Tiniest of Seeds

Darkness: A Talk With Bill Bedell About How To Choose Light in This Dark World

• Laurine Decker & Bill Bedell • Season 1 • Episode 16

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Join marriage and family therapist Bill Bedell and me as we talk about darkness. This is a conversation that might change your perspective on healing, growth, and transformation. We share a little of our own experiences, including the impact of darkness on both of our lives through other significant relationships and our own stories.  

We have vital need to show up tenaciously to receive the healing of God as HE has for us, not the healing we think we want or need.  We talk about how the walk of sanctification is really about leaning into surrender and rest, rather than a pressing toward a solution.  Sometimes in the despair or quest to squash fear or manage our lives, we actually achieve the opposite effect of what we desire. We may gain control, but lose freedom and joy. God says we can have self-control, love, peace, joy and all of the best for ourselves and to give away. God says his light overcomes the darkness. Our part is to show up again and again to receive what he has said is ours, and to trust that he alone knows how that is given. 

Laurine Decker:

Welcome. My name is Laurine and today I have the delight of having someone on the podcast whom I have known for a long time but who I honestly don't know that well. But our stories have crossed in some profound ways because he is a marriage and family therapist and he has been so hugely impactful for so many of my other intimate relationships. So I have gotten kind of a sneak peek inside of some things because of my friends. Not into Bill per se, I don't know him that well, but I do know that he is a wise man and he has been privy to a lot of insight and into other people's darkness in their stories, and that's what we're talking about today. So welcome, bill, I'm so glad you're here.

Bill Bedell:

I'm glad I'm here.

Laurine Decker:

And before we get started, I wanted to tell Bill and you listeners a little bit about why I'm actually doing this, because I don't know if I've really shared that in much depth on the podcast, and certainly not with Bill. But I wanted to say actually Bill's and my story goes back even before I met Bill, because I met his father at a Celebrate Recovery Conference. The reason I was at Celebrate Recovery was because of the own tremendous darkness in my life and, guys, some of you have heard Psalm 107 is my life chapter because the Lord has delivered me from the domain of darkness and transferred me into his kingdom of light. That started during my conversion experience when I was 30, when I found out that my first husband was not who I thought he was, and I will not digress into that story. But long story short, the Lord snatched me out of darkness. I had a conversion experience and he delivered me at that time from a couple things. The spirit of conversion delivered me from it. I was so drawn to darkness. The spirit of occult I was so drawn to the occult, I was so drawn to all of the things of darkness and, you guys, he delivered me.

Laurine Decker:

And then I started my walk of sanctification, which is how I ended up at Celebrate Recovery, because, as we know, although we have been transferred out of darkness, we have to walk it out.

Laurine Decker:

We have to walk in the light, and so that walk in the light has been long and costly. And I remember, bill, you sitting across from me at a junior high meeting we actually served a junior high youth leaders for our church at New Day about 10 years ago and I remember Bill sitting across the table from me and he probably doesn't remember this, but it pissed me off because he said, maureen, we see you, and at that point I couldn't receive that. I've talked quite a bit about not being able to receive love. I was stumbling around in darkness still, in so many ways as a lot of us are. Darkness is a part of our humanity, it's a part of our human experience, and yet we are called to walk in the light, and so I'm really excited to talk to Bill today. So, bill, I'm really glad you're here and we have no idea where this is going to go, but I would love to just even put you on the spot if you are willing to just jump on in.

Bill Bedell:

Sure, it's interesting that you mentioned my dad in Celebrate Recovery. My dad I think at the time he got saved when I was in high school and then I went to the military and came back. I was in the military, I guess, so I came back to see him in similar ways to what you said Transform. The interesting part about Celebrate Recovery is that my dad actually worked his way up through Celebrate Recovery and ended up being, like the West Coast representative for.

Laurine Decker:

Celebrate.

Bill Bedell:

Recovery actually in one of the recovery Bibles.

Bill Bedell:

In terms of his story, I think the interesting part about that is the darkness in terms of being delivered from something Like what you said there's a sense of not being fully delivered, in the sense of, yes, there's a freedom that takes place, but there's also our story, our narrative things that we brought with us that take time. Unfortunately, my dad never really worked on the deeper parts of that for himself. So it was a very successful ministry and very impactful, but also an example where the darkness he carried he was sometimes not even able to access that eventually led to his suicide. In my opinion it also gave me, by growing up with him, like an insight into evil, darkness, oppression, in a very visceral and, like I would say, very full frontal way. So my dad struggled a lot with addiction all kinds, abuse all kinds and I would say lean more towards sociopathic tendencies so narcissistic tendencies charismatic.

Bill Bedell:

Wonderful, great to be around, fun, but then behind closed doors, addicted, abusive and in a lot of pain. So growing up with that gave me that exposure to what darkness evil really look like. I think later on informed me even about my work in terms of like. How do I want to address dark things, not only within myself?

Bill Bedell:

first, but then how do you address that with other people? So, like you said, like how you said it, yeah, there's a sense of deliverance from certain things and then other things we just kind of chunk out over time and then, no matter how healed we become or how we step through story and find space and room to live, we're still broken. So that isn't really ever something that's held against us. From how I can see it, christ embraces us in the midst of that, not in spite of it, but in the midst.

Laurine Decker:

Right.

Bill Bedell:

So I don't know if that answers your question to kind of begin with.

Laurine Decker:

but I love it. And in response Bill, I am just, I can't help but think of where, in 1st John, some of the I think some of the most troubling language in the Bible about darkness is in 1st John, because it tells us to be perfect, even as Christ is perfect, and it tells us if we walk in darkness that we are liars, and yet it says that we can walk in the light. And it's because so I'm in agreement with you it's because of what Christ did, we are broken. We are always going to have that part of humanity and darkness. And if we can say, you know what? There's no condemnation.

Laurine Decker:

And I do bring up that verse, I bring it up like almost every time, because God saw that that's part of where journey and freedom and deliverance and healing come from is that knowing my identity is intact, despite I still feel the darkness. Sometimes, you know, I still have things knocking. Sometimes I will revert to old patterns dark behavior, self-destructive things, where I feel that I cannot do anything other than act out in addictive ways. You guys, I'm not, I'm not fixed completely. I'm walking and increasing freedom and deliverance and increasing awareness. So I just, I hear you, it's figuring out how to go deeper. You said your dad didn't know how to, didn't figure out how to go deeper and that resulted in him ultimate self-destruction, which is terrible. But I'm curious if you'll talk a little bit more about what it looks like to go deeper.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, I think if you look at just the human condition which you know, some of these theologically are beyond me.

Bill Bedell:

But in terms of the human condition and sin, okay, we all struggle with that, but then, in addition to that, we have others sin, and we have narrative and things that really form and shape our stories. God's fully aware of that as well. So one of the things that I run into quite a bit is just the frenetic feeling that we have, or the anxious feeling that we have, that we always need to be improving, which in some ways I understand, but in another way it kind of perpetuates a problem. So when you're talking about my dad's healing, the idea of bringing healing to other people or knowing certain things isn't necessarily an indication that you have access to a particular place that's wounded. And one of the things that I saw and learned. Can I pause?

Laurine Decker:

Can I ask you to clarify that?

Bill Bedell:

Yeah. Having say that again, there are times where we're working really hard and we're cycling in different behaviors and of course we cycle in behaviors just because we all struggle, right, but then there are levels to that. Where does someone actually have access to what it is that's causing them the pain that they're experiencing?

Laurine Decker:

I love that, because what I hear you saying is just because we're privy to someone's first aid, we're privy to someone's frenetic behavior or what they're doing to quote, be healed or delivered or show up, doesn't mean that we have access to that deeper place of woundedness. Is that what you're saying?

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, and sometimes that's like because God does that very gently and slowly. That isn't something that necessarily we pay attention to, because we're caught up in being healed or we're caught up in the energy of I'm not doing something or I'm doing something right. So in my work with people, because I kind of stand in the middle ground between darkness and light in my mind, that there are people who are struggling kind of at the door of heaven and now quite a bit because of the hopelessness they carry, the pain, the shame.

Laurine Decker:

Right.

Bill Bedell:

The brokenness and so, entering into that, you start to see whether people actually have access to the thing that they're needing to deal with to help them relieve some of that and some people don't, and some people do and some people fool themselves about what they have access to.

Laurine Decker:

It makes me think about where you looked across the table and said I see you, and it pissed me off.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah.

Laurine Decker:

And so real quick, before you continue, that's because you did see me and I, and there wasn't access at that point and I was frenetic, but that's where praise be to the Lord, the steadfastness and the faithfulness of the Lord in his pursuit, if we will continue to choose to show up even though we don't have. I was literally impenetrable at that point. Was I a disciple of Jesus though? Yes, and now there is access. You know, and I feel I know a lot of people that know me. They can see the difference there is access.

Laurine Decker:

But anyway, so I'm just so I, because I've thought about that many times how angry I was. But it, but the Lord used it, because you know what you did, see me. And you didn't mean it in a mean way, but I but I took it as an offense which drove me to the cross. I'm like wait a second here, right?

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, that won't be the first time that someone gets pissed off. I know right, but you know I've had my share of that as well. I think what's funny about that is that the idea that in some ways you thought you were impenetrable, oh gosh, but in reality, like, we're all pretty open and exposed and so it leads back to what you asked me earlier, which is well you know, when I was referring to my dad like sometimes wounds are so deep for people that they form.

Bill Bedell:

you know, the brain and body in of itself will form protections and necessary splits. God designed actually that for it to work that way, so it's kind of like a circuit breaker that trips when things aren't working or things are really painful or overwhelming and those things actually help us buoy and survive harder parts of our lives until we can at some point get enough space or room to come back and revisit those because we carry them with us, you know.

Bill Bedell:

so what's cool about the way that God looks at narrative in my mind is that he's not interested in us skipping over ourself. So, in our current behaviors. That will tend to lead us back to where you are having to reengage, like where you've been.

Laurine Decker:

Yeah.

Bill Bedell:

And that's true in the way that God even designed the narrative of the Bible, but in people's lives, we all have to go back to where some of these places are that were wounded.

Laurine Decker:

Right.

Bill Bedell:

When, when I'm working with someone you know that's one of my first determinations is like what access does this person have? So for my dad, I think some of that was very seared and I think there are people, though. There is hope like externally for them, they may not be able to reach that within themselves, and so right, I wouldn't say that God doesn't dwell in those places, because he dies.

Bill Bedell:

He gives us a choice of whether we want to engage those places. So you and I both have that in common is is oh, I need to receive something. Well, darkness uses our wounds and shame and evil takes advantage of the places within us like that, so that when we are wanting to receive, there's a part of us that feels unworthy or less than, but also our brain and body kicks in to be like. You know, I want to survive, I want to stay protected.

Bill Bedell:

I want to stay shield, shielded from the things that are going on, and yet I have a hope for life beyond that. And so we're in that conundrum of like, well, how do I stay safe and receive? And that's really not a thing that you can do simultaneously very well no. Right.

Laurine Decker:

So true.

Bill Bedell:

It depends us a lot, and so when I think about darkness, I think about what he takes advantage of within us, usually some sort of pain or loss absolutely and then he takes something good and wraps himself around it right evil, and so I think one of the things that I've done I watch people do is they try to unravel the evil and good, and what I would say is it's really not our job.

Bill Bedell:

and you talked about sanctification. There's a sense that God is there to unravel that for us, as if we could actually, you know, untangle ourselves but, it's so ironic that the path to doing that is bringing us back to the same vulnerability that we experience, most likely when we were most deeply hurt.

Laurine Decker:

Absolutely.

Bill Bedell:

So that's where I think you know Jesus meets us in that very gentle way and that's really juxtaposed differently to like how most people want to go at it.

Laurine Decker:

Absolutely. And it makes me think about what you said. You can't learn to receive unless you're willing to step into risk. And going back to the verse I already quoted about from first John, it says if we walk in the light, we'll have fellowship with one another. And, looking back, I talked last week with Carrie LeBang and before that with Claire Clark about fellowship and we were designed to be a community with God, with others. We heal through risk taking. We learn to receive as we step out in authentic vulnerability, not cloaked in frenetic behavior.

Laurine Decker:

And last week with Carrie on steadfast, I talked about how, in Hebrews 4, we are to strive for one thing to enter his rest. We're strut, we're. We're to strive to walk and enter his rest, to receive his healing. To walk, to be yoked with Jesus, to show up, to abide, to be present to God, to be present to others, to receive in community. And that is how we receive our healing.

Laurine Decker:

And I think I alluded to my favorite chapter, psalm 1 of 7. I can't remember if I quoted any of it, but I was wandering around in the dark, feeling without family. In many ways, I'm only learning to receive from my family. It's been a lot of showing up, showing up, showing up, showing up, and sometimes you also talked. You mentioned your dad, thinking that there was some sociopathic tendency.

Laurine Decker:

Sometimes we don't know how God works in the darkness, when someone can and cannot receive healing. My first husband actually was diagnosed borderline personality disorder in our cystic sociopathic and learning and I remember this psychologist said he can knock it better. You need to divorce him now he will knock it better. And I said you know, I believe in miracles, which I do. But the reality of darkness, you know the reality of the fact that some people cannot get better, and yet we look. You know that's human terms, and yet we look at Jesus with a geysering to maniac. Do I look at Nebuchadnezzar going out and chewing on his fingernails in the desert? Yeah, who is the name above all names? And how are we delivered from the domain of darkness? Well, our job is to show up, to show up ourselves presently and let the Lord take care of those around us.

Bill Bedell:

Well, and I think when you think about evil and darkness occupying a wound, like whether it's your ex-husband, my dad, myself, like that's how I begin to think about it more Like, okay, well, in what way is darkness using what's already been?

Bill Bedell:

done to twist. You know something that you know is gifted at people, or both, no matter what. But I think when you're you know, when someone's saying, well, that can't be healed, or yeah, I think there are certain situations depending on the level of harm that people will either get access to or they won't, and it's not mine to say whether they had a choice about doing that one way or the other. Right, but I've worked with people who really cannot. They know or they're in the area of hope, but they will not or cannot open that up, and so they either die or die slowly depending on you.

Bill Bedell:

Know what they have access to so some people in their woundedness. I don't think it's beyond Christ at all. Right. But, I think it's. Sometimes I'm not sure how. Some people are more resilient, Some people. I don't get it either. Yeah.

Laurine Decker:

It makes me think about what you said at the beginning, where we don't have to understand, god is God. We are not. We're not going to get all the theological nuances, why and how he does heal, choice and free will, all those things. God works the Holy Spirit, how he works the grace and mercy. It's God that's at work within us. We're not ever going to get it because we're not God.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, and I think there's a humility that's required for that, like you know, going back to my dad and then we can move off him. But the the idea was because he was traumatized so young and in such particular way.

Bill Bedell:

It's one thing to say that someone sociopathic or narcissistic, but in my mind the sociopathic and narcissism was something that he was kind of entrapped in or shelled in. So it was interesting. He got to a point of being able to even do like inner child work and do that for other people but wasn't able to do it for himself. So I think, as I look back on it now, I think that was his attempt to kind of remedy that within my doubt, I would say there was a place of hopelessness for him that he couldn't break, and so I think that was his attempt to try to reconcile or redeem that part of himself which he never really does.

Laurine Decker:

It's so interesting too because I'm thinking about how, in Romans 11, it talks about how the Pharisees that crucified Jesus. It talks about how they were consigned to disobedience for the sake of all. And it makes me think, too, about the tremendous impact that your dad did have in celebrate recovery. Many people have been so blessed by celebrate recovery and I know why was. That was where I discovered that I was never present. I remember I had an aha moment. I was literally like wow, I'm never, never present. I'm either before or behind.

Laurine Decker:

It was astounding to me and I had already had my conversion experience and then showing up as a good disciple. You know, check in the boxing, okay, there's got to be more God. You promise peace, enjoy it. You promise these things. What is wrong with me? The despair and the hopelessness.

Laurine Decker:

And then I was focusing very much on frenetic fixing of my behavior. I spent so many years trying to fix myself rather than receive the steadfast mercy and love and healing of the Lord. And it's been a journey, so there's mercy and grace in that. It doesn't mean I wasn't a disciple, I kept showing up by God's grace, but I remember that moment and so there's a tenderness when I think about some people that have not been healed in the way we would like them to, because of their own, and we don't know. But think about it. So I'm just really thinking about the blessing. I remember meeting your dad and I knew he was up there and celebrate, covering in and then hearing later about what you know that he had taken his life and to know still the impact that we don't get to decide what people's healing or impact or what any of it looks like. God sees us in our darkness, in our trauma, in our woundedness, and he, he alone, knows how he rescues and delivers and what it looks like for each of us.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, I just think what I learned from my dad, though it was tragic. What I learned is that if you stop in certain places and go into the business of like trying to heal others rather than taking care of yourself first, in terms of like can't take people farther than you've gone.

Bill Bedell:

So if you're not really willing to go into a particular place, or don't have access to it, or are not willing to let people help you, that's kind of the outcome of that, which is super sad. And what it does is it lines up with what the past was telling you about?

Laurine Decker:

For sure. So, bill, my question for you is what about some listeners who literally feel like I had said I felt impenetrable and you called me out and said you weren't which is true, I wasn't because, look, I have progressed. So what would you say to a listener right now who is feeling that they literally cannot do anything to eradicate that hopelessness, that darkness that they cannot receive, that they are impenetrable or sociopathic? What would you say to someone who feels like it is impossible?

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, and you know, when you get into quote personality disorders, like there are a lot of people who kind of take that tactic to say that's unchangeable. I wouldn't necessarily say that's true, I would just say it's harder because the wounds that people carry that have those diagnoses are so deep and intertwined around their being they don't differentiate or see the difference, whereas somebody else outside of it might. The way that I would answer that more directly is like if God's really doing the sanctification, progress and process with us, then it doesn't require so much effort on our part it requires a place of being able to one be kind and curious, aware, empathetic towards ourself.

Bill Bedell:

When you look at protection for an individual, the protection is usually self criticism, self hatred or others hatred, and that protection is there to make sure that the wounds that they hold are never exposed. And so the freneticism that people usually have, or the anxiety about those protections being lifted and then being seen as less than or being seen as the person that there really is something wrong with them. So when I, when I think about that, what I know that to be is not true, so it can't be simply just said that's not true because that person feels it. There's a valid reality that exists inside people, where what they're feeling is, though not true, completely valid because their experience of being not loved while has left them with that mark, that's the residual that evil leaves and uses, and so that's that coat we wear underneath it. And so, as we get older, our protections get more thick.

Bill Bedell:

But the reality is, you know, the shame and the pain that we carry and the sense that there's something so wrong with us and that's universal, is really remedied through our own personal Gethsemane and Exodus the one that we're having to follow Jesus on, and so darkness really can't overcome that, but darkness can definitely keep us isolated and believing in what our body is telling us, and so, though things may be true, and though the reality of Jesus in our life is the truth, right the access that people have to that may not be very high, and so part of what we're doing from someone from the outside is being able to see and name and love, while which I think is understated it's a simple but not easy thing to do because evil likes to make things complicated.

Bill Bedell:

And so it's funny to engage evil because you can be playful with it, because it's not expecting it. You have to take it seriously and, on the other hand, it's already lost, so part of what it can't handle is a mocking. What it can't handle is somebody being creative with it.

Laurine Decker:

Or calling it out.

Bill Bedell:

Or calling it out. So the personal Gethsemane and Exodus what do we have to do? We have to look at our story, where we're from and where we're headed to. And then the Gethsemane what do we have to die to? What do we have to take in? I don't think there's anything within us that is less than I think what we are all feeling is that disconnection and that initial break that really started the darkness.

Bill Bedell:

It's God's will and enjoyment for us to be reunited with that, and so when I think about darkness, I think that that's its primary goal is to get us out of fellowship with one another to point out our faults and eventually to try and kill us slower, easy, you know, or over a longer period of time, or quick. So I think my dad fell privy to that, just because he was surrounded by all the things that it looks right.

Laurine Decker:

Yeah.

Bill Bedell:

But wasn't necessarily able to get to the depths of it. So you can't make someone choose anything. I don't think there's things that need to be fixed in people, but I do think there are things that, if engaged, that's where people can start to see more curiously, more kindly, more openly.

Laurine Decker:

Right.

Bill Bedell:

What it is. It really is the causation of those things, but if that's something that people are unwilling to do, then you can't work harder than that going to work.

Laurine Decker:

I have so many thoughts and I would love to talk to you for hours, I'm sure, about this, but it makes me think about how well a couple of things and I'll just touch on them. Even the darkness is light to him and it's because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Nothing can overcome that. Even before time, when the spirit was hovering over the face of the waters and everything was dark, even the darkness is light to him. God in and of himself is light. In him is no darkness at all, and because we are bought by the blood of Christ and redeemed. That's the reality and our worth is rooted and grounded in that, even though, of course, the fall and we could go into all that, but learning to walk in that truth, it's mind boggling and it's a journey. So that was the first thing that came to my mind, and the other thing is it really does like you're saying.

Laurine Decker:

It comes back to receiving the truth and the healing, receiving the reality of the spirit of the Lord. If the Lord has promised it, he's able to do it. If he says we can have rivers of living water, love, peace, joy, all those things that were promised, he can do it. And if we are not experiencing that fellowship with someone else, it doesn't matter what they're doing, it doesn't matter how broken they are, how broken we are. What we are promised, if we will choose to receive it and walk in it in increasing measure, you know, not every day, blah, blah, blah. We all have all that, but it is ours in Christ. How can we receive that in fuller measure? And that's where I'm continuing to testify, because I'm walking it out in fuller measure. I'm not delusional. I am experiencing more and more victory and freedom over my addictions, over my OCD, over my anxiety over receiving and giving love and relationship, authentic love, intact.

Laurine Decker:

You know true intimacy and the Lord's doing it. And how can we keep posturing ourselves to walk in that kingdom of light?

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, I think, if sanctification is truly his job then, it's very little about what I do.

Laurine Decker:

And yeah, he's done it.

Bill Bedell:

And I think there's a part to where does God love me in the middle of my addiction? And most people would say yeah, but that's not really where people struggle. It's the idea that if I am addicted, or if I am struggling. Am I accepting of myself? Am I able to love who I am, where I'm at, even if it's not what it should be? Right or even if it's not acceptable, isn't it?

Laurine Decker:

It makes me to interrupt you, going back to what Paul said. Why do I do what I don't want to do? But praise be to God, knowing that there's no condemnation when you're in the pig pen, that our behavior does not define who we are.

Bill Bedell:

That's true, and when I think about people who, quote can't or don't want to change, I don't see any different than myself. Like I think we're all the same in that regard. We're loved equally. It doesn't matter, doesn't matter, but I do think my experience of it will be different and so will theirs. So I mean, love is, god, is a constant that I don't really have to question the places that that's broken in me is about me, not him.

Bill Bedell:

And when I look at other people, I might have an idea of where I want them to be, but Jesus isn't necessarily as concerned how quickly that changes, and so I do not think that that my dad was any less loved. I think he experienced less of what was available to him, which?

Laurine Decker:

is sad.

Bill Bedell:

So can people change, or do they? Sometimes, I think, what happens is some don't. Then the assumption is well, they're, you know, not loved.

Laurine Decker:

in particular, they're not doing a particular thing right, and I don't know if they have access to the thing that we're thinking because we might have access to that and who knows why and how it works and makes, goes back to again Bill to even the darkness's light.

Laurine Decker:

to him God is so confident of his own mercy and goodness and justice and love that it. I'm not going to say it's irrelevant, but it's one of the most comforting things when I think about how much trauma and pain there are in the world. It's not that it doesn't matter to God, it's that he is so intact in his lightness that even the darkness is light to him. He knows his goodness, his sovereign love, his mercy overall, and that's it's so comforting because it matters and we're not going to get it. And God is, you know it is comforting.

Bill Bedell:

And then there's the other part where, even if it is light to him, that doesn't mean that we're running to the places that he's in, like sometimes we're running from the places, god exists in because there's just too much for us and, as strong as we are, we're so fragile people and there are certain things that can break people, and so they stay away from it.

Bill Bedell:

And that I understand, because I don't think God is any less in that spot that we're running from than he is if we're doing well. The assumption that I'm doing much of anything to influence that is you know when you really come down to it.

Bill Bedell:

It's kind of laughable. But the idea is we are given some choices about life and things that we can do, and the outcome to those things can change our experience of it. And you know, I just have a lot of compassion for people who would love to be comforted by what he just said and for some reason can't grab on to it and so when you're asking earlier. The way I would answer is I want to offer that comfort to them, maybe in skin, because that's the only way they're ever going to experience it.

Bill Bedell:

So in terms of like, how to love people, that's always different depending on who you're with and what do they have access to and what are they ready for and what are they not. And sometimes like the example of just saying, hey, we see you and that making you mad. There are so many things that people did for me that 10, 15 years later I finally understood. But that's how slow and how deliberate God is with just giving to you something and then just working on you.

Laurine Decker:

I like what you said earlier too, and you might want to repeat it in the way that you want to, but where you said earlier, I wish I could remember exactly what you said, but then we can. Only, it's not our job to provide love and healing to other people.

Laurine Decker:

We have to receive love and healing for ourselves, and that that that is where we can offer that genuine love and patience and waiting not a frenetic anything to other people, and that is one thing that has been really eye opening for me as I continue to learn. Why I've acted out in such self destructive behavior is because I was taking a lot of responsibility and taking a lot of care for everyone else other than my own my own self and learning to have the ownership for, you know, boundaries.

Laurine Decker:

going back to what I think I said it about Peter earlier, did I say it on here already? But I'm going back to Jesus's sense of boundaries. He knew he, he took care of himself, first before the Lord, and then he had love to give in the proper ways, not to try to fix.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, my experience has been. When people say that taking care of yourself is selfish, that they've always struggled to hold on to them, so no kidding. And so there's a part where they don't have access to that particular thing, so they find it better to be critical about it, either in other people or themselves.

Bill Bedell:

But one of the most painful things that we do is to disconnect from who got made us to be, and so later on, when you're struggling in the destructive behaviors, I would argue that the core root of that is being disconnected from yourself. So once there's an abandonment there, all the other ones are easy. I think that's Cormac McCarthy like once you abandon yourself, all the other ones are easy, because once you don't have a self to grab on to, then you don't have value connection.

Bill Bedell:

you know intuition, joy, beauty right you're left to be an obligation to others to get your value.

Laurine Decker:

So yeah.

Bill Bedell:

So it's no small thing to say taking something in, but that's where I feel like most people are wounded. Is that in the process of wanting to be vulnerable, taking something in? That's where they were hurt, and so totally, and that's my story for sure. Yeah.

Laurine Decker:

And it makes perfect sense, looking back, and it's been a real, it's been such a journey to actually, for one thing, sit still long enough to even be able to receive anything good, and it was out of my own woundedness, just a mistrust in a woundedness, you know when you think about it, like the origin that we have is in him, through him, like he started it, he'll finish it, but the idea is the only reason I can even think about what I'm doing is because of him.

Bill Bedell:

So it's sometimes they get so over spiritualizing. I'm probably more practical with like, if that's true then okay, well, he's in the business of redeeming someone to himself.

Bill Bedell:

I think that's the process of sanctification. What I get in on, what I have the part you know, privilege of being a part of, is watching him do that, and so, yeah, you have to have wisdom about end structures to help people kind of map that out. But what we're really looking at in most people is a soul fracture. Unfortunately psychology and theology has taken its split, but I don't think they really should be separate.

Bill Bedell:

The idea is that the wounds that we have go down on a soul level, and he's the one that heals that. So the reality is, though, sometimes people will not and won't be healed here, and right that's a reality and in some ways that's a sad tragedy, but that's how it is.

Bill Bedell:

So I think there's a part where, like when you're saying you're just learning to be present, if you can get into being kind, being aware, being empathetic, being curious, like then there's a room, because that's more childlike, there's room for God to actually get in on what's already happening like in the sense of like, well, I get in on what's already happening and that takes less energy in terms of my effort.

Bill Bedell:

It takes more of a sense of exposing myself to who he is and what he wants to do on a daily basis, which we're geared to in some ways fight against.

Laurine Decker:

So for sure.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, hopefully that makes sense.

Laurine Decker:

That makes so much sense, bill, and it makes me think back to, if we believe in Christ, which I do and which you do the simplicity and the difficulty of trust and obedience to come with childlike faith to receive what he has, to be present to trust and acknowledge it, is absolutely life changing. And do we do it all the time? Do we continue to need to practice? Yes, I know I'm not a human, but that's where I pray and hope that you guys who are listening will just take a moment, even to pause, take a deep breath, wherever you're at, invite the spirit anew, surrender anew, show up to receive whatever healing he has today. The grace for today that's yours, despite whatever you're feeling acting like dealing with, because his name is the name of all names and we show up and we receive and we say yes, and we need to wrap up. We've talked quite a while and I could talk a lot longer with you, bill but I wonder if you have any last closing thoughts.

Laurine Decker:

I so appreciate your wisdom.

Laurine Decker:

I so appreciate your being here and, like I said, I've watched you and gotten to witness the long term patience and wisdom and I'm not patting you on the back, but really thank you for your. God has really gifted you with a deep ability to be patient and observe those soul fractures and to just walk alongside, and I've gotten to witness the profound impact and healing in so many of my friends lives and gotten to benefit from it, and so I would love, if you have any other little nuggets that you want to throw out there for us that would be amazing.

Bill Bedell:

Well, I think it's a humbling experience because I don't. I feel I think I said this months ago, talking with Jeff but it's a profound feeling to be more valuable and less important.

Laurine Decker:

I loved that. Didn't I text you about that after your sermon? I loved that.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, I'm just kind of living in that space where if there's not a false humility around like receiving and it just is humbling to be a part of people's lives and to extend to them in some ways what God wants to extend to them, and I don't always know what that is. But, like you said, there's an importance in showing up and there's a simplicity within the complexity, and it's not easy, but it's somewhat simple.

Laurine Decker:

And.

Bill Bedell:

Kasia takes, you know, for someone who's listening, to think, well, I just need to be more vulnerable. Yeah, you may be on an eight year track to learning how to open that up or 20.

Laurine Decker:

Yes, or 52.

Bill Bedell:

Whatever Right, but aren't we all constantly learning, like how to be more open to a love that we just don't understand and, based on our experience, don't know necessarily how to accept or take in? The cool part about that, though, is we're not required to do so all the time and.

Bill Bedell:

Jesus isn't function because we function better, but I think he wants to bring us to balance and homeostasis, to healing, and he'll do that, and however long, in our sense of time is so funny because, oh, I need to heal on this in the next three weeks because, you know, I got to be at this thing. Well, no, like, sometimes you might be doing this for 25 years, or sometimes you just don't get it in your lifetime. That's okay, we're very finite and it happens fairly quickly our lives, but we have the rest of our life to live after this.

Bill Bedell:

So, I have. Just one of the things that I learned growing up in evil and being taken out of that by Christ, you know, later on in life is that I got a front row seat to how about it can get, and I also got an invite into how good it can be.

Laurine Decker:

Amen.

Bill Bedell:

And that's why I want to help offer others. So hopefully that makes sense.

Laurine Decker:

It's a great place to end and I love what you said about we have the rest of life, because we do have eternal life and it's now and it's forever and we don't get it, and it is good and I love you offering that, just the hopeful perspective of journey. We don't know how long, we don't know how deep, but we do know that God's love and faithfulness transcends everything and that he is faithful.

Bill Bedell:

Well, I would do receive it. Yeah, I wouldn't do what I do if I didn't have the truth behind me and you know, hopefully we can impact society and a culture that needs to see that.

Laurine Decker:

Well, thank you.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Laurine Decker:

Yes, thank you so much and I pray that you will go with the peace and joy and blessing and receive the love that God has for you exactly this moment, because it's enough. You're enough and thank you for listening.