Ep 41 - Paul: Collapse Before Calling (Part 1 of 2)

What happens when the pain you never healed finally catches up with you?

In this gripping episode, Paul Leslie takes us back to a childhood marked by trauma, addiction, instability, and the kind of emotional wounds that don’t go away just because you grow up. From a devastating family tragedy to parents battling darkness, to joining the army at 19, and hidden addictions, Paul spent years trying to outrun a storm that lived inside him. 

But what happens when everything you’ve tried to hold together finally falls apart? And what moment pushes a man to confront his demons?

Join us for Part One of Paul’s story — a look at how unhealed wounds shape us, and how transformation often begins in the very place we break.

⚠️ Content Advisory - This episode contains discussions of:

• Violence
• Abortion
• Trauma and mental health challenges
• Family conflict
• Suicide

Listener discretion is advised.

🔗 Links & Resources

• Connect with Your Story Church: Paul@yourstorychurch.com
• Wild at Heart by John Eldredge

📢 Call to Action

✅ What part of Paul’s story stood out to you? Share your reflections with us at monomythdiaries.com.

✅ Follow & Subscribe so you never miss an episode of transformation.

✅ Learn more about Your Story Church 

✅ Learn more about Thrive Church

Transcript

Hi everyone and welcome to the Monmyth Diaries, the podcast where ordinary people get to share their hero's journey. I'm Mandy and I'm Rachel and we'll be your host. We'll discover powerful insights, critical moments of growth, and much more. Thanks for joining us. We all have a monoth share and someone out there needs to hear it. Welcome to the Monomoth Diaries, a take what you like and leave the rest podcast. This is a space where real people share inspiring stories of transformation. No advice, no experts, just connection, growth, and hope. Today's featured hero is Paul. His monoth is about recognizing and breaking generational curses. In this first episode, he opens his diary sharing the experiences that shaped him, the challenges he faced, and the pivotal moment that began his journey of transformation. His courage to speak openly and vulnerably is a gift. [music] And we're honored to share his story with you. So settle in, listen closely, and remember, in every testimony, there's wisdom we can carry with us. Let's welcome Paul to the show. Paul, welcome to the Mona Diaries. We are so grateful that you said yes so eagerly to being on the show. Thank you so much for having me. I mean, it's an absolute pleasure. I love what y'all are doing. I love the message and what you're sending out just representing Jesus and God and and and the whole faith movement. I I love that. So, I just really appreciate you'all having me. Thanks so much. Yeah. And there's so much power in testimonies and that's so important that we get those out there. So, thanks for being willing. Absolutely. Absolutely. We appreciate you so much. Looking forward to hearing your message. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. So, we have some story starters to start off with to get you kind of comfortable and excited and and unnerved, which you said already you're not, but these are actually for [clears throat] me because I'm [laughter] the one that's nervous.

It also helps our audience get to know you a little better. That's right. Absolutely. So, we want to ask you 10 questions and then you just answer them however you like. Where are you from and where do you live now? So, I'm from uh a little town in the foothills of Appalachia called Portsmouth, Ohio, right on the Ohio River. Currently, I live in the Bridgland area of Cypress in uh northwest Houston. Okay. So, if you had to listen to the same song repeatedly for the rest of your life, what would it be? Reckless Love by Corey Aspberry. I mean, I could hear that song and I could cry every time I hear that song. That is a great song. There's something about that song that just hits you in the fields and the Holy Spirit just really get started, right? You're already he wrecks you. No pun, but like he just wrecks you when you hear the song. I love that one, too. If you could instantly learn any language, which would it be? Spanish, for sure. I think Spanish is a language that being around, the work environment I'm in, and then the church and stuff that I see could be real advantageous. If you could master one musical instrument, what would it be? Uh, the guitar. I would love to be able to just be able to play acoustic stuff. I've got bluegrass gospel roots from where I'm from. So, just a regular old box guitar. I'd love to be able to play travel by car or by plane. I like to travel by car. I like the sightsee. I like the scenery. Gives you time to to just soak and get with the Lord and that kind of thing. That's more my jam than than flying. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Oo, my favorite holiday tradition is probably Thanksgiving. I'm a big cooker. The holiday tradition for me is cooking and and watching everybody else enjoy the fruits of my labor. Awesome. I like that. Have you embraced the fried turkey thing? I'm not a big turkey fan because it's hard for me because like I've tasted it all different ways, but it's hard to not like get dry turkey. If I could get some some moist turkey, I might have a different perception. It's It's just hard. It's hard for me to to to embrace turkey. I'll eat it if I have to. I think fried turkeyy's a little more moist. That's why I was curious cuz I'm from Ohio. I had never heard of such a thing. Really? No, we don't. We don't fry turkeys in Ohio. Keep in mind, my mom lived in Louisiana from the time I was, you know, early teens. So, I spent a lot of time in Louisiana and they make everything. They'll cook anything. They'll eat anything. And then they try to make it, cook it, fry it. Anyway, you can do it. So, you've got roots in Louisiana. You sound Now, because I was wondering where your accent came from, and I know you're from Ohio, but you do have a Louisiana type twang. Yeah. And keep in mind, I'm from the foothills of Appalachia. So, I'm in right across the river from Kentucky. So the people the people where I'm from speak like me, right? The people where she and Donell are from speak completely different. When I go to visit family in Columbus, they're like, "Man, this guy sounds like he's from dead south, you know?" But yeah, you definitely have a No one's ever pinned me to Ohio. I can promise you. No one's ever pinned me to be from Ohio. Don and I have a little more of a Midwestern. Yours is a little more southern. So, what is your go-to comfort food? My go-to comfort food would probably be Mexican. I can pretty much rock fajitas any day of the week. What is your favorite way to relax? My favorite way to relax, honestly, is I just really like to go out and walk. When you look at it biblically, it could be good with the way Jesus went or it could be bad with the way the Israelites went. But for me, I I feel like it's just one of those serene places where I connect with the Lord. I'll be honest, like most of the downloads and stuff that I get from the Lord and when I hear him is in those situations. Um, if you could describe yourself in one word, what would it be? Grateful. I'm extremely grateful. Uh, I told you it wouldn't take long. Uh, I'm here. [laughter] I'm extremely grateful. Yeah, I'm extremely grateful. I mean, just uh where God's got me today versus where I was 5 years ago, I just I never saw it. I I I really didn't see it. And so out of all the words I would just say grateful and and if there was a a secondary word it would be just humbled that God you know the grace that he given me he's given me and then the humility he's allowed me to to go through and continue to walk with him I think is probably the main things for me. If I gave you a third word it would be joyous every joyful heart. See me and it makes me feel [laughter] so good. Thank you. The Lord is your strength. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. And there's something about having the joy of the Lord that just changes how everybody sees you. I think all of us can say that one of the gifts that God gives us, right? In Galatians 5:22 is joy. But we filled that gift with the Galatians 5:19 through 5:21 stuff with the addiction with the other stuff that we we were we were feeling that. So we didn't get to experience it because it was filled with other things of the world in the flesh. Right. So I don't do drugs. I do Jesus. I like [laughter] that. Okay. I make us all a t-shirt that says that. I tell you, every time we do an episode, I'm like, "Oh, we should put that on a t-shirt." [laughter] And guess who makes t-shirts? I do. So, praise God. We're all getting a t-shirt. [laughter] Okay. What is the best gift you've ever received? The best gift I've ever ever received has been redemption. Y I mean, absolutely redemption in in all aspects of my life. being able to redeem all that was taken and lost to include my my my current wife and being able to love her like God loves the church and allows me to just be able to love her. It's still a process, right? Cuz I mean, I'm still learning. I'm still growing with the Lord, but man, that redemption, not only is it joyous, but man, there's something about giving the devil a black eye that just absolutely gives me something. Steroids and all that stuff used to do it, right? cocaine. But man, when I get to give the devil a black eye, when I get to see someone come to Jesus, when I get to minister to somebody and see what God does through that, man, I'm telling you, that redemption just does something for me. All right, that's the perfect segue into starting your testimony is your redemption story. So, we're going to rewind the clock and we're going to go all the way back to the beginning because I know a lot of your early years really shaped who you are today. Tell us what your life growing up was like. Yeah. So, growing up in Portzsworth, Ohio was different just because we just didn't have a lot. What we did have, you know, my parents tried hard to to get for us. And then my mom was a waitress and my dad worked construction stuff. And early on in my life, both of my parents actually did serve the Lord. My dad was a preacher. He was ordained through the International Pentecostal Church of Christ, the Church of God. So, I got to watch my dad preach as a young boy, like four or five years old. So growing up, I got to see that, but I also got to see the other side of things once tragedy struck my family in 1984. And once that happened, things just really went they went the completely opposite direction. And I I think the great thing about God and free will is he does give us the choice to make which path we want to choose. And I think in the times of adversity are the times that we really got to lean in our faith because if we don't, we do go the route of sin. And when we do, it goes down to that dark, deep road that's just so hard to get out of. And unfortunately, that's what happened with my parents. So, we began as kids, we began to have to absorb a lot of that stuff. And we we we had to absorb them going through the the abuse and the infidelity and the alcoholism. And my dad got hooked on drugs really bad. And things just began to multiply there. So, we got to see that. It was it was really uh it it was something that I just didn't understand cuz I was just a little a kid, you know, and I didn't understand why I was always changing schools. Went to every school in Sud County, Ohio that that existed. Lived in every kind of government housing to all different types of housing and we we got evicted at times. And again, you know, my I know my parents were trying, but they had me when they were young. My mom was uh 17 and my dad was 16. So, they were kids having kids. Not only that, but the thing with my parents was, you know, my mom was put in a tough situation when she got pregnant. My mom shared a story with me about her mom kicking her in the stomach trying to make her have a, you know, have an abortion, right? A miscarriage, right? And then then they loaded her up in the car and was taking her to Kentucky cuz where I'm from was right on the the river and try to take her to Kentucky to have an abortion. And my mom said, "If you don't stop the car, I'm jumping out of the car." So they turned the car around and that's when things changed because my mom's parents didn't believe. They didn't grow up in faith. They didn't believe and they were Helens from prison to outlaw motorcycle gangs to drug dealing and you name it, they did it. They were wild. I mean, they were just known to be extremely wild. So, my dad, his family was just the opposite. My grandparents on my Leslie side of the family were were Christians and and my dad grew up Pentecostal. My dad grew up in that church environment. And my grandma was she was a saint. She was 14 when back then, you know, it wasn't nor it wasn't weird to start a family at 14 15 years old. Back when when my my grandparents and my dad was number nine or 10. So he was he was young. He was one of the young ones. So my parent my grandparents were older, much older when my dad was born and he was the baby for like seven or eight years before my youngest uncle come around who's like 8 years older than me. So my dad got the chance to experience my grandparents in full faith. So he knew like he knew but drugs had a had a hold drugs and alcoholism had a hold on my dad even as a teen. He struggled with that stuff as a teenager and ultimately it was one of those things that just kept coming back that he never was able to overcome. But I think we go through things in life that [snorts] build character and built us into the men and women that were supposed to be. So I think a lot of that if I would have took it the right way I could have learned a lot of good lessons from it. But because of those generational curses and stuff that I allowed to carry on with me growing up was tough. You know, I we were dedicated to the Lord at a young age. You know, we were baptized all three of us. My brother, my brother's 13, much younger than me. So, he was I'm born 78. He was 80 and my sister was 83. So, we were all within five six years of each other. And [clears throat] mind you, my parents were 16 and 17. So, they're only 22 23 years old with, you know, three three kids, you know, and and trying to survive on a a waitress income, a hit or miss construction income. And he was and he was preaching some. So, it was one of those things that I think uh I wouldn't change it just because I think it's built me into the man that I am today. I think it could have been a lot better, but it could also been worse. That's that that's that aspect of my life. But the main thing was the transition in in 1984 when tragedy struck my family. That was extremely tough. My mom and dad, they were they were struggling in marriage. So, my dad had bought the family homestead, the Lesie homestead from my grandpa on a land contract type deal. So we were living up in the holler of Mabbert Road at at the end of the the street even though we were in Portsworth which is a city. We're all the way at the end of the street surrounded by hills all the way around us. So that was one of those things that was just like peaceful for my dad. Uh my dad really enjoyed that. But my parents had been into into arguing and stuff and and my dad and my brother and I were at my grandparents house. And so my mom was was coming and backing out of the driveway and it was a a slope driveway and somehow or another myuh 13-month-old sister was able to finagle herself out and back then cars weren't safe and kids could do stuff like like they can't do today, right? and uh my baby sister was able to open the door and she fell out and uh tragically my mom ran over for her. So uh [snorts] I understand now the the the the the devastation and the pain and the heartache that my mom experienced. I can't imagine uh I can't even imagine [clears throat] what that would feel like. But God's allowed me to forgive a lot of the things that's happened with my mom and I because I now understand the pain and the things that she uh [snorts] she experienced through that that event. I mean, it wrecked my mom and I mean, it still torments my mom and she still needs to be free from that. But she's so much better of a person. I know she's going to listen to this podcast know her know that I love her and I'm glad that she's my mother because I understand how how uh painful that had to be and and from that point on that was a turning point in in my childhood and in my family. You know, my parents never did really reconcile or they tried. I mean, they stayed together, but it was just toxic [music] from my mom dealing with that. And then, you know, my dad had to be going through the same thing. That was my dad's baby girl. But the truth of the matter is, you know, my parents, they never could really get past that. That led to a lot of pain. And um as we began to [music] continue to process with life and proceed with life, it just become more and more dark with the drug addictions [music] and the alcoholism. And mom struggled with some of the anti-depressant stuff. And and my dad went full-blown, man. He went completely the other way. [music] When I was 12 or 13, maybe even 14. My parents ended up divorcing. Her mom wasn't doing well. Her mom lived in Louisiana. She was struggling with cancer. So my mom left to go to Louisiana for a short while and I would see her. We'd go and spend some time with her in the summer and we stayed with my dad in Ohio and you know my dad was on a he was just I mean on a one-way trip to the wrong direction. Drugs, the women, the the partying and we were at that point where we didn't have any direction. I think my mom probably saw that and so she had she'd come back and so me and my brother tried to stay with her and it just it just wasn't the same. So when I was 16, I just got my license but didn't have a car and I just got a job and things were tumultuous. My mom and I were at ends. We had had such a bad falling out. I mean literally I chased her down the street with a butcher knife one time because I had it but this was the environment I was in. Like this isn't it sounds crazy talking about it now but then like this was normaly to us. Like this was the crazy stuff that happened around us all the time and it was your normal. Yeah it was my normal right. So, I had just reached this point where I couldn't take it anymore. And I'd been dating this girl in Kentucky whose mom was deep in the faith and and she was deep in the faith. And u I'd met her at church. So, we were doing the whole little boyfriend girlfriend thing and it was raining outside and it was one of those days where all hell was breaking loose and I just packed up my stuff and I said, "I'm out." I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know how I was going to manage, but I know I wasn't going to keep doing and living in the environment I was living in. So, I packed my stuff up and I took off walking in the rain and I walked I don't know how far it was, but it it was every bit of 10 miles to her house in Southshore, Kentucky. So, I walked it and I cried the whole way and I didn't know what it was going to be like. I didn't know if they would receive me. I just knew that I wasn't going to be here. Anything had to be better than here was my mindset. So, I showed up over soaking wet, crying, backpack with just a few things in it. And her mom had welcomed me with open arms. And her dad, he was a Marine, a Vietnam veteran. So he was pretty rigid. Looked like a a mountain biker guy. Had a fume that hung off his chin about 3 or 4 inches. Wild looking dude, man. And and very intimidating looking. But I'd met him and uh he just looked at me as, you know, his daughter's friend at that time. And and they told me, they're like, "Hey, like we'll let you stay here, but you know, there's none of the relationship stuff. You can stay here and you're going to work and you're going to go to school." And so they helped me. They truly helped me. and and I owe a lot of gratitude to them. Even though we don't communicate anymore, I I owe so much gratitude to them and I want them to know like I'm thankful for the things that they did because I don't know how life would have turned out had they not been the hands and feet of Jesus at that point in my life. So, I stayed with them for it probably lasted about a year. They found out my my son's mother was was actually still boyfriend and girlfriend and uh things went south really quick. Don't want to really get into a whole lot of detail about that. But nonetheless, nonetheless, I had to go and pursue a new place to live. My mom's baby sister had a camper on their property and they let me stay in there long enough to save some money up to where I was able to rent my own apartment. At the time, I was going through a work program in high school. So, I only had to go in and take the main basic classes, math and English, and then I was released to work. And I was still dating her. Now, I'm allowed to date her because I'm not living there. So, I'm still dating her. But again, you know, I got back into that cycle where I would be drinking with my buddies and I would be partying with my buddies and and doing things I shouldn't be doing and trying to work two jobs, try to go into high school, trying to keep up with the relationship that I was in. And uh once I turned 18, my girlfriend's dad or my ex-wife's dad, he basically said, "Hey," he said, "look man." He said, "If you're going to marry her, you got to have a job, bro. Like McDonald's and and Captain D's and stocking shelves at Kroger, that ain't a job. like that's not going to do it for for my daughter. Like you got to be able to provide and take care of her. I was like, you know what? What about joining the military? One of my dad's oldest brothers who I really looked up to, his name's Dave, was a Vietnam veteran, Army veteran, Bronze Star recipient, Purple Heart recipient, just absolute highly decorated. And I said, you know what? I remembered all those hero chess talks that we had when we would go out to visit. And I said, you know what? I'm join the army. I didn't want to be infantry like him. So, I was like, you know what? My ex-wife's dad was really big into maintenance and mechanics and he was teaching me that kind of stuff. And I said, you know, I'm going to be a mechanic. So, after talking with my girlfriend at the time and she's like, "Let's do it." So, she supported that. And so, I walked into the recruiting station. I said, "Look, man, sign me up. I want to be a mechanic. I want to join the army." I said, "But I want to do as little time as I have to do." Cuz I wasn't sure. You know what I mean? Uh cuz I knew I was going to get my butt kicked, but I know how bad I was going to get my butt kicked. And it was at that point where life really started getting real and it it opened that door for me to go in to the military after I graduated. And uh I look at it as an absolute just touch from God. You know, I was the only one in my immediate family of five that only that graduated high school. I don't say that in boast. I say that in only by God's grace, you know, because the whole time I could have I could have quit and just went working and got into construction and went down that same path, right, that the enemy had put my dad on. But God had his hand on me. He's had his hand on me my whole life. As I look back and I see you look at it as a chess game, like he is just strategically moving me in in life. Even when I make that bad move, instead of letting me get pawn or trump or queen, right? He's He's keeping me He's kept that protection, that Psalms 91 protection over my life the whole entire time. So, I I joined the army. I went through training, got my butt kicked, and it was at that point I told my girlfriend at the time, I said, "Look, I want to marry you." Like, "Let's do this. Let's go. We could save money while I'm in this last stage of training, this last three months of training for becoming a mechanic." And we we thought it was a great idea. Trying to sell it to her parents was a whole different idea. So, we did. We sold it to her mom and we were really just trying to do things the right way. But the problem was all those things that I had experienced through my childhood, you know, because my my ex-wife, she didn't have the same childhood. Her family was middle class and they worked hard. You know, her dad was an extremely hard worker, just extremely talented with his hands, carpenter, could do anything. They lived a great life and and they didn't experience the drugs and the alcohol and stuff. They they didn't go down that path. And I know that was a huge concern for her mom that she knew that there was stuff that I went through that could very well re resurface. And to the point her dad had told me. He said, "You ever touch her, I'm going to kill you." Straight up. You ever touch her, I'm going to kill you. But there was something about that that just always stuck with me. I respected him enough that I didn't want to ever put my hands on her. And I never did. I never did put my hands on her. But I killed her and destroyed her with my mouth. And I beat her to death with my mouth. And then I beat her to death with my actions. Uh the things that I did. What we were in the army. I think I was in the army um four 5 years. My son was born. We end up having my son when we lived in Hawaii. But we reconnected. We had split up for a short period there and we had reconnected and she got pregnant right after. But she took me back. You know, I I I was unfaithful. She had taken me back. And you know, my son was born and you know, I come down on orders. I'm E6, a staff sergeant in the army. I mean, I was flying up the ranks. I was doing well in the army, but I was still broken. That all that brokenness, all that baggage, all that stuff, it was still there. I wasn't serving the Lord. I was walking that lukewarm state. I always had a very reverent fear of the Lord because growing up Pentecostal, that hell and brimstone message, it'll land. I I don't care I don't care how you end up, but [laughter] you you you're always going to look back and say, "Man, if I do this and I die, am I going to go here or there?" Like, you always have that in the back of your mind. And and that was always in the back of my mind. And so, I never did come to grips with the things that I had done. And so I I I continued to deal with like that shame and that guilt and the sin, all those strongholds and bondages that were on my life, they were still there because I never had gotten freedom or deliverance from it. Right? So about 5 years in uh we got orders to uh to go back to uh Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where I started my army career. And uh I wasn't there 30 days and I came down on orders to deploy to Iraq. And I got a three-month-old son and we just signed on our very first house. We just bought our very first house. And so looking back, it was crazy because I was leaving my family. I was leaving the one thing that I I did feel a little bit of security and I was going into another unknown. I only had the stories from my uncle in Vietnam about the carnage and and I didn't realize I was getting ready to walk into my own situation like that where I was going to experience all that same carnage and chaos and that situation in my life. When I left Iraq, a piece of me was left there. A piece of me was left there. [gasps] and I didn't understand what happened and what was going on. But I know when I came back, I wasn't the same. I didn't know how to get through it. So what I do, I went back to the same things that I'd seen my family do growing up. I went back, I got heavily and deeply involved in drugs and alcohol. [snorts] The drugs was so inconspicuous, no one knew.

[gasps] No one knew. No one knew. I was I [snorts] was doing this stuff that I was doing. They just knew that that there was something in me that was empty and broken. And [snorts and clears throat] uh so as I'm going through this, my son's growing up and and and I'm trying to raise him. Sorry, I got [laughter] [clears throat] I'm trying to [snorts] raise him the right way, but but I didn't know I didn't know how to be a dad, you know. I didn't really have a dad. I mean, he tried, but I didn't really know. I didn't know that. And uh I didn't know how to be a father, a husband. So, I was repeating the same things that happened. [snorts] I never physically touched her, but man, I destroyed her with my mouth. I destroyed her with my actions.

Oh, Lord. [snorts] And if it wasn't for the fact that I wanted to give up a lot, [clears throat] there was many times that the enemy had come in and just really wanted me to give up. [gasps] To make matters worse, as we're going through this process and and in this phase of our life, in this season of life, [snorts] me and and my infinite wisdom thought it was great to start getting into this motorcycle club stuff. And I got heavily heavily involved into the motorcycle club stuff to the point it got so toxic that I became affiliated with the 1% motorcycle uh club. It's a gang, you know. I'm not saying any names of which club, but I will tell you there was something about that that lit a fuse in me in the wrong way. And it really sparked something in me that turned me into a monster. I've become extremely violent.

I started doing cocaine, anabolic steroids. I mean, I was just turning into an absolute animal. [snorts] And uh I was fighting all the time. And then [clears throat] I go back home like nothing's going on. And I go to work, I'm I'm a a regional manager for I'm over here living two lives, you know, just hoping to God they never drug tested me. You know, I'm out here messing with women, doing things I'm not supposed to be doing, and no one knows. like except for the people that's around me, the people that's in the club and you know when they say what goes on in the club stays in the club that's one of those things that happens even in distribution man like I started selling steroids and whatever I had to do I started doing that stuff and ultimately those things they they just kept compounding and it was only by the grace of God in 2017 I started having some major health issues with my colon and and stuff like that and I didn't know what was going on and I went in to to the doctor and they end up having to go and do some surgery and stuff, but it it took me where I had to take a medical leave of absence from the club. So, I wasn't allowed to ride. So, I took that moment, God, he took that moment and he removed me from that pit. And when he did, I decided to give myself rededicate my life back to Christ. Uh we went into a a church similar to your story church and Thrive. that a guy was preaching and he was talking about how he had walked through adultery and addiction and he had ran everybody off and he told them all he didn't want to be with them. He didn't want to be around them [snorts] and he was just continuing to go down that path and he said he he he shared his testimony and and it was in that testimony that I was like man this is me this is me. I could relate to his story. And it just resonated. And I said, "God, [clears throat] please take that away from me and show me who I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be." And [snorts] uh it was in that moment, man, where where I just I just had I gave my spirit, man. I gave my spirit to God. [snorts] But I still my mind, will, my emotions, my soul was still bound because I never got set free. So, [snorts] I got baptized again and I'm just trying to go through this life where I'm trying to be an honorable husband and and I'm struggling, you know, I'm struggling. I'm still struggling with doing steroids and cuz it had a real grip on me. I wasn't doing cocaine anymore, but I was doing steroids and and I was still struggling with that thing with women. I'm telling you, God created y'all to be such a blessing. But the enemy tries to take that and just turn that on us. I've struggled with pornography since I was 12 years old. I'd been at one of my uncle's house who was dating some woman and I'd seen a porno playing and and I was at that point, man, it just it stuck and I was strongly bound by that. So, I had that sexual thing on my life and I had the addiction thing on my life. I had the adultery thing on my life. I had the violent thing on my life. I had the anxiety and the depression because I didn't know how to deal with all them things. And I'm trying it every which way that man could possibly think to to fill that void. But that only God can fill, that only the love of Jesus and God can fill. And uh so I'm going through this thing and uh trying to walk this out with God and and I slowly see myself fading back into those things because I [clears throat] never got involved. I never engaged. I never got involved in church. I never got into the small groups. I never allowed the things that my ex-wife and my ex-mother-in-law would would try to say to me because I still had the spirit of pride so deep on me. Spirit of rebellion and addiction and adultery and sin that sexual stuff, it was still all over me. So, in uh in 2018, my ex-wife had an opportunity to move to take a big job down in the med center in Houston. It was going to be life-changing as far as financial. The company that I was with, I was working uh as a direct contractor with them. And the contractor said, "Look, man, we'll work with you. If you find some stuff that you can still do, and if you want to try to work out of the San Antonio plant, so I thought, heck, man, if they'll do that, I'll come down. I'll try." And so, I come down and I tried. And it just wasn't working out. Now, I don't have a job. We're living off only her income. You know, we thought we were going to go to Texas. When they say go to Texas, because everything's bigger in Texas. Everything's bigger in Texas. We're living in a, you know, we're living [laughter] in a we're living in a 5,500 foot house, sixbedroom, five bath. It's got the Olympic size pool with grotto and slides and rock features. Man, it's crazy. But this amazing man, and um I want to share this because him and I reconnect. But this amazing man, he opened up this opportunity for us to to rent this house from him. It was amazing. I mean, paying $3,000 a month for a house like that in Houston is insane. You know, that's $5 $6,000 rental all day long. That alone was something that God had just opened up because again, you know, I'm I'm lukewarm, but I know I love God. I know I love him. I just didn't know how to love him. I didn't know how to build relationship with him. So, I'm still doing the things of the world, but I got I got one foot in the world and one foot and you know what the Lord says about that lukewarm. Yeah. He going to spew you out of his mouth, right? So, so I knew that, but I was still playing that game. But it's because it was generational. My dad played that the whole time. He was either all the way in or he was all the way out. And that's the way my mom and dad operated when they were when they were serving the Lord. And so, we were there for from 2018 and 19 going into 2020, God had opened up this amazing opportunity for me to to go to work for this amazing company, one of the top distribution companies in the world. Probably just delivered stuff at your door. uh over the Christmas holidays. So, not only that, but he allowed me to go in into a level of management most people don't just get to walk into. And again, God knew what he had planned for my life before he formed me in my mother's womb. He knew the plans that he had for me was to prosper me and was for his purpose and his good, right? So, he kept doing those things. He kept showing me. Yeah. He kept showing me. So, I get into this environment and man, let me tell you about the sexual stuff that's in this environment. It's insane. So, I'm still struggling with all this stuff. I'm still deep. The porn got me in a in a full Nelson choke hole, man. Like, I I I just couldn't get out of it. Literally, I was just choking to death because it was so bad. I I was giving up. Although I loved him and I was trying to serve him and my ex-wife was still doing the church stuff and she was going out doing prayer stuff and bringing people to our house and I was locking myself upstairs. I had to be around him. Yeah, cuz y'all are still married at this point. Yeah, we're still married. Is she aware of the pornography and the drugs? And that's one of those things, right? like she never she didn't she wasn't aware for me. I don't know if she had an inkling or you know intuition that it was happening. Don't know if the Holy Spirit had shared something with her maybe or something. I don't know. But I was on a business trip getting ready to launch a brand new building, one of the brand new state-of-the-art buildings for this company. And I was up in uh De Mo Iowa and she had went to Moravian Falls, North Carolina or something with one of her friends. And I I didn't really know that that's where she had went until, you know, I know now, but I didn't know at that time. And I came back and I just felt like something was weird, something was different. And we had some friends of ours who were doing a a ministry together in Lexon, Kentucky. And uh they had come down and they had stayed with us. And this guy gives me this prophetic word. And he talked about I was about to go through something that was completely crazy that he had he was in in this dream that he had saw demonic forces all around the neighborhood and on the roof of the house. He could just seem see that there was something about to really rampage and wreck me, like wreck my life. And I'm like, "Bro, you don't you don't you're crazy, man. I don't believe none of that nonsense." You know what I mean? That was my mindset. I had no understanding of the the difference. One of my big failures that that I had in my walk with God, the few times I tried was I didn't understand the difference between the natural and the spiritual. And man, is there a difference? Yes. Is there a difference? Yes. The difference between really having relationship with God is understanding that spiritual side and just knowing that you love God. You can't get by on just loving God. You can't get by with this. This right here will put you into your purpose. Will put you into where God has intended you to be. So, I didn't have that connection yet. I just know that things were disconnected. Now, mind you, we were slipping in different bedrooms. I'd been in a different bedroom for probably two years at this point because honestly that whole church thing and all that stuff, it was turning me off because I don't know if she was meaning to be, but she was preaching and I didn't want to hear that. I didn't want to hear that. But anyone that's in that state that I was in doesn't want to hear the the truth. Doesn't want to hear what the Lord wants us to to hear. So, I dealt with all that. I went and I just sat down and she was still gone and I think she was due to come back in town in the next day or two and I thought she was on business. I didn't know anything different, right? I didn't I didn't have any idea because I didn't care because in that phase of my life, it was all about me. Everything was selfish. Everything was prideful. The only person I cared about was me, honestly. And now that my son was just graduated high school, I'm like, "Yeah, it's on, Jack. I don't have nothing." Like, it's on. Like, I'm going I'm going all in on this thing. The level of pride and stuff was so bad. I had a a brand new C7 Corvette in my driveway, you know. I had Harley in the garage. We had four-wheelers and dirt bikes. And I was just living high on the hog. I was doing everything to fulfill that empty place in me. And none of it did. I was just reaching reaching. And none of them were filling that place. And as I was sitting there after I'd returned back from that trip from Iowa and she was still gone, I'm looking through my email. All of a sudden, I come across a brand new email from her. And I was like, "What is this?" And the email said that she's going to move on with life without me. She appreciates the son that we've had together. He can stay with me. He can stay living with me. But she was going to pursue different path in her life, and her path didn't include me. Mind you, at this point, we've been married 23 years. We've been together 25. And I'm going to tell you that same feeling when I left Iraq, and a piece of me was left there. The enemy just dropped that same stuff right back on top of me. [music] And I got into this phase and this state of mind. This ain't happening to me. This ain't going to happen to me. I'm not doing this all over again. At the time I'm, you know, I'm 41, 42 years old, and I'm like, I can't do this again. I just, you know, I mean, this has been my whole life. This has been the cycle. This has been the cycle I've been walking in my whole life. I got things going for me, you know. I got the title. I got the job title. I got the big six figure salary. I got the Corvette in the driveway. I got the Harley's. I have all these things that the world said I'm supposed to have to make me happy. But the one thing that I've never thought would drop me and bounce on me because I felt like in my past my dad ended up dying of an overdose, you know, after he got out of prison. He'd end up overdosing just a few months later. I was 21 years old. And that wrecked me. I felt like every season of my life that I thought I was getting somewhere, something happened. It's like every where I was going, every state of my life, phase of my life was the same pattern and I didn't get it. I didn't understand it. But I there was something about this that absolutely devastated me. And [music] I didn't know how to cope. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to do it. But all those violent tendencies, [music] all of those things that I had mastered when I was walking in sin come straight to the surface. All those thoughts, all those violent actions, all the things that I did to cope was coming back. [music] And they were coming back in abundance. And I said, "You know what? It's not going to happen to me." I said, "It's not going to happen to me." And the enemy had convinced me that this would be it. This would be the last time it ever happened to me.

So, [laughter] [snorts] I'd concocted this plan. I'd concocted this plan, too. And you, mind you, y'all, I'm an army vet. And I got weapons. I got machine guns. I got pistols. I got anything you can think of, I got it minus a hand grenade. I got everything else, right? I was my own hand grenade cuz everywhere I went blew up when I was around, you know? So, the enemy had just completely convinced me that he wanted me to take my life and to take the lives of those who hurt me. So, I so unconventional. Um, [laughter] I loaded the guns up in my truck and I I had strapped a a compact subcompact 9mm Glock in my pocket in my waistband and I said, "You know what? Today's the day." And just happened to be a church that had service on Saturday night. And uh I knew the ones that had caused this pain in my life were going to be there and I said, "You know what? That's it. I'm going in there. I'm pursuing them. And when I see them, I'm going to take their lives. I'm going to take the life of anyone who gets in my way and I'm going to take my own life. And I had a small arsenal in the back of my Tahoe. And uh man, let me tell you, that was a turning point in my life cuz I walked in walked into the back of that church broken. I walked into the back of that church empty. I was honestly I felt like I was demonp possessed because I wasn't thinking straight. I wasn't thinking about anything but the result that the enemy had convinced me that I'm going to achieve that night. And I sat back there in the back of that service and I was looking and I was scanning. I I never seen them and I [snorts] was looking and looking and I just was waiting and it felt like an eternity that I was back there and man the songs that were just calling heaven down. The songs were just starting to resonate. I could just feel something transitioning and happening in my in my body. I started [music] just getting like goosebumps and chills all over me. I just started feeling this overwhelming emotion that I couldn't control. I began to weep and cry

[snorts] in a way that I'd never weep. And I cried before and [laughter] I just knew something was fixing to change. And these two men walked up to me in the back of that church and they they started [laughter] talking to me and I just didn't know what to say. I couldn't say anything. I was just so broken and hurt and I was just crying and and overwhelmed with emotion and [snorts] they and I could just feel something just drastically changing in my life [gasps and laughter] and and they said look just come up. It was the time they were doing altar call and this was like a full-blown church, man. They prayed in tongues in the spirit and they didn't care like whatever the Holy Spirit led them to do. And these two men were had the boldness of Jesus to come back there. And I honestly felt like God had picked me up [laughter] out of that and took me up to the front. And all of a sudden, all those prayer warriors just become and surrounded me. And they [snorts] began to pray and they began to call down the angels from heaven and call down just heaven right there into that place. And I could just feel I I it was in that moment I said, "God, I got to do something different. [laughter] I can't keep this same cycle. I can't keep doing the same things. I can't do this again. I need you to do something completely different in me that you've never done before." And uh it was in that moment, man, that I could just feel the this crazy heat and and and chills and everything come across my body. And I was just crying out. I was just crying out, "Jesus, I love you." Oh, [laughter] man. Jesus, I love you and I need you, Jesus. And it was in that moment that he just came and he just put his hands and loved loved me. [laughter] and everything that I had been bound with, everything that I had done, all the addictions, all the strongholds, all the He literally set me free and delivered me from pornography, from looking at women objectively to look at from from the pride, the addiction, anxiety, depression, cuz I struggled severely with PTSD from the combat stuff and and and I'm sure some of it was from my childhood and all the other things, right? And God just removed every bit of that off of me. And you guys were talking about the joy.

The man I was before didn't have that joy. Oh wow. I didn't have that joy. I didn't know what joy was. [laughter] And man, there was something about what God done in my life right at that moment that just transformed me. [music] Just transformed me. And I think it was in that moment when God completely set me free and freely delivered [music] me and he saved my life. He completely saved my life. That was the turning point in walking in my will versus walking in God's will. And ever since then, it's been different. [laughter] It's been different. Wow. Paul, I am so glad to hear that things are going to start to change for you. And I really hate having to stop you, but we're going to have to push the pause button on your mono myth for today. Obviously, this is the catalyst that's going to mark the beginning of your transformation. We know what you shared today was incredibly difficult, and we truly appreciate when people are vulnerable and honest on our show. I mean, to sit here and reflect on your life, to name your hard choices with this level of honesty and vulnerability. That takes true [music] courage, Paul. So, we truly appreciate everything that you have shared with us today. We want to remind our listeners to be sure to join us next Tuesday as we continue Paul's Monomyth. Paul shares how his life has changed and what his life looks like now. Thanks again for joining us. Looking forward to next week. Thanks again, Paul. Thanks for joining us on the Monomyth Diaries. If this episode resonates with you or someone you know, we'd love for you to share it and spread the inspiration. Don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast or on YouTube to stay connected. We'd appreciate if you could take a moment and rate and review the podcast. It helps us reach more people with stories of transformation and growth. You can visit us at monommydiaries.com or text us directly from the show notes to reach out and keep the conversations going. Until next time, heroes, let's journey together [music] through our monomyths.