Restoring a broken marriage through faith, prayer and Jesus

In this powerful episode of Jesus Studio, we sit down with Celene, a wife, mother, and leader at Kingdom Living Ministries (KLM). Celene shares her deeply moving story of navigating loss, trauma, and personal challenges, including her journey through the grief of losing loved ones and the strain of a difficult marriage. Through it all, she encounters the life-changing love of God, leading her to a renewed relationship with Him and ultimately to the restoration of her marriage. Today, Celene leads others in discovering intimacy with God, their identity in Christ, and living a supernatural lifestyle. This is a testimony of hope, healing, and the miraculous transformation that is possible through faith and knowing Jesus.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation that will encourage you to trust God in your own journey, no matter the challenges. Don't forget to subscribe and share!

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Transcript

Transcript
00:00:00 Speaker 1
You're listening to the Jesus Studio podcast.
00:00:03 Speaker 2
So I then found myself in another sort of intense five year period of time.
00:00:10 Speaker 2
My nephew, he got killed and and then within a couple of years his sister got murdered.
00:00:17 Speaker 2
My dad, who had been ill on and off, had a a heart attack and he died and then nine months later, quite unexpectedly, my mum died and even though I was 33 in a really, really strange way, I felt orphaned.
00:00:34 Speaker 2
I just saw.
00:00:36 Speaker 2
In the front room and it felt really weird because I decided I was going to speak out loud and I just sat on the on the settee saying, well, God, look, I wanna know you. And it was a beautiful experience, really hard to articulate. It was like waves of love.
00:00:58 Speaker 2
I felt I'm guessing the first time I really felt the manifest presence of God, I had goosebumps up my arm and the hair on the back of my neck. I cried and I sobbed. I didn't know why I was crying and sobbing and and it was just encountering the love of God.
00:01:20 Speaker 3
Hello and welcome to the Jesus Studio podcast. Today I have my friend Celine. She's a wife, mother and Nan and she is a leader at Kingdom Living Ministries, which is teaching on intimacy with God's identity and supernatural lifestyle, which is really exciting. And thank you so much for taking the time to be here.
00:01:39 Speaker 3
We're really excited to hear your story.
00:01:43 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:01:44 Speaker 2
Well, thank you for inviting me. And I just want to start by saying I love what you do. I love testimonies, and there's such power in them. And I've got friends who, you know, they've known Jesus their whole life. And I think, ohh, what only if only I'd have known like that sort of power in my life.
00:02:03 Speaker 2
All the way through and I think we need people like that because sometimes the those that come in with a dramatic pivot.
00:02:12 Speaker 2
I mean or, you know, Jesus bursts into their life in some way where they're very broken, that that those people that have had that faith, that's strong and stable and secure are the ones that actually help many of those people. And so I love that God works it all together for his good. So for me, I grew up in East London.
00:02:33 Speaker 2
I was the only girl after two boys and they were 12 and 13 years older than me, so I often felt like an only child and my mum loved to.
00:02:43 Speaker 2
Or dress me up. I had ringlets and ribbons and bows and I grew up on a Council estate. So you know there was a point where that was fine, but then there was also a time where I got bullied and picked on because I looked really out of place because I was like this PrettyLittleThing. That was all like dressed like a little doll.
00:03:03 Speaker 2
Often when you know those other kids were wearing hand me downs type of thing.
00:03:09 Speaker 2
I was taken to church from birth, so I had a a really good knowledge of God. I knew prayers that we would recite by heart and I really believed that God was watching down from heaven. He saw everything that I did and so whilst I probably was a good child.
00:03:29 Speaker 2
By all accounts I had some type of fear of the Lord and church life was quite social.
00:03:36 Speaker 2
There were groups, there were youth groups. I remember going to Rome to see the Pope when I was a teenager and there'd be coach trips to Walsingham and other places. I can't remember the names of, so it was quite a sort of family outside of family life and around.
00:03:56 Speaker 2
9 or 10 AA friend's Dad was diagnosed with Ms.
00:04:00 Speaker 2
And I had an uncle who really suffered over many years and was very much housebound. He couldn't speak, you know, his life.
00:04:10 Speaker 2
Just ebbed away.
00:04:11 Speaker 2
And I just recall going to bed one night.
00:04:17 Speaker 2
And thinking about my uncle and then thinking about my friends Dad. And rather than this sort of parrot fashion type prayer, that I'd probably prayed before, it was much more of a heart.
00:04:29 Speaker 2
Feel God, please don't let that happen, too. My friend's dad and he, you know, it's gonna be horrible for them to not have a dad around. And and it was more of a conversation. And I remember crying. And anyway, that was sort of my prayer, I guess. And and all those years ago it.
00:04:50 Speaker 2
Even kids knowing that sort of thing was quite an unusual thing, so I'm not even quite sure how I ended up knowing about it, but sicknesses and things it was all like hush hush. And it wasn't always spoken.
00:05:01 Speaker 2
About and. So I kept looking at my friend's dad.
00:05:06 Speaker 2
And.
00:05:07 Speaker 2
You know, I don't know. I was aware that Ms sometimes the symptoms can be suppressed. And I was about 13 or 14 and saw his wife. They were still part of the church and.
00:05:21 Speaker 2
Been saying to my mum what what happened with Jim? You know, he doesn't seem to be having the same effects as my uncle. And she said, oh, no, like, years ago he went back to the hospital. And the diagnosis, they said they must have got it all wrong. There was nothing wrong with him. He's fine. He he hasn't got it.
00:05:41 Speaker 2
Yes.
00:05:42 Speaker 2
And I can.
00:05:43 Speaker 2
Even now I know where I was standing, I remember thinking.
00:05:47 Speaker 2
Ohh like was that about? Did did God hear my prayer? Was that something that could God do that and I don't we we weren't in an environment where you would hear testimonies of healings or anything like that. And so I I think I for a very long time carried with me was my was my prayer.
00:06:07 Speaker 2
Part of that I saw.
00:06:10 Speaker 2
Oh, my mom had a Fife. She would pray in the morning. She would light a little candle. She had lots of icons around the house and and my best friend died when I was 13 from cancer and she, my mum would say, well, I'm. I'm lighting a candle for you every day and you're going to get through this.
00:06:31 Speaker 2
She'd pray the rod.
00:06:32 Speaker 2
Was really and so there was this faith that was demonstrated, but it wasn't something that I particularly owned. It was something that I just saw and engaged with and went along to. But it wasn't my own faith. And there was certain unspoken expectations about go to church.
00:06:52 Speaker 2
And we would always go to church. My brothers had sort of fallen away after they got married and.
00:06:59 Speaker 2
Anyway, so I remember just thinking, well, I want to go out to the Lido on a Sunday with my friends and telling my parents I'd gone to a different service than them so I could go and hang out. But I think that this sort of fear or this, oh, God, God is watching.
00:07:18 Speaker 2
Was inside of me and so I sort of had to sort of fess up a few weeks later and say to my parents, I don't. I feel it's horrible. Like I'm now, you know, 15, and you're forcing me to go to church and I want to have a bit of a, A say in what I'm doing and nobody else is doing it and.
00:07:36 Speaker 2
They they were.
00:07:37 Speaker 2
Probably sad, but they gave me the space to actually make that choice, and actually it was quite short lived because I think I realised that underneath it all I wanted to really honour and respect my parents. So it was quite short, lived around the same time I started.
00:07:56 Speaker 2
Late in my future husband, I'd known his family from childhood and we walked down the aisle a couple of days after my 21st birthday and we started our life together in this newly converted basement flat in Hackney that we'd bought. And I guess I probably entered marriage.
00:08:13 Speaker 2
With unspoken expectations, maybe I wasn't even really aware of them. There wasn't anything like marriage prep that the priest literally asked for us to meet, and all he wanted to do because Simon wasn't didn't go to church. He wanted to make sure that if and when.
00:08:32 Speaker 2
We had children that.
00:08:33 Speaker 2
I would be able to bring them up as Catholic and so I know there's statistics that say 42% of marriages end in divorce with 20% of those within the first five years. And and really we could have been one of those statistics, but God had other plans.
00:08:54 Speaker 2
Simon changed jobs quite a bit and often if he if there was something he didn't like, he'd leave. It opened the door to fear for me. We had a mortgage, we had bills to pay, and even though he'd never really been out of work for long, I think for me there was this feeling of he's not really being very responsible.
00:09:16 Speaker 2
And so I started to not feel particularly safe and secure. He had got in with a crowd who liked to have a good drink at the weekend.
00:09:24 Speaker 2
Friends and whilst I would have been invited to go out, it wasn't really my thing. I hated Smokey pubs and and and it was sort of a side of Simon that I hadn't really experienced or seen before. I worked as an audio typist from leaving school.
00:09:45 Speaker 2
That developed tendonitis in my wrists and so I was advised by the doctors to find a different type of job and I moved into the very strange world of glamour modelling and promotional work, which is a story of its own.
00:10:01 Speaker 2
Simon had work colleagues who smoked cannabis and although he had indulged in, it was something I was aware of even when we were dating. This habit started to increase and I found myself then battling a whole heap of other emotions relating to this because.
00:10:22 Speaker 2
I didn't really like smoking, and I definitely didn't like drugs and that just put even more fear in me.
00:10:30 Speaker 2
Modelling presented quite a dark and twisted environment. It definitely wasn't what it appeared to be, and some jobs took me away from home and it as a married couple we were really doing our own things independently and I think I struggled with a lot of disappointment.
00:10:51 Speaker 2
That I didn't know or understand, or wasn't even really able to articulate at what our relationship looked like. And I ended up having an affair.
00:11:00 Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:11:02 Speaker 2
So this was an escape for me.
00:11:05 Speaker 2
But I felt.
00:11:07 Speaker 2
Such fear when I entered the church after this had happened, that I really felt like there was going to be like a big arrow pointing from heaven, and that the priest would know that I, you know what my actions had been and that somehow I don't know, everyone was going to know because there was obviously a shame that I was carrying.
00:11:31 Speaker 2
But nothing happened and I can recall thinking well.
00:11:35 Speaker 2
Is God, it is God real because like what I had, or this knowledge and my understanding of God was more like he was watching. And if you did things wrong, then it was like fear based. My faith was quite fear based. So the affair was short lived. And I told Simon after it ended.
00:11:55 Speaker 2
Because I hated carrying secrets and he was absolutely devastated. He wasn't really aware of how I was feeling at the time.
00:12:09 Speaker 2
Agreed that he would forgive me and he recognised that he was also to blame but dismissed counselling he didn't want anyone to know. He didn't want any help. He didn't want a any family or friends to know. And so we ignored this thing. There was this big thing that we just we weren't allowed to talk about.
00:12:29 Speaker 2
And we picked up the pieces pieces as best we could.
00:12:34 Speaker 2
I look for a different job and we hit that period of time when the mortgage rates in the 80s were at an all time high of 15% and we found ourselves struggling. But in reality trust in our marriage was really broken and our and our marriage was really damaged.
00:12:53 Speaker 2
And and all we were doing was trying to paper over the cracks.
00:12:58 Speaker 2
So a year and a half passes.
00:13:02 Speaker 2
This thing is still there and we're doing our best, but I'm still really quite unhappy and and Simon and I hadn't really built our emotional connection and that led me to a second affair.
00:13:16 Speaker 2
And it was with my boss, who was someone who listened, who took the time, who seemed to appreciate me. And so there was a lot of needs being met that I was just really quiet. I don't know either oblivious to and was spending more time with him than I was with my husband.
00:13:36 Speaker 2
Home, but once again this I didn't like this living with deceit, so I basically dropped another bomb on Simon and I told him and confessed to him what was going on and and so all of that came to an end. But this time round Simon left.
00:13:56 Speaker 2
And so our families found out that.
00:14:00 Speaker 2
I had not only been unfaithful once, but twice. And during this period I remember being away and sitting on a beach and sort of crying and watching the sunset and asking God like to forgive me for all of this big mess that I've created and I don't really feel I got any answered.
00:14:20 Speaker 2
But I definitely remember watching the waves and feeling this deep, deep sense of peace wash over me and.
00:14:27 Speaker 2
I don't know, it just helped me to hold things together and navigate a really difficult period of time because even after we lived apart for a few months, we decided that we were gonna try to resolve things ourself and we were going to. There was some love that was in there.
00:14:48 Speaker 2
Somewhere and that we were going to give our marriage another go. I definitely, definitely carried a lot of guilt and shame from my actions and in my heart of hearts, wanted.
00:14:58 Speaker 2
Did just wanted everything to be made better, so I think I worked really hard to regain trust family. I didn't. I recognised at her family as well as Simon.
00:15:12 Speaker 2
And I guess looking back, we were really in a big mess. But again, professional help wasn't an option. And on top of all of that, we were really in debt at that point. And so our families brought us bags of.
00:15:24 Speaker 2
Food to tide us over. We both changed jobs and then after a bit of stability and in our income, we put our little flat on the market and decided that we're going to have a fresh start and we moved to Essex and we hadn't even hit our 5th wedding anniversary.
00:15:43 Speaker 2
So this House that we bought was a a major door upper and it had the potential to be a really wonderful family home.
00:15:54 Speaker 2
But.
00:15:55 Speaker 2
I think Simon found the whole project quite overwhelming. He was still trying to deal with betrayal and you know, there was a lot going on for him and and and and and this time he became more and more dependent on smoking weed to just numb the pain. And I guess in reality.
00:16:15 Speaker 2
We're taking on more than we could actually. We're taking on too much and so we found that we ran out of finances quickly and we're left living on a building site for about 6 years.
00:16:29 Speaker 2
Is.
00:16:30 Speaker 2
So the property that we had bought had subsidence and it was being rectified by the previous owners insurance. But I can look back now with a different type of understanding of spiritual things and I can actually think that that House was really symbolic of the reflection of our marriage it.
00:16:51 Speaker 2
Had dodgy and unsafe foundations, and yet we were going to start working to build this House and and create home and and amongst the chaos we slowly started.
00:17:05 Speaker 2
And so we were really excited by the time our first daughter was born and she lived among some of the make do and then by the time our second daughter come along, four years later, our family home had sort of it looked, it was finished. And, you know, it was. It had definitely taken shape and and during.
00:17:24 Speaker 2
All of this I continue to attend church and in the Catholic Church. If you moved, you just found the local church, and that was the one that you plugged.
00:17:34 Speaker 2
To, but it was really having the girls that brought a sense of community connection again. I've sort of made friends with other mums, some really good friends. We holidayed together and, you know, just raised our kids together. And I remember looking and and and.
00:17:54 Speaker 2
Lots of my friends, they were there with their whole family. So, you know, husbands were Catholic as well. And and that was really my prayer. I was like, God, I would really love for us to go to church together as like a family unit.
00:18:10 Speaker 2
So life was good. We were living, we were, we were OK. We were connected. So I then found myself in another sort of intense five year period of time.
00:18:25 Speaker 2
My nephew, he got killed and and then within a couple of years his sister got murdered. My dad, who had been ill on and off, had a a heart attack and he died. And then nine months later, quite unexpectedly, my mum died. And even though I was.
00:18:44 Speaker 2
33 in a really really strange way, I felt orphaned and I grieved that like my my girls, who were probably like three and six, that they were never gonna have those grandparents that had been really quite a big part of their lives up to that point.
00:19:02 Speaker 2
And after my parents death, I found I was questioning life. I was questioning who I was, why I did certain things, and and I found myself questioning my faith and just recognising that, you know, it was something that my parents had instilled in me. And I was grateful for that. But it coincided with.
00:19:22 Speaker 2
A few of my own friends going on an alpha course and they were raving about it.
00:19:26 Speaker 2
And basically saying ohh be really good for Simon's. Like get him on it and so I sort of asked and made this suggestion to Simon and he said yeah, you know we can we can do this and he we'd cleared my parents house out we had this really weird old.
00:19:43 Speaker 2
Never come across a Bible like it, since in some Yeovil and Westminster language or something that was very flowery and and Simon was trying to read this and I thought this is it, you know he's gonna he's gonna start coming to church with me and he would pick this Bible up and say I don't know what it even means and what he's even saying and put it down.
00:20:04 Speaker 2
So we did this alpha course.
00:20:06 Speaker 2
And I was really excited. I was excited that Simon was going to come and you know, this could be this point where it was all going to change. And I I sort.
00:20:16 Speaker 2
Of.
00:20:16 Speaker 2
Went with a sort of air of superiority because I had this faith. I knew God. I knew Jesus and within a couple of weeks I got there and I was like, I don't know anything.
00:20:29 Speaker 2
Because these people, these leaders, are talking about God speaking to them and that they've got this relationship. And I thought, well, I don't care what Simon gets out of this, I want what they've got.
00:20:42 Speaker 2
And so during the course of the alpha course, I got saved and for me, I I remember. I think it was after there was a Holy Spirit weekend. And so being really introduced to the power of.
00:20:56 Speaker 2
The Holy Spirit.
00:20:59 Speaker 2
But I was at home and I got the girls to school. I was home alone.
00:21:02 Speaker 2
Maybe the dogs were there or something and I just sat.
00:21:07 Speaker 2
In the front room and it felt really weird because I decided I was going to speak out loud and I just sat on the on the settee saying, well, God, look, I'm looking up to the the ceiling in the house. I thought you were, like, way up there and that you were watching everything I did.
00:21:27 Speaker 2
And these people are talking.
00:21:29 Speaker 2
Now you can have. I can have this relationship and that you're really real. And so if that's the case, how do I do that? What does that look like? But I want to know you. And it was.
00:21:42 Speaker 2
A beautiful experience, really hard to articulate. It was like waves of love. I felt. I'm guessing the first time I really felt the manifest presence of God. I had goosebumps up my arm and the hair on the back of my neck. I cried and I sobbed. I didn't know why I was crying and sobbing.
00:22:03 Speaker 2
And and it was just encountering the love of God.
00:22:08 Speaker 2
But we're in the middle.
00:22:09 Speaker 2
Of this alpha course, and so I knew that something could really shifted in me, and I looked at Simon, who had loads and loads of questions. He was quite frustrated that the leaders weren't really answering his questions and sort of trying to get him to seek his own answers.
00:22:28 Speaker 2
And to me it looked like he was sort of sitting on the fence and we had some conversations because I was then all in. And I'm like, well, I'm choosing God and.
00:22:38 Speaker 2
He didn't want to because to him, choosing God meant well. I've got to give up smoking. I've got to give up my drugs and I don't wanna do any of those things. So the small amount of faith that he had at that point, he ditched and he became a complete.
00:22:59 Speaker 2
Atheist and.
00:23:02 Speaker 2
This sort of poem, it wasn't an immediate thing, but just over the months and the year that followed that played out, the more I sort of pursued God, the more Simon went into quite a dark place, and we ended up going into a a really difficult point.
00:23:21 Speaker 2
In our marriage, I guess I had become spiritually alive. God had started speaking to me.
00:23:29 Speaker 2
I'd read the Bible, which I'd never done up to that point, and scriptures would jump how I would have dropped thoughts where just random things had come in. And I think that is just really not me and like is this how you talk? God. God spoke in very creative ways. I sort of figured that his first language wasn't English.
00:23:50 Speaker 2
I was like, OK, that sign on the bus is saying, what is that? What are you talking to me? And I just got good at.
00:23:56 Speaker 2
Like throughout my day, asking God questions about the things that I felt were being highlighted or drawn to my attention, and I had this, I felt like God had sort of said to me, promise that, you know, Simon is going to be saved. But he didn't give me a time frame, but I thought that would be.
00:24:18 Speaker 2
Soon, I guess, and I from this alpha course that my friends had gone on a sort of a mutual friend sort of started to disciple me a little bit because I had a load of questions.
00:24:33 Speaker 2
I definitely would turn up and I was so excited to go to like a little coffee morning in my friends house on a Wednesday morning or something and I had all these questions of God doing this. And what about that? And so she started to disciple me and then she comes up to me and gives me a word, which.
00:24:53 Speaker 2
I didn't know what a word was and she said, well, I've had this dream and Simon is going to be saved and I see that you are these two stones in God's hands and he's dropping you into a pond and there's these ripples and it's going to have effects and I.
00:25:08 Speaker 2
Well, God's even confirming what he's telling me. So I was just really, really excited. And I pray every day for Simon and be like, God, this is amazing. And I was just excited and eventually recognise that I was in a very different spiritual place than the church. I was part of. And so I moved.
00:25:28 Speaker 2
To a different church, it met in a school.
00:25:30 Speaker 2
Paul, I recall Simon saying. Ohh well, you know, that's quite nice. You know, I I I you know, I've believed in God and I don't think you've gotta go into church. You know. So it's good that you're going into a school hall cause and I'm thinking, oh, maybe you'll go because it's not in a church building. It's not so traditional. And he came along once or twice.
00:25:51 Speaker 2
But no, he still wasn't interested. I had this deep desire to get baptised, and I remember some of my friends saying. But you've been christened. Why would you be baptised? I was like, no, this is.
00:26:01 Speaker 2
This is his public declaration. I've got to do this. This is. This is for me. And so that was one Sunday evening. A few months later, and Simon and the girls were there, other other people being baptised as well. And everybody got to share a couple of minutes of their their story. And so I shared something along the lines of like.
00:26:23 Speaker 2
I found Jesus and I love him and he's my best friend and we're so excited and didn't really realise that that really made Simon feel like I can't compete with God.
00:26:35 Speaker 2
And there's this new love in my wife's life, and I don't know how to compete with that.
00:26:43 Speaker 2
I think we've been married around 15 years and life was normal, you know, we were just, you know, we had family holidays with friends. We would go out, we would socialise, etcetera. But as my journey then started to.
00:27:03 Speaker 2
Go deeper. This divide between us really widened and Simon started to withdraw and disengage from family life.
00:27:15 Speaker 2
I felt like I learned a whole different spiritual dimension had opened up to me.
00:27:22 Speaker 2
That there was like different spiritual activity going on and that the devil was really real and and maybe I hadn't recognised it up to that point and and at this point, I think in my naivety I had a bit of a showdown with the enemy.
00:27:40 Speaker 2
And I remember again being at home and seeing that Simon was really withdrawing and the drugs and drink was increasing and and just saying to the devil you'll bring it on, bring it on. I mean, I wouldn't pray that again, if if, you know, lesson learned, be careful what you pray.
00:28:00 Speaker 2
But it was like you're not gonna have him because I know that God has promised that he's gonna be saved.
00:28:06 Speaker 2
But yeah, so we went into this place, the drink and the drugs increased. I reminded God many, many times about Simon's gonna be saved. I'm just reminding you, this is like I'm here. I would be in church. I would see other like women come in with their kids and then, you know, a month or two later, their husbands.
00:28:26 Speaker 2
The joy.
00:28:27 Speaker 2
In them and that would be like a family unit and I would be telling God telling God, well, that's not fair. You know, what about me? When is this going to be my time? And I've done this probably a few times over and and then one-on-one occasion I feel like his response just shocked me. And he was like, why don't you ever.
00:28:46 Speaker 2
Look in the mirror.
00:28:47 Speaker 2
I was like, what does that mean? And he's like, look in your heart. And I was like, what does that mean? And it's like, you're jealous and you need to deal with it. And I was like, ohh. And that was sort of how God spoke to me. It was.
00:29:01 Speaker 2
Didn't really beat around the Bush or anything like that. And so I recognise that actually I needed to remain in a place of trusting God but.
00:29:12 Speaker 2
I think.
00:29:15 Speaker 2
We were really good at presenting a good image, so there was this disconnection, but when we needed to, we could come together and be a happy family. So much so that really our daughters were totally unaware.
00:29:32 Speaker 2
That there were.
00:29:33 Speaker 2
Particular issues in our relationship and our.
00:29:36 Speaker 2
Marriage and on on one occasion Simon had had changed or something could happen with work, and he decided that he was going to go into business for himself again, which sometimes happened. He would be self-employed and then he'd be employed and then he'd go back to being self-employed and so on this particular occasion.
00:29:58 Speaker 2
Maybe in light of where he was, he just made some really bad business decisions and he got us into debt.
00:30:05 Speaker 2
And life was just really stressful again, and all I could see was really our marriage deteriorating. Simon started to become emotionally abusive. He played mind games. I felt often that I was losing who I was and and I could. I can look back and know.
00:30:25 Speaker 2
In hindsight that I was probably bordering on a breakdown of some kind, I worked around this time in a special needs department of a secondary school with a young lad who had like macular degeneration.
00:30:44 Speaker 2
And I knew I was there to work with him, and I felt that God had opened the door for that job for me. But I was being bullied by a member of staff, and even though I had escalated it and I was like, how can an adult be bullied by another adult? And I escalated it and it just kept getting swept under the carpet. And I'd find myself walking on egg shells at home, I find myself walking on egg shells.
00:31:04 Speaker 2
And work. I'd find myself sitting in the toilets at lunchtime, crying and saying God, please.
00:31:10 Speaker 2
I wanna leave and I think in his kindness, God gave me the assurance I needed to continue in that job for another year and a half. Two years and I was literally in town. One evening, I got the girls from school and we were.
00:31:30 Speaker 2
Going along and the thought Helen Keller dropped into my mind and I thought this is like prime prime example of God talking to me. I'm like, what? What was Helen Keller? It's. I wasn't even thinking about it. I was like.
00:31:44 Speaker 2
God, I think I.
00:31:44 Speaker 2
Read a book and she was.
00:31:48 Speaker 2
Did she create sign language or something? She was dumb or deaf and so I sort of thought, OK, well, if you're trying to get my attention, God, let's go into the library, which is just literally where we were walking. So I go in, get this book. I've said to the library and, you know, point me in the right direction.
00:32:09 Speaker 2
Ohh yeah, yeah, yeah, she was. She wasn't just deaf and dumb. She was blind. And so I was like ohh OK.
00:32:19 Speaker 2
And she opens this book and literally on the page, the teacher for Helen Keller was called Miss Sullivan. And I just saw in print my surname on the book. And it was just the connections, like my mind was drawing connections of like, God was just in his own way, telling me you are in the right place.
00:32:40 Speaker 2
I don't want you to leave and there was like, this supernatural grace that flooded in in the middle of the library that allowed me to continue in that place and and it all got it sorted. All the bullying and everything else got sorted in the in the long run.
00:32:58 Speaker 2
I know that like the devil likes to isolate people and so.
00:33:05 Speaker 2
In that place.
00:33:08 Speaker 2
Of feeling unsupported.
00:33:12 Speaker 2
I felt that God was drawing me into a like a a bit of a a place of intimacy with him and and I definitely would say that he was my lifeline and strength and.
00:33:25 Speaker 2
I would get up and it felt like I needed God to really help me get through each day because I felt like I was just dragging my physical body through the days because they just felt like there was stuff coming out.
00:33:37 Speaker 2
In all directions and I just.
00:33:41 Speaker 2
Wanted desperately wanted help for our marriage and I found this intensive marriage course.
00:33:47 Speaker 2
Which meant a week away in Wales and and at this stage Simon's company had just started to build an extension on our home, so he felt no timings wrong. I'm not going and then I would argue that I marriage was worth putting the tools down for a week and it was like, no.
00:34:07 Speaker 2
And we haven't got childcare for the kids. We haven't got people that live nearby. Uh.
00:34:12 Speaker 2
Blah blah blah.
00:34:12 Speaker 2
Blah blah. And so I was so determined. I was like, I'm making a plan and I.
00:34:17 Speaker 2
Orchestrated all sorts of friends. You know they'd go to school one day with one person. They'd go home with another person and for the week I had made a plan. And so I then went back to Simon and was like, it is all.
00:34:27 Speaker 2
Sorted and so he felt.
00:34:30 Speaker 2
He didn't have any excuses, but that I was really backing him into a corner, so he reluctantly agreed. He didn't engage much with the process when we were there.
00:34:41 Speaker 2
Although one night and and this is quite funny, we both woke suddenly because we smacked our heads as we were laying in bed. We must have both turned at the.
00:34:52 Speaker 2
Same time and.
00:34:53 Speaker 2
There was this like crack as both of our heads smacked and and after like a bit of a dazed. Ohh, you know well.
00:35:01 Speaker 2
Thought was that Simon sort of went back to sleep and I lay there and I was sort of laughing to myself because I was like, God, it's like you've put 2 angels to.
00:35:10 Speaker 2
Just push their heads together. The pair of them like and I was like, yeah, I'm sure God's, like rolling his eyes and thinking honestly, you need to sort yourselves out. I'm gonna like bash.
00:35:19 Speaker 2
Your heads together.
00:35:20 Speaker 2
And so after this sort of marriage course I came away with a renewed sense of hope. We weren't on the same page, definitely not at that point.
00:35:31 Speaker 2
But something seemed to shift, and for a few months we were able to start talking about some things and we seemed to be turning a a corner.
00:35:41 Speaker 2
But then that was slightly short lived as well, because the building of the extension became an issue. I sort of then witnessed the the guys were there, they were working, but they were having long breaks and they were getting stoned.
00:36:00 Speaker 2
The job and I was like and this is my home. And so there was in me this like just such a sort of disappointment of like, this is our family home. And yet Simon's allowing these guys to behave like this and he doesn't want to create this home that.
00:36:18 Speaker 2
We were, you know, we'd remortgaged on and all of those sort of things to to make something happen. And so I found myself then in amongst all the stress and work and bullying and everything I was having panic.
00:36:31 Speaker 2
Attacks.
00:36:32 Speaker 2
And I ended up being off.
00:36:33 Speaker 2
Work for seven.
00:36:34 Speaker 2
Weeks and and I felt really lonely because.
00:36:39 Speaker 2
The close friendships that I had, they weren't as strong. I'd withdrawn, withdrawn, as sometimes they didn't go to things I wasn't sure how Simon was going to behave when he was drinking, and so I didn't have, you know, I would. I would have loved to have sat down and and had a conversation with my mum. But I I found myself entering.
00:36:58 Speaker 2
Season where I would say I recognised and experienced Holy Spirit as a a counsellor and a comforter, and it started when I was pigging out the washing and.
00:37:11 Speaker 2
I literally was begging out the washing and I'd carried shame and guilt for so long that it really led me to believe I it was OK to be poorly treated by others. And so as I pegged the washing out, it was like Holy Spirit was saying, you need to repent.
00:37:31 Speaker 2
And actually, forgive yourself because you're not forgiving yourself and actually.
00:37:37 Speaker 2
God was saying I've forgiven you, but you're holding yourself responsible for those affairs all those years ago. You keep coming back and you've repented of it. And I've said I've forgiven you and you've repented of it. And every X amount of months.
00:37:50 Speaker 2
Or a year.
00:37:51 Speaker 2
Later, you're like, this is my fault. It's my fault we're in this place because it's my fault and.
00:37:58 Speaker 2
And I felt that, you know, at that point, God was really talking about the power of the cross and understanding what Jesus had done and not that we can renounce Jesus to the cross. But actually my.
00:38:11 Speaker 2
Well, I am so bad that I can't be forgiven. Was actually underplaying the power of the cross. And so I dealt with all of that and I was off work and and and it was. It was an amazing time. I I looked back and referred to it as.
00:38:30 Speaker 2
I was God's little onion. It was like he peeled me. He peeled me. There was lots of tears. There was lots of snot and he took me on a journey of revisiting memories and situations. And it was like anything and.
00:38:44 Speaker 2
From like as a child, there was an incident with being touched by someone. My dad was in hospital and they kept saying going sit with this guy over there and I was like, no, I don't really want to. And they kept forcing me to go and.
00:39:03 Speaker 2
Even though I was saying I didn't want to, he was touching me and things and and I'll go and play a game and and go and sit and, you know, do some colouring in. And I was like, no, I don't want to. And it was like I wasn't being heard. And then my parents found out about it.
00:39:21 Speaker 2
But I think their own fear of ohh my gosh, this has happened and we were unaware of it. It came across from my recollection of like I was just told off. I was told off and I was shamed that I had allowed it to happen. And so there was this process of like I believed I had good parents.
00:39:43 Speaker 2
And I loved my parents, but actually that had an impact on further shame, it opened the door on things that I carried them through my childhood. I had a friend who.
00:39:57 Speaker 2
Sexually assaulted me and that went into it, went in and through my 20s and ended up also assorting one of my daughters. And so there was a lot of needing to revisit situations and forgive.
00:40:17 Speaker 2
Him and let go of things that I was carrying. Lies, lies about myself that I was in a situation and God brought healing and redemption and I think.
00:40:33 Speaker 2
I.
00:40:35 Speaker 2
I think I had never really realised how passive my dad was. He was quite easy going and softly spoken, but there were definitely times where I was left feeling unprotected because my dad didn't speak up or didn't man up. If you like. And so.
00:40:55 Speaker 2
And again, that would have affected who I was and and how I would deal with things.
00:41:02 Speaker 2
When Simon and I were dating, our relationship was physical before we got married and my mum and dad found out. And so that's the story.
00:41:10 Speaker 2
In itself, but.
00:41:12 Speaker 2
My mum, absolutely being livid and shouting at me. He doesn't love you. Simon doesn't love you all. He wants you for his sex and actually.
00:41:21 Speaker 2
I understand now that there is such power in our power, in our words and proverbs says in scripture that the power of life and death is in the tongue, and so.
00:41:34 Speaker 2
I hadn't read any books. I didn't know it was like Holy Spirit led me on this. You're going to break some words, you know, and their curses. Or there are things that we speak over ourself. And so there was real power in the words that my mum spoke, you know, she loved Simon. And we went on to get married and everything else. But in that moment, her.
00:41:54 Speaker 2
Her pain, her anguish, she had lashed out and said things, but actually it sat around me and it was stuff that I can.
00:42:00 Speaker 2
Greed. And so there was this whole period of like, all these different things that I had to work through. And it felt like literally every day I would, everybody would be gone and God would be right. Today, we're dealing with this. We're going to talk about this person, we're going to revisit that. I'd be like, OK, OK.
00:42:21 Speaker 2
And so there was this amazing peeling healing thing that God worked through.
00:42:29 Speaker 2
And it really didn't take long before.
00:42:34 Speaker 2
The focus became on Simon and and I think what had happened was I had many years of.
00:42:43 Speaker 2
Going to God with a prayer.
00:42:44 Speaker 2
List.
00:42:45 Speaker 2
About change my husband. You know he's done this. Can you see how he's treating me? Look at what? Look at how? Look at his behaviour. And so in this place, it felt again, like this mirror got flicked around into my face and Holy Spirit was like you carry a lot of judgments.
00:43:04 Speaker 2
Towards your husband in your heart. And actually we're going to start dealing.
00:43:08 Speaker 2
Those and I was working through all of those and then there was this light bulb moment where all my pleas had been to sort Simon out. God sort Simon out. And I just recognised.
00:43:24 Speaker 2
I was the one sitting there. I was the one sitting with God. And so this moment, and my heart's desire was like changed me. Change me, Lord and my prayer was I don't know what Simon needs. But you need to make me the wife that.
00:43:43 Speaker 2
He needs to be, and actually I'm going to leave all my lists and all the things that you need to sort out with you. I'm going to take down all the expectations that are unmet, unfulfilled or whatever. And I want a new husband.
00:43:59 Speaker 2
And I'm gonna. I want it to be him. But you have got to make him the man that you've created him to be. And so God sort of became my secret weapon. Because then I sort of felt like I went into this place of.
00:44:15 Speaker 2
Holy Spirit, teaching me also about breaking patterns of behaviour and cycles of behaviour and you know, maybe it was something I read. I don't really remember, but it was like.
00:44:29 Speaker 2
You know what?
00:44:30 Speaker 2
You treat he he's your husband and you don't treat him as an equal.
00:44:35 Speaker 2
You treat him like a parent and he feels told off by.
00:44:37 Speaker 2
You and so there was all these, like things that God started to show me and change in me. And then what would happen in the middle of the conflict and the arguments.
00:44:48 Speaker 2
Excuse me, I would have like these internal conversations of like, OK, what am I supposed to be doing? Holy Spirit, what am I supposed to be saying? And it would be like retreat, withdraw and going out one time and sitting in the garden and thinking, what on Earth it was like a deja vu moment of he's going to say this. I know I'm going to say this. This is just it was just a pattern that we were just stuck in and we were repeating.
00:45:10 Speaker 2
And so I'm sitting in the garden.
00:45:13 Speaker 2
And.
00:45:16 Speaker 2
I felt that.
00:45:18 Speaker 2
God was prompting me to go in say something, give him, give Simon a hug and tell him I loved him and I was sitting on the wall outside. Well, I think it was a pile of bricks.
00:45:27 Speaker 2
At the time.
00:45:27 Speaker 2
And I was like, no, I really don't love him at this moment, and I don't really want to go and say that. And it was like, well, are you going to be obedient and are you going to do this? And. And so these sort of things.
00:45:38 Speaker 2
Started to implement some of these promptings by Holy Spirit.
00:45:45 Speaker 2
And it would leave Simon speechless, or just diffuse the situation, because actually the the behaviour and the patterns that we were caught up in started to not be because, you know, Simon would be looking around and thinking, well, I can't come back now with this thing that was sort of going on. And so there was this.
00:46:04 Speaker 2
Real, definite sort of shift that started to happen. I remember putting on worship music and.
00:46:12 Speaker 2
Like my little earphones and I would clean around the house and I remember again my Holy Spirit saying.
00:46:21 Speaker 2
Well, we're gonna do some spiritual cleaning. I'm like, OK, what? What does that mean? And it was like, well, you're doing all the physical stuff, but there's a lot of spiritual stuff in your home that you need to get rid of. And I'm like, OK, well, what does that even look like?
00:46:34 Speaker 2
Or I want you to go into this room and I want you to start praying and I'm going to point things out. And there were objects in my home that needed to be removed. There were things that I started to feel there was, like, bullying going on with or control with one of my daughters. And so I was like opening windows.
00:46:53 Speaker 2
And being like.
00:46:54 Speaker 2
Praying. Everything came out in Jesus name and any spirits of this object. I don't really know why, but just that there was something about a particular object or a picture or something that had come into the house that God was like. You need to get rid of it and then on on one occasion.
00:47:14 Speaker 2
I it wasn't something I did every week. It was just periodically. But we were in, I think a very sort of head locking situation and I thought I just, I feel like I'm going to.
00:47:28 Speaker 2
I need to go and do some spiritual cleaning because there's definitely some stuff going on and and and the Lord saying, well, you know, start in the bedroom. It's the place of intimacy and and our loft was converted and that was where our bedroom was. So I'm up there. I've got the windows open and I'm praying and then this.
00:47:48 Speaker 2
Smell starts and I go running downstairs because we're in the middle of like this extension and I thought the pipe has burst, but as I come down to the landing, the smells not there and then I'm like, oh, it's like, is it a demonic smell? Because I've never encountered that before and so.
00:48:08 Speaker 2
I was a little bit like, well, I've got all authority. I don't really know what I'm going to do with this, but I'm going to go back up the stairs and I'm like, well, you know, Jesus, you're with me, Holy Spirit, with me. I don't. I don't know what to do. But as I went back up the stairs, the smell started and it was like soulful.
00:48:24 Speaker 2
And I was like, OK, this is very demonic. And what is it? And I felt the spirit of God say it is you need to get rid, get rid of the the spirit of disrespect, control, lack of trust. It was all the stuff that was in our marriage that was festering.
00:48:44 Speaker 2
And so I just, I opened the window and I prayed and prayed and prayed. And as I prayed and told these things to get out in the name of Jesus, the smell lesson.
00:48:54 Speaker 2
And.
00:48:55 Speaker 2
I then asked that Holy Spirit would fill that place, that there would be peace, that there would be trust, that there would be unity, and it wasn't like any of that stuff was evident at that point. But it was I. It was something that I prayed into, and again it felt like there was this.
00:49:15 Speaker 2
Shift that had started to happen. I really, really believe that God was going to save Simon.
00:49:25 Speaker 2
But I think in all of this, as the years rolled by, one year into another into another, I hadn't recognised how much I'd hardened my heart in believing God in that particular area. I trusted him in lots of other areas, but actually not so much in this and.
00:49:45 Speaker 2
Definitely times.
00:49:46 Speaker 2
When it would feel like, I don't know. Simon would sort of say something, I think. Ohh. My gosh, there's like there's a glimmer of hope. This could be it. And then feel really dashed and really disappointed. And I found myself believing or blaming God. Like you're just setting me up to feel disappointed again. And so this.
00:50:06 Speaker 2
Hardness came in.
00:50:10 Speaker 2
And so in this process of all of this Holy Spirit counselling, there was a point when I recognised I was really, really angry at God and so that was also something that I had to deal with. But you know what? He was OK with that. He's big enough.
00:50:29 Speaker 2
To take it.
00:50:30 Speaker 2
More than anything, I think he wants us to confess what's hidden in our hearts.
00:50:36 Speaker 2
He knows what's there, doesn't he? He already knows what's there, and while we ignore it, we just. We're doing more damage to ourselves. And so all of this was going on and I was sort of hanging on to hope, very, very slimly and.
00:50:54 Speaker 2
I think one Sunday morning I was getting up and going to church and I remember saying to God I can't do this anymore. I have lost sense of who I am. I'm sort of just about hanging on to who I am and I've got a really high regard for marriage. I know you do, but actually.
00:51:14 Speaker 2
If I come home and this particular situation plays out in front of me, then I'm going to pack my bags and I'm.
00:51:20 Speaker 2
Going to leave.
00:51:22 Speaker 2
And I I guess I put a fleece down for God. I don't think I'd ever really. I don't believe I'd really put him to the test. And and I sort of said I was really sorry, but.
00:51:34 Speaker 2
That was where I was at. I was emotionally spent. I was so tired. I was so weary for fighting, and I got home and that situation presented itself. And so I packed my bags. I'd given the girls lunch. They were down watching telly, and I was I I don't even know what I'm going to do. I don't know how I'm gonna.
00:51:54 Speaker 2
I haven't got a plan here, but I'm going. I know I'm going, and so I said to Simon, I've got my bags packed and I'm going and I think that was a light bulb moment for him because the horror on his face, I think we we say now in hindsight, we both never, ever quit on the same.
00:52:15 Speaker 2
We dragged each other along through our marriage at different points of like you want to give up. No, you're not giving up. You think you're giving up? No. You are still in this. And in that moment he was. No. Please, please don't. I'm gonna change. I'm gonna be. And I was like, no, it's it's like a broken down record player. You say it.
00:52:34 Speaker 2
It doesn't happen. It doesn't last, and we're just. I can't. I just can't do this anymore. And so he grabs my hands and he leads me to his garage and he starts pulling out all these drugs. I was, like, horrified. Was like, oh, my gosh. And he disposes of all these drugs that after.
00:52:51 Speaker 2
Soon as an an an attempt to like please don't go. I'm really, really honest. I'm really. Yeah. I really want this to happen. And we had an honest conversation where he said I I do need to change. And I know I need to change. I don't know how, but actually I can only do it if you help me and you have got to recognise that.
00:53:12 Speaker 2
I'm potentially going to slip that I am potentially gonna stumble a little bit and and you know, I've been on drugs for a really long time and I don't know how this is gonna gonna how this is gonna work and.
00:53:24 Speaker 2
So it was a long way from an overnight transformation, but we definitely definitely turned a corner and the doors of communication seemed to be forced open as we started to navigate what it was looked like to rebuild trust. And I had got. And so I think in that place, God continued to change.
00:53:44 Speaker 2
Me.
00:53:45 Speaker 2
And so.
00:53:46 Speaker 2
The changes in me had an knock effect on Simon and an impact on him. So where we'd been in these cycles when he did slip up, I wasn't well, you know, I wasn't being that, like, making him feel bad about it. It was like there was grace of like, OK.
00:54:07 Speaker 2
We how are we gonna continue navigating this?
00:54:10 Speaker 2
And by the time we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary, we were in a really completely different place. There was love and there was laughter, and there was joy and all of those things had been restored to our relationship. But Simon still wasn't saved. And I think I found a peace in accepting. You know what, God?
00:54:31 Speaker 2
You're going to do this, and you're going to call him whenever is the right time and and then a month after our anniversary, Simon has this radical salvation as he's driving 70 miles along 70 miles an hour along the M1M25 slip road, and God speaks to him.
00:54:50 Speaker 2
And I had been waiting for that day for over 10 years.
00:54:56 Speaker 2
And that was 12 years ago, and he's got his own story to tell and maybe he will and a lots happened in between. I think at that point it felt like Simon was.
00:55:09 Speaker 2
Fast tracked spiritually, we found ourselves attending loads of conferences together. It was like, really great. We were growing together.
00:55:18 Speaker 2
And then four years in, we both stepped out in faith, giving up our full time work to become student three days a week at London School of Supernatural Ministry, which raised a few eyebrows. This crazy God adventure continued at the end of our internship when we found God opening.
00:55:39 Speaker 2
Door for us to be part of a team.
00:55:43 Speaker 2
Starting our own supernatural school KLM, who lined up a a building free of charge and in 2019 KLM was launched and it was not. It was never on our radar, never ever on our radar that we would do anything like that and we travelled to lots of different places ministering.
00:56:03 Speaker 2
Making students and really seeing God's hand in some amazing ways and seeing God at work and and I think back to my prayer of like.
00:56:15 Speaker 2
Ohh God, it'd be really nice if Simon could come to church.
00:56:19 Speaker 2
And actually.
00:56:21 Speaker 2
How much? I mean, I'm just so moved because it's like I've seen Ephesians 3, verse 20 played out in my life now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly, above all that we ask or imagine according to the power that works within us, to him be glory because.
00:56:42 Speaker 2
I never I wanted someone to come to church for me. I didn't want, like, a a crazy, God, loving husband that we're on this amazing journey together. And so it feels like God is still bringing transformation in our lives into every area. So much has been redeemed and and it will continue to do so because.
00:57:02 Speaker 2
You know, it's an adventure and it's not over.
00:57:05 Speaker 3
That night, when he, all day when he came home and said what happened, how did that feel?
00:57:10 Speaker 2
Well, he didn't come home straight away. He he kept it to himself for a couple of weeks because I think he needed to process he had rejected.
00:57:19 Speaker 2
God so much for sort of so strongly but.
00:57:25 Speaker 2
A couple of.
00:57:26 Speaker 2
Weeks passed and he said I think he he's sort of. We probably both remember this slightly differently, but I remember him saying, oh, I've got need to tell you something. And I definitely knew that there was stuff going on and I had friends at that particular point.
00:57:39 Speaker 2
Praying for him because I was like I I just knew that something was happening and he said, oh, I've got something to tell you. I think I might believe. And I sat there really.
00:57:48 Speaker 2
Tom and I was like, ohh OK, inwardly.
00:57:51 Speaker 2
I was like, yes.
00:57:53 Speaker 2
And I wanted to jump round the, you know, the kitchen and and I. And I was like, Oh well, like, why and what what what? What makes you say that? And he said well there was this thing that happened and I was in inwardly just just so joyful so joyful.
00:58:09 Speaker 2
Even as we then shifted into that, that in itself was quite amusing and quite interesting, because I'd been the spiritual head of the home. I, you know, I took authority and I had to hand that over to him, but that was also like a.
00:58:24 Speaker 2
We had to navigate that pecking order because for someone that just don't talk about God in the house, cause it's gonna cause arguments. I had a husband that was insatiable. Everything was about God. Every conversation was about God. I.
00:58:37 Speaker 2
Was like can.
00:58:38 Speaker 2
We not just talk about something normal, everything's about God and we're like, will you please just stop talking about?
00:58:44 Speaker 2
Lord.
00:58:45 Speaker 2
And then there was a point where I don't even recall what it was that I said or done something like. That's not really very Christian of you. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna hit him around the head with the Bible because he's like, he, how do it he tell me now after all this time. But, you know, he was on his own journey and like, a friend of mine had sort of said, you just have to navigate. He needs to step into being.
00:59:07 Speaker 2
The head of the house, he needs to be the God head in his family unit and actually he probably needs to get some of that learning from other guys and other men, not from you. I definitely knew it would. You know, it wasn't so good coming from me, but I think his feeling was.
00:59:22 Speaker 2
Well, you've been on this journey. You know, you should be able to just tell me. And I was like, trying to get him to step into his own journey. So. So that was just. It was a interesting and fun time.
00:59:33 Speaker 3
And the the, the, the interesting thing that's really.
00:59:39 Speaker 3
Shone out to me is that when we're trying to change someone else to be what we want them to be.
00:59:44 Speaker 3
OK.
00:59:46 Speaker 3
It's so much the case that actually God saying hang on, look at yourself first, because if we change, the change is just there, isn't it? And it it just it can be such a light to somebody that they just want to be connected to whatever's going on in you. And I just think that's amazing, really cause I.
01:00:05 Speaker 3
I know that with my mum and dad's marriage my mum, you know, she had to change in order for for it to like all heal. Like she couldn't. You can't expect the other person to always be that change. And we've got lots of stuff that we need to work on ourselves, haven't we so?
01:00:21 Speaker 3
That was just beautiful, I thought. And uhm, tell us a little bit more about, like what you're teaching at what you're doing now at KLM. Like your the prophecy and things like that. Can you tell us a little bit about?
01:00:31 Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. So we have, well, we we we've been running online and in person courses in North London is our sort of base. We do modular courses that are short courses for like 4 weeks on Prophecy Prophecy 101. So how to hear the voice of God prophecy is not anything.
01:00:52 Speaker 2
Big or fancy Corinthian says. You know, all should prophecy the gift of prophecy is for for everyone, and we should earnestly seek that. And actually what it is is hearing the voice of God. And it's for ourselves and other people. So we teach people to here for theirselves. We love to not only just present.
01:01:12 Speaker 2
Things and teach. We are quite activational. So we wanna get people doing and putting tools, practical tools in people's.
01:01:20 Speaker 2
Runs we run a three-year programme.
01:01:23 Speaker 2
UM and a lot of that is about our identity. So once we understand who we are in Christ, we we look at intimacy because if we don't have that intimate relationship, then the wrong things flow out of us. So it has to flow from God. And then how do we step?
01:01:44 Speaker 2
And to being a a supernatural people, that we should be able to allow God to interrupt us in the middle of Tesco's and shopping and have a word for somebody or, you know. And what does that look like without it being weird and going up and, you know, closing your eyes and speaking in tongues or quoting scripture, you know, to just say to someone I've got an encouraging word for you.
01:02:04 Speaker 2
Or do you know what just having like can I just ask you a random question and then you say something and I think one of the response is that we've had more than any real it's like are you a spiritualist and it's like, no, no, I'm just practising hearing the voice of God and I'm a Christian. And I believe that this is what God wants you to hear or know.
01:02:22 Speaker 2
Day and it's just amazing, you know, seeing people not always brought to salvation. You know, I I sort of think we have seeds in our hands and sometimes you're just sowing a seed that you're. You're opening the door for someone to think. Well, actually, I I don't know anything about Jesus. And so you, you point them or you tell them or you share something.
01:02:42 Speaker 2
Or.
01:02:44 Speaker 2
You know well, actually that's really strange. If someone else has said something to me like a month ago. Oh, well. God's like pursuing you. I think you need to be checking him out and having those conversations. So yeah, we do lots of different things. We we go into churches, we do workshops in churches or.
01:03:03 Speaker 2
Training days of how to get people out on the streets without feeling absolutely terrified. And yeah, we just do lots of different things really in and around the things that we see in the Bible and.
01:03:18 Speaker 2
The things that we feel God is directing us to.
01:03:20 Speaker 3
Do. Yeah, it's important because we're called to be set apart when you know, when we're at the shops. Why don't we just say God, is there anyone you speak to me? Yeah. Do you want me to speak to anyone today? Because you know, otherwise we're going to as Christians, we're going to end up doing the same thing.
01:03:36 Speaker 3
That everyone else does, yeah.
01:03:37 Speaker 3
You don't want that, David. We all know.
01:03:39 Speaker 3
Speak life over people. That's really cool.
01:03:41 Speaker 2
And I think it's about allowing yourself to be interrupted. And I and I can put my hand up and say there's plenty of times I've gone out somewhere. I've got my list going on in my head and I've gone and I've got my shopping or I come home. I was like, oh, God, I didn't. I didn't even really acknowledge that you could have been asking me. Or you could have been setting up a divine.
01:04:00 Speaker 2
Appointment. So it is actually about tuning in and being aware that God is speaking all the time and what he wants is you're I'm available and I'm listening. And what, how, how and what do you want me to do taking those sort of baby steps and stepping out in faith and and I think he rewards.
01:04:20 Speaker 2
Your faith and your obedience, and and then actually, it's not only the person that gets blessed. You end up feeling like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. And you know, God.
01:04:29 Speaker 2
Would you use?
01:04:30 Speaker 2
Me. Yeah.
01:04:31 Speaker 2
So that's awesome as well.
01:04:32 Speaker 3
That's really cool. And one last thing as well. You talked about spiritual things in your house.
01:04:37 Speaker 3
I've definitely experienced that me and my husband are.
01:04:41 Speaker 3
Absolutely. One of those people that wake up in the night and say the blood of Jesus over this room and you know, we we have to do that quite a lot. We feel like we get attacked in the night quite a lot. Sometimes we pray over the children before they go to bed. And sometimes I can feel there's angels in the room really strongly.
01:05:02 Speaker 3
Some people will probably listen to this, might think that's absolutely crazy like to have a smell of something or, you know, I definitely believe that we should be doing that. How have you got any, like, practical?
01:05:14 Speaker 3
Well.
01:05:15 Speaker 3
Things or advice to tell people because I feel like they're, you know, there there is sometimes a lot of fear in the night and things like that. Is there anything you can encourage people that you know want to pray all this stuff out their house like anything?
01:05:29
Yeah.
01:05:31 Speaker 2
Well, well firstly to say that we are spiritual.
01:05:35 Speaker 2
Before we're human or flesh.
01:05:38 Speaker 2
And so we've got spiritual senses. So why are we can't smell in the spirit or taste in the spirit? You know, we've got we've got to develop those cause actually those those are senses. We've got spiritual senses that are there but we we just haven't used them and so it it you know the more you start to recognise those things there are people that will go into places and they can just smell the demonic.
01:06:01 Speaker 2
And they know that there's activity going on. And so it's being aware that there is a spiritual realm and that we are part of it.
01:06:07 Speaker 2
And so in terms of protecting your house, the things that you're doing are great. I I remember a testimony of someone whose child kept having spiritual attacks. And so the mum ended up making, making or like a cardboard sword or something and saying to the child.
01:06:27 Speaker 2
All you need.
01:06:28 Speaker 2
Do is say in the name of Jesus. If this happens, you know, night terrors and things like that, that kids. Because children they don't have philtres and they see in the spirit and they're really pure. And so the enemy wants to come in and attack that because he wants it to be shut down so that you know in churches.
01:06:49 Speaker 2
Where are the seers? Where are the people that see in the spirit? Well, they're all the kids that have been shut down because they see monsters and the parents are saying there's nothing to be afraid of. That isn't nothing. And actually, rather than putting a a weapon in the child's hand and saying you can fight this, you might be small, but you've got authority.
01:07:09 Speaker 2
So when that night terror comes in, you get up out of bed and you pick up that sword and you say get out in Jesus name.
01:07:15 Speaker 2
And so there was this testimony of a mum. And that's exactly what happened, little girl, you know, night, terror, night, terror at night, terror. And then one morning the mum goes in and she sees her sword in the middle of the room and says what happened? And she said, oh, I did that and the the there was never any more night to her as thereafter I think you follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
01:07:37 Speaker 2
You know, as as led, you know, if you're praying around things and just being discerning and like I said, this sort of spiritual cleaning thing is something that I do periodically and it's just a prompting of ohh. OK. I think it also the devil is.
01:07:56 Speaker 2
And intimidates her, isn't he? And he wants you to feel fear. And actually you don't have to do much but say I'm covered with the blood of lamb and you need to get out. And this house is protected by, you know, the blood of Jesus.
01:08:12 Speaker 2
Because.
01:08:13 Speaker 2
There were there.
01:08:14 Speaker 2
You know definitely times where both Simon and myself have seen the devil at the foot of the bed or whatever, and rather than step into like a fear of like, Oh my gosh, I've gotta get up and I've got all this spiritual warfare in cause something's going on. It's like, oh, it's only you.
01:08:29 Speaker 2
And turning over and going back to bed, it's like.
01:08:33 Speaker 2
And so when you get to that place of, I've got an authority that the devil's like. Ohh well, I can just stand here. We'll put some worship on. Why don't you join me? Join me for the worship. Put some worship on. He's not gonna hang around. So you know, things like that can be really useful.
01:08:49 Speaker 3
Yeah.
01:08:51 Speaker 3
It's just a lovely story and I just. I loved hearing about how your marriage just got restored and.
01:08:57 Speaker 3
It's just I've there's.
01:08:59 Speaker 3
Hundreds and hundreds of people struggling, and I know that there's probably one in church, one out of church, and it's just a huge thing still today. And my mum, I saw it through my mum and dad, so it definitely resurrects with me. And if you could just pray us out and just pray over that, that would be.
01:09:17 Speaker 3
Really powerful. Cool.
01:09:19 Speaker 2
I will do, yeah.
01:09:24 Speaker 2
Yeah, father. Thank you. Thank you for your your great love.
01:09:29 Speaker 2
And thank you that you gave us Jesus and Holy Spirit.
01:09:35 Speaker 2
And I just ask that right now where there are people that are relating to anything that was said that they can hear and recognise patterns in their own marriage or where there is a a hope that's feeling deferred because they are living with an unsafe spouse.
01:09:55 Speaker 2
And knowing that actually you want that full restoration I.
01:10:00 Speaker 2
I speak peace and I speak grace in those seasons over those people, and I know, Lord, that scripture says that you will honour the spouse through the prayers of the saved 1. And so I speak that as a promise over each each marriage and over marriages that are doing well. I just.
01:10:21 Speaker 2
Yeah. I I just. I sprinkled unity and a real open door to more of you coming in to marriages and that they would be strong and that they would be healthy and that that they would be united and a reflection of you Lord.
01:10:38 Speaker 2
And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
01:10:44 Speaker 1
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01:10:48 Speaker 1
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01:10:50 Speaker 1
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