EP. 17 - The Power of Prayer: Leslie Hernandez

This episode of the Better Together Women’s Podcast introduces a new series titled The Power of Prayer, featuring Leslie Hernandez, a member of Fusion Church and leader in couples and evangelism ministries. Leslie shares her compelling personal journey from hopelessness and spiritual confusion to becoming a devoted prayer warrior through her relationship with Jesus Christ.

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Transcript

Joe Marie 0:30

Hey ladies, welcome back to the Better Together Women's Podcast. We are so excited that you decided to join us today. My name is Joe Marie. I'm Rachel. And we have a very special guest today, our very good friend Leslie Hernandez, because we are kicking off a brand new series called The Power of Prayer. So if you've ever wondered, does prayer really work? We're gonna find out today. Maybe you've been praying for a long time and God hasn't heard or God hasn't answered your prayer the way you think it should happen, or you're confused about how you should pray, or um, you know, what does prayer look like? How are we supposed to pray? What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to wait on God? We have so many questions that a lot of us, um, you know, a lot of us have, and sometimes we can't find the answers. But hopefully in this series, and especially in today's episode, we hope to be able to touch on a lot of those subjects because Leslie's story is powerful because she went from someone who felt hopeless, but through the power of prayer in her life, she has been full of hope through Jesus Christ. So we are just so excited to kick off this series because we know that God has something for each and every single one of you, including the three of us here, um, because we're all learning, we're all growing, and God has something special that He wants to reach, um, that He wants to reach each and every single one of our hearts so that we grow in our faith, that we're not staying the same, but we're growing in our faith. We're um we're creating this this deep prayer life, and not something that is superficial, but something that is bold, that is powerful. And also prayer is sometimes um quiet, right? Yes, um, quiet where we have that one-on-one time, that deep, um, that deep space that we have with just our Father and ourselves, and God speaks to us so loudly sometimes in those quiet times, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? So we're so excited to have you here, and this is gonna be a wonderful, wonderful series that will bless each and every single one of your hearts.

Rachael 2:54

And we're so excited because we have Leslie here with us, and just to give you a little background on why Leslie is so valuable to us and in our lives, she is a wonderful member of our church, Fusion Church. Her and her husband lead uh the couples ministry, and they are funny, active, um, come up with the craziest skits, and um the most adventurous um outreaches, and most powerful spiritual um growth journey for couples through the good, the bad, and the ugly. Also, they lead evangelism ministry and they're they share like how do you share the gospel? Now that you know the truth of God and the hope of God, how do you share that in real life, real everyday life? It's a powerful ministry that they have, but also as a friend, she is one of those ladies that when you need prayer, she's the one who's going to lace up her her boots, she's gonna put the Vaseline on her face, put her hair in a bun, take off her earrings, and she's going to battle for you, and you can count on that. So we all need people like that in our corner.

Joe Marie 4:14

A prayer warrior for sure.

Leslie 4:15

Yes, prayer warrior for sure. And she understands when you you may not not know what you can do for someone, that is the greatest thing that you can do. So we're so happy you're here, Leslie. Oh, I'm super excited to be here. Thank you for having me. I look forward to the conversations and you know, prayer is the core of our Christian um walk. Like it's the heartbeat. Yeah. So I'm super excited to be here. Well, oh, well, I just was wondering, like, so were you born a prayer warrior? Like anybody who will watch me pray and they'll say, Oh, yeah, she was born like that. Absolutely not.

Joe Marie 4:59

Yeah, well, our our the title for today's um talk is From Hopeless to Hopeful. So why don't you walk us through that, you know, that time before you found the Lord, when you felt hopeless. What was that like? Maybe describe your salvation story and how prayer eventually uh how you developed or you found prayer and how that catapulted you into this strong prayer warrior that you are today.

Leslie 5:35

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I will tell you, and and and this is one of the things I shared uh with my with my dear friends at times, like prayer was something that I knew as even as a child, like you know, um I didn't grow up in a Christian household. It was a lot of paganism, a lot of um things that now I know was not of the Lord. Um, but at the time it was normal, it was cultural to me. And there was some sense of prayer. So I was already always attracted to prayer. Like I knew there was a God in heaven. So for me, I uh as a as a little girl and even as a teenager, it was like I was crying crying out to God but knocking on the wrong door because that wrong the door was not Christ. And Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So if you're not knocking on the wrong the right door through Christ, you're gonna get stuck. And I thank God that I did get stuck because every door had to be closed, so I will eventually knock on the right one through Christ. So what were those wrong doors? Oh my goodness, the wrong doors. So yeah, you know, I grew up in uh in a household that it was a little bit of a Catholic, a little bit of spiritualist, and a little bit of what you want God to be in your life. And um I think even in that dysfunction, I think my parents, because my father was the first one to introduce me to prayer, and I I felt this beauty that came out of it, he will worship, you know, he will worshiping God, but all these other elements that at the time I didn't know that it was of darkness, it was spiritualism and masked as as um beings of light, which later on, of course, you know, I found out it's like, oh, that was demonic. It was demonic. You know, but God in his tender mercies, even though I was knocking on the wrong doors and it felt like I was pounding, pounding and never getting there, there was always something that drew me to God. I knew there was a there was Jesus, and I wanted to know this man, Jesus, but I didn't know that I was making God into my own image out of sheer um just ignorance and cultural uh lies that were passed down, cultural lies, you know, and um my parents didn't think they were doing anything wrong. I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. And then, you know, I said the beauty of it all and the the grace of God was that he let me come to the end of myself. Like I had to get exhausted of knocking every wrong door until I came to know Christ. And it wasn't beautiful, it was very messy. I was in a very dark place in my life, I was suicidal. Um, and I challenged and like, if this man Jesus, I need to know him, I need to know him because if not, I I can't do this anymore. And guess what? He showed up.

Joe Marie 8:33

Thank God. Yeah, thank God. Tell us about that. When did he show up?

Leslie 8:37

So um, it was many, many years ago, over 20 years ago. Um, I remember um I was just afraid. My husband at the time was going to work, and I was very afraid. I was like, you know, just don't go. I just didn't want him to go to work. And um I uh I wasn't I wasn't part of no any church. Um my friendship pool was really dry. It was a very lonely time for me, very, very lonely time. And I remember having um a very real, it wasn't a dream, it was a very real experience of a demonic being calling me by my name. And I was like, oh my goodness. So it's it's almost like uh you you're you are in this, you're in this beautiful home, right? And everything's in place and everything's like beautiful, and all of a sudden, if you start opening up the doors, all of the junk and all of the dead stuff starts falling out, and it was like God completely unveiled the darkness for me to see of what I was really um serving in my ignorance. So when he when that happened, and I was so frightened, I was so frightened, I called out to Christ in my little small mustard seed faith. I called out to Christ, and I remember calling my dad and he prayed for me, and I was always attracted. Um, in the Catholic, they have this little card that has the heart of Jesus, and I was always praying to him. I didn't know him, but I'm like, I'm praying to the heart of Jesus because I need to get to this man because as far as I'm concerned, he's supposed to like, you know, he died for my sins. I had no idea what it meant to be a Christian. So anyway, um, I prayed that little prayer of my dad, and I was still very unsettled after that very, very real experience. And at the time, there was no, you know, there was no Google, there was like no Instagram, there was no social media. I turned on the TV. I had TBN, the Trinity Broadcasting uh network, and I turned it on. It was like four or five o'clock in the morning, and there was this lady preacher, and she was preaching about salvation, and she was talking about her story, how God saved her and all the dysfunction she went through as a little girl. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that's me. That's my life. That's she's like, and then she um she explained the gospel. She explained the gospel, and I was like, I was just like, my eyes were like fixed on the TV. I was like, this is this is it, this is God talking to me. And um, I remember um she said, You want to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior? I didn't know what I was doing. I was like, I'm gonna accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior, you know, this is this is it. I'm like, okay, let's do this. And um, and then she said, Yeah, now the Holy Spirit is gonna live in you. And I'm like, Okay, Holy Spirit, come live in me. And the first scripture that I had uh heard audibly was the kingdom of God is within you. Wow. I was like, what is that? Wow, what is that? What is that? So, you know, in my little, you know, little bit of what I knew, I was I grabbed a little Bible that I had, I had a little NIV, and from that day forth I just started uh reading the Bible as well as I knew. And I, you know, and they were like, Oh, you know, you should pray that you you know go to a a Christian, you know, Bible teaching church. I had no clue what it was to be a Christian. So um that was my church for a little bit, a few months. I I would turn on the TV every morning. I was still a hot mess, I still cursed, I still dressed, less the world, but I wanted, I knew in my heart, my inside Jesus had uh redeemed me. And the war started. Because now the enemy was like, Oh, I don't know, I no longer have have her. So everything that I thought I was following was light, became it's like God uncovered it and it let me see the evil and the ugliness. And that's when I discovered the power of prayer, yeah, because I knew that he heard me. And I when I received his love, it was like a bomb over my heart. And when I read those words that God so loved the world, I owned it. I that's why I say my husband and I we always when we teach the evangelists and we tell people, do you don't understand that the gospel is something so very personal? And the more personal it is to you and the more grateful you are for your salvation, the more um eager you are to share it. Yeah, it's like having the cure for cancer and every disease in the world, and you just want to give it away. Right, you can't hold it. Or if you find a really good sale, that's right. Red tax sale, there you go. Red tax sale. You're like, you gotta tell all your girlfriends. Us ladies, we we love ourselves. That's right. But let me ask you this question. So, but how did you get from, right? Like you had that that dream, right? And you had you knew about prayer, but you knew about the heart of God, but you weren't really connecting, right? Because you didn't understand who Christ really was. You were knocking on all the wrong doors. But was it just from even though you were still a hot mess, right? And we're always a hot mess, like we're a hot mess. We're all a hot mess here, but um was it just from watching the TV that that that showed you, oh, I need to pray, and I gotta dig deeper. It was that, but it was also what I was was what I was experiencing in my life, like the change. Like it's it's like to know that you are loved and accepted. That was monumental because on my life, I was told that I was, you know, I was not the popular girl. I was I was you know, so it's what were you told? Unfortunately, the traumas passed out. So you know, my parents did their best. I was not it was it was not um I don't remember being told that I was like beautiful or smart. It was quite the opposite. And um my parents received a lot of trauma, unfortunately. They passed that down to their children. And you people would think, oh, you're the youngest, you were the baby. I'm like, no, it was it was really, really hard. It was really, really hard. If I was clumsy, I'm like, oh my god, you're so stupid, what's wrong with you? I probably had ADHD or whatever. But the point was that I was I was unnoticed. I was unnoticed, I was not seen. And Jesus saw me, I felt seen, I felt heard. And being it wasn't even about, oh yes, he answered this prayer, now I'm a new creature in Christ. No, I was still a hot mess. But to know that there was a God in heaven that cared for me and heard me, that I was loved and heard was monumental. And he was showing me that little by little. I felt it in my heart. I felt the Holy Spirit moving. Um, I remember my daughter was in, she was she the angel was a baby. I remember going to uh the Dollar Tree store Dollar General store, Dollar Tree, that was years ago, and in the middle of the of the um of the store, I saw this scarf and it said, I love Jesus. And I kid you, I started weeping. I was so drawn to that scarf. I still have it. I have it on my it's over 20 years old, and that was the first day that I realized that Jesus truly loved me. And that scripture in first John, I love because he first loved me. I can't even take credit for that. Yeah, that became so apparent and real in my heart. It was just like the Holy Spirit took over my heart, and I'm like, I don't even know what what I'm going to do with this love now. I know that I have him inside me, but what do I do?

Joe Marie 16:27

Right.

Leslie 16:27

And I just wanted one of the crime like, oh my gosh, Jesus is here and he loves me. Right.

Joe Marie 16:32

Yeah, because I think it's foreign to many women specifically who have never felt love. So all of a sudden have people tell you that God loves you, and also have this realization that, oh, what does that mean that God loves me? Now they don't know what to do with it. Like it's a foreign concept, they've never experienced that in their life. So how do you how do you tell women, how do you help them to accept this love if they've never felt love before? Like what would you say to them now?

Leslie 17:09

Yeah, I will say to them, and this is what worked for me, listen, every avenue that you've taken has not worked. Give him a chance. Give him a chance because to me, it if it didn't work and thank God that he is the truth and he is love. I was at the end. And I think sometimes you have to come to that end, to the end of the road, that every single door has to be closed, every relationship has to dissatisfy that this that deep discontentment that I had in my soul. I knew that there was not a man in this world that that could satisfy that. And God allowed me to feel that thirst. Yeah, that was his grace. That was his amazing grace. At the time I didn't understand like why none of my friends are here, and my family's abandoned me, and you know, they kicked me here and they kicked me, and it's like because he he he was uh pulling me towards him, he was welcoming me into his family, and you can't be in the world and be with him, and to know that uh he wanted all of me, even the messy parts. I was like, what? Nobody's ever loved me that way. And he truly means it, like come as you are, you don't have to fix it, right? Let me do it. Yeah, just come. He he he he certainly in is into the fixing part.

Joe Marie 18:32

So seeing that scarf, the I I love Jesus scarf, really just you felt like I need to put that on so that you can feel the warmth of God's love. Yeah, right. That's probably what it was for you, right? So, was this around the time that God also opened up your eyes about all those other things, um, those dark things like you had mentioned um in prior conversations like Santaria and all those other things. And so, was that around the time that God opened your eyes? And what did you do with that realization? Because you told me you did you went you went all out against it. I will share that.

Leslie 19:11

Absolutely, absolutely we'll share. I will tell you the devil's a liar, and he wants people to people to believe that God doesn't love him, them or God loves you if if or but or conditional, and um, I think that's the greatest deceit that especially for women, because we have such a tender heart, and even the most hardened women, it's not a hardened woman. It's because she's been so broken and so hurt that she has put up walls because her little heart is gonna crumble any minute. So I know what that feels like. But in the heart of the potter, he does something beautiful. So once once I knew that I knew that I knew that my God loved me and he had redeemed me, the word of God, first of all, became very real to me. I knew that that was essential because I knew that's like, wait a minute, this is the word of God, and this is this has transformative power. And I am the type of person that when I'm when I was in doing all of the things that were in darkness that I didn't know, I did it out of ignorance, I was fully in. I'm committed, I'm bull-headed, and I'm stubborn. God made me that way. That tenacious faith, he's given that is a gift that he gave me.

Joe Marie 20:23

Yeah, he's just redirecting you now.

Leslie 20:25

He was redirecting. I was it was tenacious for him now. Exactly. I was just I was I was aiming at the wrong target with the right tenacity, but now with Christ, because I'm walking in the truth. So I remember I had books and I had uh candles and I had rocks and I had potions and lotions. I remember one day it was it was very supernatural. It was extremely supernatural. I took this big brown bag and it was hundreds and hundreds of dollars. I I was I had um this crazy obsession with um Native American art artifacts, which was very expensive, but it was a spiritualism. So I knew like I was like, God, you show me I'm being obedient. And I remember reading in um in the Old Testament, I think it's in the book of Judges and First and Second Kings, how the children of Israel wouldn't remove the high altars, and that really bothered me. And I was like, and I knew it was a tug in my heart, and I'm like, oh no, oh no, this is something wrong. So that was about two or God is so faithful, by the way. So I'm doing the you know, the TVN. Let me back it up. I'm doing the TVN, you know, that was that has been my church, and now I start praying. God, I I need to to be part of a church, I need to be part of a ministry, I need to be discipled. So it just so happens that Leander was gonna start preschool and I needed an aftercare program because I went I went from working evenings in the hospital to working daytime at a at an assisted living facility. God is amazing. The aftercare. School, the before and after school director, her husband was a pastor. So then I meet her, and she starts talking to me, and she's like, We're starting this little church, and it was a church of maybe like five, six, seven people.

Joe Marie 22:14

Sounds familiar. Very familiar.

Leslie 22:16

So yeah, very, yeah, very charismatic, you know, charismatic Pentecostal, but deep, you know, into the gifts of the Spirit. And we were there, I mean, we were like talking about God allowing you to feel that thirst. We were thirsty and we were hungry for the word of God. And my husband and I, we would do Bible studies three times a week, and sometimes till 12 o'clock in the morning praying and supplication. So it was really like that tapped in of something that was already planted in my heart years ago from my my Heavenly Father. And I remember after one prayer session the next day, I was I was reading about the high altars in the Bible, and I fell in love with the word of God. I actually pray for that. I said, God, I don't know, but I want to fall in love with your word because these are your words. You these are your words. And I'm and and I'm you don't you don't lie, so I want to live by your words. And I remember taking that big old bag. I was living in an apartment at the time, and thank God my my neighbors didn't call the cops on me. I put everything in that bag, and it wasn't just about me putting it in a bag and trashing it. I made sure that I crushed it. I was like Moses with that golden calf. I wanted to grind it to the grind it. I mean, like pound it with a hammer. And my husband's like, What are you doing? And then there was a few artifacts that were very expensive, and he was like, Are you gonna throw that out? I was like, Yes, I need to. I need to, I need to, because what he has given me is so much bigger, much more um, it's priceless. You can't even put a price on the salvation, the blood of Christ. And um there on, I just I just didn't. What was that? I just didn't want, I didn't want anything that was displeasing to him. Yeah because all my life I I was so lost and I was like I didn't, I I remember feeling like I didn't utter prayers. Like I I feel like even now in my 50s, I feel like there's not enough prayer in me. All those years that I didn't pray to him, all those years that I didn't thank him, all those years that I didn't show gratitude or honored him, I felt like there's not enough prayer in me. Right. There's not enough prayer, like I tell people you don't you don't understand, like he hears you, right? And it's the connection, like people it's it's coming to him for more than just an answered prayer. You're connecting to the heart of the father. Yeah. I I just want to um ask about so you have some women who may have had an experience similar to yours, right? Um, and it it was not at you know an altar call or anything like that. That was right in your personal time in your room. And you mentioned your husband, and I'm imagining he didn't have that same experience, right? And you might have a woman listening or women listening who are like, I feel God tugging on my heart, but my husband doesn't. How did that work for you? Like, how did you because then I'm hearing from from you telling your story, like he ended up going to Bible study with you sometimes three times a week. So what was that like? Oh, God is so merciful for our story. The minute when I was watching the Christian um broadcasting nation uh network, Eddie started sitting with me. What are you watching? What are you doing? What are you watching? What are you doing? He came to the Lord quite quickly, like right after. Yeah, so it was he was doing his story with him and with me, and then we came together. And don't get me wrong, like I'm he was like looking at our old um our previous pastor, he's like, He's crazy. What the heck he's talking about being equally yoked? What he's talking about with eggs, what is he talking about? But he came and we did it together, and it was the most beautiful thing. Um, and you know, he'll he has this story to tell because that's his testimony, but the Lord transformed him, transformed him, like both of us, and I am so grateful. I'm so grateful that I don't I didn't have to take the journey, take the leap by myself. Eddie was more skeptical than me in a sense, but we came to the Lord together. So, what would you say to that woman who is struggling because she feels alone in her home, and she's like, God, I you know, I want my family, I can need my family to join it. What would you say to that woman? First of all, continue to to seek God and pray, pray, pray for your husband. Prayer. Prayer is monumental, and also um just just be the hands and feet of Jesus to your family. I mean, out of our, you know, we have a blended family. Out of our four kids, only one is walking with the Lord. And that's what we do. We don't compromise who we are at all. You know, when they come to our home, they know we're Christians, they've they've been taught the word of God, they've come to church. Um, but continue to pray and um show them the love of Christ, the truth, but full of grace. But never, never, never nullify the truth. And um, and my heart breaks. My heart breaks for spouses who don't have, you know, their their spouse walking on that journey because it does happen. You're you get married, one comes to the Lord, the other, the one doesn't. Um prayer. Yeah, prayer. It's the same thing that I, you know, I've been preaching to myself for years for our our older children, our all of our child children are adults, and um God hears those prayers. Yeah, you know, be like uh that that persistent widow.

Joe Marie 27:41

Yeah, they're sanctified through your faith. Yeah, right? There's a special covering for them. So, you know, the word says perhaps they're gonna come to know the Lord because of your faith. Yeah, so don't give up. My father-in-law got saved after 25 years of my mother-in-law praying for him. Um that's awesome. I mean, hopefully it doesn't take as long as it takes. That's I think I think that's the the moralist right. As long as it takes, yeah. Um you just keep praying for your spouse. That's it. Yeah. But I want to go back to the crushing in the bag because I think that is something so powerful that m a lot of people probably don't think about. Like, why did you need to crush it? Right? Like, why did you need to put it in a bag? Like, why not leave it off to the corner of your house or leave the bag and put it in the in a room in your closet and stuff like that? I think there's something powerful about that, and I think you know the answer.

Leslie 28:38

Yeah, absolutely. I I didn't want to be reminded of who of who I was because God redeemed me, and I didn't want to give the enemy a foothold. You don't belong here, right? You do not belong here, and my home became that sanctuary. Um, it be that became very real that when you bring the Lord into prayer into every area and every corner of your home, um, and it's also a testament to our children. Yeah, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and this is what it looks like. It's not something that we just, you know, there are no other gods. There are no other gods, there are no other gods, and then it's reading from the by from scripture how um the people of God they strayed because that's what they did. Right. You can't have Jesus plus, right, you know, is he he's either is or he isn't, and being the type of personality I am, I'm all in or out. I couldn't have that water down. I the enemy had cheated me out of so much, I wasn't gonna be cheated any longer. Right. I wanted God every area of my life, and those statues, those candles, those lotions, potions, is like you're a counterfeit.

Joe Marie 29:50

You're a liar.

Leslie 29:51

I don't have to believe in you. You have no power over me, you have no power over my marriage, you have no power over my children. Um, my health, my health got attacked a lot. Would God allow that? For me to come to you know, fall on my knees and say, You are the God who heals me, the God who knows me. And I I will tell you, every every broken journey that I've been through, my husband and I, and even me individually, God has used it and He continues to use it for His glory. Yeah, always be so faithful, right? You know, yeah, and I love the way you acknowledge, right? Like you you came into a relationship with Christ that didn't necessarily make things easy right away, and you came under attack, right? Because now the enemy does not want you because you you do have that personality, right? That you once you're in, you're all in. And he's like, wait a minute, she was all into me at one point, and now she's gonna be all in for Jesus. Like, I can't have her do that. So he's gonna come after you and try and draw you out. Um, so any way that you give room for him in your home is just a crack that you just can't allow. Yeah, because God will not compete.

Joe Marie 31:11

No, God does not compete with anything. And if there's um if we keep those things in our home, things that once kept us bound, but we choose not to get rid of it, we choose not to crush it or burn it or anything, um, we're we're kind of like, you know, saying, I still want it there.

Leslie 31:32

Yeah.

Joe Marie 31:32

Like I haven't surrendered it completely to God. Like there's something, it still has some kind of stronghold in your life. And I think it's important to make that decision and say, you know what? Do I want all of God or do I want some of God and some of this?

Leslie 31:51

Yeah.

Joe Marie 31:51

Because if we're not honest with ourselves, we're not going to experience this um the transformative power of God if we don't allow Him to. And sometimes that includes getting rid of a lot of the junk that we're carrying, um, and a lot of the things that help to continue to keep us bound, whatever it is, right? You know, if it's a relationship, if you know we're gonna keep talking to somebody we have no business talking to, you need to block that number and or get a new phone, whatever. Like you know what I mean? Yeah. Um, what whatever is gonna cause you to sin, get rid of it. Yeah, right, because God will not compete. And he's a gentleman, and he's not going to like force things. We're just gonna have this unsettling in our heart until we surrender completely to God.

Leslie 32:38

We could just gotta value our heart. Yeah, we have to realize what prime real estate that is, how valuable that that is, our mind and our heart. Correct. And realize, like, no, I I really have to keep well, the Bible tells us we have to keep guard over it. So, really keeping guard is like keeping whatever garbage, people, little statues, whatever it is, all all those little, you know, talking about horoscopes, the the stars, whatever it is. Um, you know, keeping that no, there is no power greater than our God. Right. So that's the only God served. So we have to really guard our heart. Yeah. So I think it was powerful that you crushed, you didn't just decide to bag it, you crushed it. Yeah, and that was powerful. That's what the bronx in me.

Joe Marie 33:28

Yeah, that's right. Let me ask you something, Leslie.

Leslie 33:34

Maybe I add one more thing. And I think going back to having that uh horrible experience with the with the demonic calling me by my name. When I crush that, it's like you don't own me. I do not belong to you. I become to the I belong to the king and he's my father. Um, so that to me that's that's a declaration. And I love that you both share about it. It's not just things, it's relationships. I cannot say it enough. Please, please do not be unequally yoked with friendships or relationships romantically that are going to like God has the best for you. And you know, sometimes there's a season, even for me, I'm married, I go through seasons of loneliness, but it's because God is wants me my undivided attention. So it's not whether you're married or recording or whatever, but you know, don't cheat yourself out of the best that God has chosen for you because it's going to be detrimental in your relationship with God the Father. And you said it, he's not gonna have any competitors. That's right, you know. Yeah, um, he knows what's best and his timing is always perfect.

Joe Marie 34:37

So nip it in the butt is what burn it down, burn it down, take down the high altars, please.

Leslie 34:45

We can all go to Joe Marie's house and have a bonfire. Yeah, yeah, have a bonfire. Like, you know what?

Joe Marie 34:49

I've you know, ladies, go get some of your friends and just say, hey, it's time to like dig deep. Yeah, let's let's go and let's have a bonfire tonight and let's get rid of all this junk that does not give honor to God and let's just give it up to him. Yeah, right now. Absolutely. But what what would you say to women that are like, what's wrong with that? I like it's spiritual, I like being spiritual, I like having the stones, it reminds me, I like having the candles, it comforts me. Like, what do you say to them? Like, how do you encourage them to seek the truth about what they really are?

Leslie 35:32

Or even just keeping in the house. Like, I know I I knew someone who would like uh a certain statue, and I was like, why do you have that in your house? And she's like, I just like the way it looks, and I'm just like, you know, that's dangerous to be women. Um, but so what would you say to that? I will answer back with the word of God. Amen. That's good.

Joe Marie 35:55

I'm sure there's some women listening, like, what's wrong with that, you know?

Leslie 35:58

Yeah, I will go back to the word of God. That shall not have any other idols. I am the Lord. Um, and idols are statues and candles and all of I mean, do your digging. Crystals, crystals, chakras, all of that is demonic, necromancers, mediums, all of that comes from those elements. Witchcraft. And the thing is, like for me, I was deceived because witchcraft, which I was practicing witchcraft, but at the time, it was like, you know, the Bible says that the devil he disguises himself as a being of light. So all his elements are gonna be disguised as elements of light. Yes, come on, ladies, be smart, be shrewd, be wise, be wise. He's either all or he's not. Right. And you know, I at the end of the day, to be honest, to be a woman of your word, you cannot deny what the word of God says. And then I will, I would, I would, uh, I will challenge them. Why? What is it? What is it? Sometimes is my grandmother did it. Yeah, this something connects me with my mom who passed away of cancer 20 years ago. It might be, you know, um uh trauma that has unre is unresolved. Right. And God is able to to to tap into that. God is able. I come from a lot of trauma, and God has, by the grace of God, He's healed me. And there's nothing wrong with getting therapy, and you know, there's a lot of good, great resources. I work for mental health. Listen, if you need to get help, get help. But God is your healer. Amen. He is our healer, he wants to uncover, to reveal is to heal. Amen.

Joe Marie 37:27

Right, and the only power that we should believe in comes straight from the Lord. Yes, it's it doesn't come from things that have been created. Yeah, the power comes from the creator himself, yes, and that's powerful. So I think that's like a wonderful realization for a lot of people to identify all the things we should not be going to, all the things that are demonic, the things that are not of God, to get that out of our homes, to get that out of our children's rooms, in our living rooms, get it out of our minds, get it out of our phones. Yes, whatever we have to do, because once we get all that junk out, and once we cover our homes again in in prayer, in true prayer, then we can start building on that and covering our homes with the one true God and in his power alone. So that just brings me to um part two of this um amazing conversation with Leslie because now that we've gotten rid of that, um, our next conversation is gonna be how did you develop this prayer life? How did you become a prayer warrior, not just for yourself but for your family, but for the women of the church? And now you're gonna be um speaking to the women all over the world to help them become prayer warriors. So, ladies, you wanna check out our next episode because Leslie's gonna share some wisdom about how you can develop this deep prayer life. So, thank you so much, Leslie. We're looking forward to um talking more about developing this prayer life that we so desperately need. Yeah, thank you for having me. Yes, join us next time, ladies. If you like this and you think this could help somebody, maybe somebody you feel is in bondage right now. Like, subscribe, and share this episode, and check out our next episode as we continue this wonderful conversation with Leslie. See you next time. Bye.