know, I clean the house all day. But, when I'm thinking the best of my husband through Jesus's lens. Oh, just forgot to put his shoes away. Wow, you know, that's really good.
Speaker 4:And I can probably go like, hey, would you mind moving your shoes back? And he'd be like, oh, I didn't realize I was lifting there, you know, but like when you're in, like an offensive, mindset yeah, looking for things and you're a victim. Yeah, you're just like you know, the plank, right the plank. We tell the go, take your plank out because, it will be like, well, ellie did this and I was like, go, you got a plank right here like a four by four sticking out of your eye right now bro.
Speaker 1:That's so good. Yeah, so that's so good.
Speaker 2:You're doing really good in parenting. Oh man, it's been hard I can feel yeah, but you're growing so much and you're learning the communication that you're learning and how to use your words yeah with the kiddos and it sounds to me like you're explaining why's yeah, which we didn't get when we were kids, and now you're explaining to them why we don't do these things and why we do do these things.
Speaker 4:This is it's funny you mentioned that because Eli, we told Eli like hey, we really want you to go to this youth group thing tonight and I was like, but ultimately it's up to you, right? I don't want to force him, it's good, but also like I'm really encouraging you to go, and he just wasn't feeling it that day and that's fine. But then it, you know, will, told him I think you should go, and then he went into why. And then he like goes, why can't dad just say, yeah, I have to go, and then just leave it at that.
Speaker 4:We're not trying to force you to go anywhere right and I was like listen, listen, bud, because bud, because we got, because I said so yeah.
Speaker 5:As children, and I always wanted to know why, and so we're giving you our reasoning behind it.
Speaker 4:So you can understand.
Speaker 2:It's not because we hate you and want you to leave the house.
Speaker 4:It's because of this.
Speaker 2:Right Like and so sometimes to them.
Speaker 4:they're like, we don't need a lecture and I was like, but you need to understand why. Because like. But you need to understand why, because like, then you can the next time this happens, you won't take offense to it when we say no, hey remember last time.
Speaker 4:This is why and it's a little bit easier to swallow too and then you can tell people how you're feeling and why. Ellie was upset about something earlier today. I was like you need to go talk to dad about it, right, and I was like I couldn't talk to my dad about being upset with him over like something he said.
Speaker 2:Kids are not supposed to be seen or heard, no, and so I was like, hey, like you, I'm not always going to be around.
Speaker 4:So you need to be able to go to your dad with stuff that's hard, even when it's hard for him to hear.
Speaker 5:So and she's eight and a half right.
Speaker 4:She rude to me. I was like you need to go tell him. Hey, dad, when you do that, it hurts my feelings it makes me feel. And then she came up with whatever made it feel, and then he was able to explain like hey, I can see how you'd be frustrated in that moment, instead of shutting her down. Well, this is what I heard, you know I was and it was just a moment of like hey, men can't read our minds darling, yeah they had that.
Speaker 4:God didn't make them that way. You have to explain your feelings to them. They were made to, to protect and to provide for us and they don't understand feelings the way that we do right, but like I didn't get that when I was eight. I was just got like, hey, be quiet, let the man pay the bills and bring him food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and make sure the house is clean before he gets home, daughter's 22, and then we're having those kind of conversations still, like because I'm I'm blunt, you know, I mean not in a mean way, but I'm truthful and honest, and uh, she'll get hurt by it and lets me know and I gotta go, I'm sorry I wasn't trying to be hurtful right you know what I mean, just trying to be honest and direct with you and let you know how things are.
Speaker 2:But girls are fragile. They are easily broken.
Speaker 4:Guys you can just tell them shut up.
Speaker 2:Shut up.
Speaker 5:No comment.
Speaker 2:Just be easy.
Speaker 4:Just be glad that you're on the other side of this table. I'll show you how fragile. Oh man, this is great. That was really good sis.
Speaker 5:This is great. That was really good, sis. This is fun.
Speaker 1:That was really good man.
Speaker 2:Thanks for opening up and sharing man.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I really for the future, knowing that just because I'm one way, when kids do come into my life doesn't mean it's always going to be like that. There's growth and sometimes kids will make you grow. Oh yeah, you should have seen her eyes bud, oh yeah.
Speaker 5:Eyes yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Well, so, because I always get, I always find it interesting working with the men that I work with. A lot of them either struggle with their wives or they struggle with their kids, but there's usually a struggle with one of them, and a lot of the women that we've had on and that have shared their testimonies they either struggle with the kids or they struggle with the men. So it's like it doesn't matter where you are husband or wife, man or woman one area we're gonna, we're gonna black, yeah, um, and we really need god, and it just well, that's why they make it like the umbrella right.
Speaker 4:It's supposed to be god, the husband, the wife the kids right, because at the end of the day, this is a problem that happened a lot earlier on. I was putting the kids first and not will, and that's not how god created it. Right will was not loving us like he loved, like christ loved the church. He was very selfish, right, my needs, my, this, my and so when we flipped that and kind of mixed it all up and we got in line with the way God designed it and we're like, hey, we're going to put him in charge because he knows what's up, will, you're going to be that spiritual leader. And for a while I was a spiritual leader.
Speaker 4:I was but we have transitioned recently into he is stepping up into it and I feel like that has been the major change in our relationship, because now we're in line Right, and now I can say hey, kids, you need to wait a minute, dad, and I need some time. Right, because the kids are going to leave and then you're going to be stuck with a stranger, because you didn't put them first right. But now we'll have stepped into that position and he's less selfish, so I can trust him with things, and so I'm letting my guard down because, now I can trust him to not be selfish with it or use it against me in some sort of way, right.
Speaker 4:But that's only because he is putting God first so good Right. And so we prayed through the house. Recently, eli got like a vision of a vision of an angel come to him and was told we need to anoint the house.
Speaker 2:And I can tell you that at a different time.
Speaker 4:That's not so public for his sake, but, um, and so we did, and so we just told him. I said, hey, like dad's going to pray, cause he's the spiritual leader, but if you have anything to add, or I have anything to add, we're going to add it. Okay, in each room, but like dad's going to pray, you got the vision.
Speaker 5:Dad's in charge, though, because he's the spiritual leader of the house and so we went through and we prayed and it was so good. I can't wait to tell you guys more of that story, but, um, it was really good.
Speaker 4:And then at the end of it, eli decided he wanted to pray over his bed and like hey, like you can do that, like we've already prayed through it, like I was, like bro, it's your vision, pray like it's your vision, like you're the one he spoke to come on, you need to do this like that's great you know, but seeing that will is taking charge and eli has that example come on right yeah so that it's really great that's so and the kids don't always like it, right? Yeah?
Speaker 2:they're not gonna that's not my problem.
Speaker 4:Yeah right, this is what we do, and we even with ell, like she's eight, but she's going to be a teenager and she's going to push on the clothes right. So we have the rule of dad has final say Great, okay. So I told her I was like there's stuff, you know why does daddy? I was like, well, he's the leader, he's our leader, right?
Speaker 4:but also there's there's stuff that I'm going to be okay with but dad thinks like a man and he thinks like a boy and so if he says no then that's a no and we're going to respect that right. But a lot of times it was in the beginning of a relationship when will wasn't in that position of authority. It was like he didn't say no to anything and he, just, like I, ran the show and it was a lot to carry right, because I'm not meant to run the show.
Speaker 4:I'm not meant to run the show I didn't get married to not have a partner come on like I if I could do it. I know I can do on my own. I don't want to yeah, and that's what I told him one time like I don't want to do this alone. I can, I can I don't want to it sucks like, so I don't know where I was going with that.
Speaker 4:But anyways he's an authority over it and we're going to honor that. Oh, like he just let me run the show, and then there's certain things that he would just say no on, and then I'd be like okay, well, he never says no, so we're going to respect that, Like he obviously feels. But now I refer to him like he'll ask me what do you want to do? I'm like you're in charge, like this is your show. So, what do you want to do?
Speaker 4:You know, and treating him. I hear a lot in marriages and in recovery of like I can't leave my kids with my spouse right, I don't trust them kind of thing with the kids over the weekend or whatever.
Speaker 4:That's why I can't leave and make time for myself. I'm like, well, like you're you married him. You know like just because it doesn't look like what you would do for the weekend doesn't mean your husband's not capable of keeping your children alive, and so before I would go on a trip and I would set up everything for him. All the this is where they need to go and I go. I went grocery shopping. I'll be back, Whatever Like I'm you know where the clothes are.
Speaker 2:You know how to use the water. Yeah, you're very capable.
Speaker 4:But like, if we don't put people, and just people in general, like put them into a position where they can do the things that they don't think they can do, they'll never do it Right Like we have to speak life into people and like push them towards what they're capable of.
Speaker 4:And that's with God, that's with recovery, that's with anything. Your marriage, your kids, your parents. Like I'm parenting my mom half the time these days, I feel like you know, but it's just, you got to speak it into them and not drag them down. But you can't do that if you're not doing that for yourself, right? So all comes down to you't do that if you're not doing that for yourself yeah, right.
Speaker 4:So all comes down to you. What are you willing to do to heal yourself and to get closer with god so you can be that impact for other people?
Speaker 1:I think you just healed a bunch of marriages I think you're helping people.
Speaker 4:I think you are really, that was really good parenting take a really good look at myself and see what my part is, because I can sit and blame my husband for like being in like a roommate type marriage, but I had to be like really honest of like okay, like I'm doing this because I'm hurt, which is hurting this more yeah right and I don't want to be told what to do. You know, like I wouldn't take it very well, so why am I treating him?
Speaker 1:yeah, that way that's really good, but it all comes from my own healing amen at the end of the day, you know it's me I'm responsible for yeah, so give us uh I know you talked about the marriage ministry yeah, give us a couple things that you're believing god for in the future man In the next 20 years?
Speaker 2:where do you believe in? And go big, go real big, because we got a big God.
Speaker 4:Okay. So I'm like, okay, marriage ministry for sure. Okay, and I don't know what that looks like. Okay, I have got a feeling of like a double testimony right of Will and I traveling the states to give a double testimony, like we're going to be on Summit Stage one of these days, like giving our testimony, is where I feel.
Speaker 1:Like a marriage testimony.
Speaker 5:Like a marriage, yeah, like a double, Like we're at the same time telling it right.
Speaker 4:Because we're walking this together from day one right. So that's where I see us. I'm like we're just going to caravan around to different CRs and give our testimonies.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to schedule you here. I can't wait, you can be the first right.
Speaker 5:Yes, yes, we'll start working on it now. I love that, but I see that.
Speaker 4:And I just see for, like my kids, I don't. I know it's something big for Eli. I know it's something big. Healing ministry I don't know it's something big for him, though. I don't have the vision of it yet or like the word about it yet, but I know that God is going to use him to reach like hurting, hurting people, because he's dealing with a lot right now. So, 20 years from now he'd be 33.
Speaker 1:I mean a healing ministry, somewhere that's a good, that's a good age to be, yeah, yeah it's a nice ripe age yeah, it is, yeah, yeah so I don't know, for ellie.
Speaker 4:Ellie's gonna be singing for the lord somewhere come on, no sports.
Speaker 2:You don't think either one of them no, she says she wants to.
Speaker 4:She they did karate and she's starting softball and I get to coach the teams. They're like super excited now, but I don't know for her. She's more of a an artsy kind of thing creative yeah okay, well, and she loves it. So we went to like a praise and prayer night at two rivers and somebody came over and kind of gave us a word for the kids. But it almost got the feeling of like Ellie loves to draw and Eli gets these visions so like, maybe she can draw.
Speaker 2:What he?
Speaker 5:sees. I love that Because he's not super artsy, but she is.
Speaker 4:So, they can collaborate and work together. Right. I think that would be really amazing if they can get through childhood without you know killing each other they'll be all right.
Speaker 4:But here's the thing, too, is my kids truly love each other and I can see that and I think I don't know if I credit that to obviously god but like homeschooling and doing all that too is that they really have a true bond where I see them like just show up for each other, like when Eli's having a hard time, ellie is not like sitting there making fun of him, right and she goes over and it's like brother, can I pray for you? And sometimes he says yes and sometimes yes says no, but like their bond is so strong for a 13 year old and an eight year old like usually they'd be, and I don't see you guys pitting me against each other either, though no, I, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like some parents are, like you're growing up.
Speaker 4:Why can't?
Speaker 1:you be more like her.
Speaker 4:Right. Why can't?
Speaker 1:you be more. You know, don't be like her. But you know what I mean. I haven't heard everything you just said. I haven't heard you mention anything about pitting them against each other. So maybe there's a mutual respect because you guys are.
Speaker 4:You guys are parenting when they're gonna feel that either way with each other. Like it's not fair. Eli had five years of his life without her and then she came along and he felt left out, you know, but like I'm very much, I think like blessed in a way to lose my dad so young and have to lean on my siblings, which all of our relationships are fully restored, praise god because I did a lot of damage and they have forgiven, and I'm still just praying for salvation right so you can pray for that like we have we have really close loved ones that like just their salvation is heavy on my heart and um, but like, hey, we're not.
Speaker 4:We're not gonna be around forever. You two are the only two of you that you will ever get. Yeah, right like you're gonna lose your parent and no one else is going to understand because they didn't have your parent, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So like I've lost my dad, so I can empathize with somebody who lost their dad, like, hey, that sucks. It's not a club. I like to welcome people to, right, but like I didn't lose your dad, right yeah. So yeah, right yeah.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think I see your son being a person who, because we've got this whole generation coming up with mental health issues because of social media and screens and stuff like that, so maybe I see your son being able, know, being able to help his generation, kids his age overcome their mental health issues through his relationship with God, through his visions, through the things that God has shown him.
Speaker 1:Maybe God will. My prayer is going to be that God gives him the words to describe the things that he's, because God I believe God is going to allow him to see things about people like Rowdy has. Rowdy has the gift to be able to God speaks things to him about people in their lives that they're not sharing. And I think I see that for your son as well, where he's going to be able to speak into somebody's life and see what they're going through and draw out this conversation. And hey, you're not alone, I see what they're going through and draw out this conversation and, hey, you're not alone, I see what you're going through and and shock the crap out of people by. You know, kids are kids, are not telling everybody, hey, I, I almost wanted to kill myself yesterday, right, and he's going to be able to go up to somebody and be like hey, you know, god, god just showed me that you, you know, attempted to take your life last night and they're gonna be like what?
Speaker 4:yeah, you know, I mean, they're gonna be like like, well, how, the hell do you know?
Speaker 1:attempted to take your life last night and they're going to be like what? Yeah, you know what I mean and they're going to be like well, how the hell do you know that? And he's going to be able to open up and share. You know his gift that God has given him, and he's going to help a lot of kids that way, I believe. That's what I'm seeing for him.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he gets a lot of kids that are like outcasts. Yeah. That come our way. Amen. And like that's who he befriends and he's always been like a protector in that of like somebody who's getting messed with. He's like don't mess with them.
Speaker 2:Come on.
Speaker 4:You know kind of thing, so, yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Pray for him, pray for him, pray for him. Thanks again, sis man.
Speaker 2:We appreciate your time. Jesus, I'm glad you guys are where you're at man Very thankful.
Speaker 5:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Let me pray for you. Thank you, jesus, man man, god, most gracious Father, I just Look what you've done. First and foremost, I just praise your holy name, god, and Thank you that you are God and we are not Lord. I thank you that you are the creator of the heavens and the earth, and I just praise you, god, and I thank you, lord, father, I just thank you for your daughter Erin Lord, I just thank you for man what? An amazing story, God.
Speaker 1:I know she tries to feel like she doesn't have one Lord, and I just thank you for all the things that you brought her through God.
Speaker 1:I thank you for all the things that you brought her through, god. I thank you for all the hurts and habits and hang-ups that you're healing her from God. Most of all, lord, I thank you for her marriage with Will. Lord. I thank you for the part I took from her story was the very last, god, when she was talking about how they align things in their marriage, god, and how things are supposed to be that way. So I thank you, lord, that they have aligned themselves to your creation and your design, father God, and I thank you for the way that their household is going to flourish from this point forward, father God. Thank you, god. Father, I thank you for just the preparation that they went through over these last 15 years of marriage, god, to prepare them for marriage ministry. God, for the things that they're going to be able to help people battle through, father God, for they've seen and battled through themselves, lord, and I thank you, lord, that for the preparation that's coming, god, that may not be this year, it may be this coming new year. That's getting ready to start, father God, but I pray, whatever that is, that you make it very clear, you make it very decisive and you make it very precise in their minds and in their spirits and what they're supposed to do. God, and I pray, lord God, that as they come into alignment with that, that you will open doors for that type of ministry to take place, whether it's at Central or Two Rivers or at their home, god, whatever it looks like, god, I pray that you just make that very clear.
Speaker 1:Father. Lord, I thank you for their kids. Lord, I thank you for what you're doing in their children. God, I thank you, that man, I thank you for Elijah. God, I thank you for the gifts that you've given them. Father God, lord, I pray that you begin to allow Aaron and Will to help nurture that help, to give them visions and understandings of how to nurture that God, because that is obviously a gift that you've given him. So I pray that you allow them to understand and know what that is God, so they can nurture it and make it grow, so that, when the time comes that you release him into that calling God, that he will flourish in it.
Speaker 2:Lord, God, so I thank you.
Speaker 1:Lord, just for her daughter. Forgive me, I don't remember her name, but I thank you for her daughter, god, and I thank you that I heard her singing in there, god. So I pray, lord, god, that right now that you bring someone into our life who's a vocal coach, who can help her to learn how to sing and how to utilize the anointing that's in her voice, father, god, because we know those who sing for you, god, it takes a special anointing to usher people into your presence, god. So I thank you, lord, that that's what I see for her is this supernatural anointing to be able to usher people into your presence through her voice, god. So I thank you for everything you're doing, god, I pray just for continued healing in Erin's heart, continued healing in her mind, god, in Aaron's heart, continue healing in her mind, god, and I thank you for the strengthening of their marriage, lord, thank you God.
Speaker 1:I just praise you for all that you're doing, god, and again I thank you for her story, because you've been in it the whole time. God, we can see it, we know it, we acknowledge it and we thank you for it. God in Jesus' mighty name, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 4:Aaron, can you do me pray for me and dad. I'm just gonna ask you if I could father god, lord, jesus, you are so good, jesus, you're so good. Lord, thank you for your mercy and your love and your grace and forgiveness. Lord, thank you for your provision. Thank you for your life. Lord, thank you for the life that you, you pour into us. Thank you, god. I pray for speak life and I pray for the men who run it. Lord, I just thank you, god, for them to step into this space where they're encouraging people and letting people speak and share about you, god, and I pray that you bless it, lord. Bless the socks off of this ministry, help it to grow, lord.
Speaker 5:I pray that you.
Speaker 4:Lord, just be with them. Protect their families, god, as they step more into what you're calling them to. The enemy doesn't like it, so we pray for a hedge of protection around everybody involved with them, lord each family member, and we love you, god, and we thank you and praise you and just lift this ministry up to to your will. Lord, your will be done in here, in this ministry, in this space, in Jesus name amen amen.
Speaker 2:Hey, everybody. Uh, I don't know where you are watching from. Well, you're probably watching on YouTube or where you're listening from. But whatever platform you're on, if you could please subscribe to the channel, you'll get all the future notifications for future testimonies. If you could please go and comment, man, just type a word, type a paragraph, type Jesus, whatever you want to type. It just helps the comments with the getting seen through the algorithms. If you yourself want to come on the podcast and share your testimony, you can reach out through Facebook, instagram and X. Speak Life AZ. All one word. Until next time, we're going to continue to speak life AZ. God bless you.
Speaker 1:Jesus, we're going to continue to speak. Life AZ. God bless you, jesus.