Hey, welcome to the Faith-filled Therapy Podcast and a huge welcome to you, dear, we're gonna get straight into it. I'm so pleased you're my guest today.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:Hi. Hi, how are you doing? I'm a huge fan of yours. My wife turned me on to you several years ago through Instagram, and I became your student, your friend. I actually cite you in my latest book. So I appreciate your work and your heart and the beauty of how you take neuroscience and how you take scripture and you tie it together in such a beautiful profound ways. So I'm a huge fan. And you're gonna be speaking at Transformation Church in twenty twenty-seven.
Jo Hargreaves:I am so excited about that. I am so looking forward to that. I've loved being connected with you, loved snooping on your wife as well, your brilliant wife Vicki, who is, I love this title for her, is Chief of Staff at your church. Tell us a little bit about what that means because that means like, just speaks of somebody who's brilliant, who has a brilliant mind, brilliant strategist, but brilliant with people as well. So I see her as being brilliant. You obviously know her as being brilliant, but let's dive into her a little bit before I introduce
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:you. yeah. You know, so I I think you nailed it there. So her brilliance is that she is able to take our staff of 57 and it's like a jigsaw piece pu puzzle, and she's able to strategically put the pieces together while simultaneously making sure that our spiritual health is good. What we often say is this we want the healthiest part of our church to be our staff because Out of your staff flows the spiritual formation, the discipleship, the evangelism, all the beautiful things. And so we really work hard on staff discipleship and staff development for competency, character formation in the gospel, collaboration. But yeah, Vicky is the chief of staff, and so she's able to ~ keep us alignment to the assignment, and it's a blessing to not only be on staff with your best friend and wife, but one of the most brilliant and godly people that I know.
Jo Hargreaves:~ that's incredible. I love that. And that's so much better than sometimes me saying to my husband, I have to live with you. I have to work with you. That's a much more gracious way of putting it. I'm going to adopt that spiel instead. And so she, it sounds like she's like a cultural architect in a way that she architects systems and structures and culture within your thoughts.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:You got it. She is a cultural architect. And and you know, so so we've been married for 34 years. We we met in college. It was my freshman year, her junior year. I was 19, she was around twenty or so, ~ she's an athlete, and so we hit it off with sports. Neither one of us were followers of Christ. But I knew pretty quickly, I'm like, this is a woman that I can build a life with. She was valedictorian in high school, valedictorian in college. Everything she did, she was not only great at it, she was the best at it. And and so I admire my wife and she admires me. Like we love each other, there's incredible romance. but she really admires me and I really admire her. And for us, it isn't like we gotta work together. It's like, wow God, you're so gracious. We get a chance to co-found a church together. This girl from Western Montana me from the urban San Antonio, Texas, and you bring us together at Brigham Young University, and neither one of us are Mormon, and we meet, and now we've planted This multi-ethnic gospel-centered church that justice and evangelism and discipleship don't compete. They complete And God has done incredible things. And so she likes to be behind the scenes where she can be a cultural architect. But from time to time, I'll ask her, hey, babe, will you preach with me? And so we co-preach. Because her natural wiring is behind the scenes, I have to give her four to six weeks because that's not something she loves to do, but she knows she's gifted to do it. And so I don't take it advantage of saying, Hey, you're gonna preach with me all the time. So several times a year, we'll get a chance to co-teach. And one of the things that we discovered, it was kind of like, wow, mom and dad are here, and there is such an anointing. When we do that together. And I think obviously it flows out of the power of the Holy Spirit, but it flows out of our oneness in marriage. For both of us, we want our marriage to be the greatest testimony that we have. Not our preaching, not our leading, but how God has healed us. we were train wrecks, we were an utter mess, and Jesus reached into our mess and he's created masterpieces.
Jo Hargreaves:I love that. I love that so much. this isn't what we were going to talk about necessarily, but tell us a little bit about that. think it's happened now, because last time I spoke to you, I think it was going to happen about you were on a cruise or you were doing something really cool about marriage.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:Tell us a bit about that. Yeah. So Vicky and I, November twelfth through the sixteenth, twenty twenty-six, we are leading a cruise called the Grey Cruise Flourishing Together in Marriage. And so we're gonna spend four days in the Caribbean on the Royal Caribbean, one of their best and biggest ships, and we're gonna spend four days teaching on marriage. So it's not a retreat, it's something more where we can have fun, but also Vicky can and I can pour into couples. And so for this year, it's already closed. we'll have gosh, probably a hundred people with us. And it's gonna be incredible. But for my wife and I, we have sensed, okay, you've been married now 34 years. you've got some scars and scratches, and now you're released to pour into others what God and others have poured into you. And everything we do is rooted in our union life in Christ. that Jesus poured all of himself into us. The the righteousness of Jesus is ours, the belovedness of Jesus is ours, the forgiveness that Jesus lavished on us is ours, the reconciliation is ours. We are dwelt by the Holy Spirit and all of that is free of charge. All of that is a gift. And so what that does is it begins to permeate your heart. with security and a secure heart is a heart that is securely in the hands of the father and then you give that away to each other. And so that's what we want to do is we want to have people to experiencing flourishing marriages. So hopefully in 2027 we'll have other dates. yeah, maybe you and your husband can come with with us and be a part of it.
Jo Hargreaves:Honestly, the first time you said it, I was tempted. thought, that sounds great. A cruise to the Caribbean with your spouse. mean, how lovely. So I love that you're doing that. And I love, even as you're talking, I'm reminded of something I said in a podcast that we did previously, of you're just incredibly lyrical when you speak and you're incredibly lyrical as you write. You kind of have this brilliant cadence and all of these kind of wonderful Mm. Thank you. And I love it. I mean, I love to hear it. Also, I realized I've totally skipped the introduction.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:Let me intro you.
Jo Hargreaves:I want to do it justice. And then I've got questions to ask you based on your book, It's Time to Heal, because I mean, I've read that book and it's beautiful and also shows again, everything that you've just talked about, everything that you've witnessed that sounds so healthy and so whole wasn't what you experienced growing up. So this isn't that you've kind of always had this kind of privileged experience of living with this understanding of who Jesus is and living this really kind of whole life. So I'd love to ask you some questions, but let me intro you. So you're not just Derwin L. Gray, you were Dr. Derwin L. Gray, co-founding and leading pastor at Transformation Church, as we talked about earlier. That's just outside of Charlotte.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:Is that right? Outside of Charlotte. North Carolina, yep.
Jo Hargreaves:Great, can't wait to come and visit. And I love this, so I've written this down. Dr. Derwin L. Gray was named the recipient of the John M. Perkins Justice Award. This award is given to the visionary leader whose life and work exemplify the principles of biblical justice. I'd love to hear about that, but that's not your only award, because you're an award-winning author, published several books, How to Heal Our Racial Divide, and you've talked about being a multiracial interracial church. and lift up with love becoming good news people to a gospel starved world I love that and then we've got your book Time to Heal Now which we'll talk about but tell us a little bit about this award that sounds very cool.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:Yeah, so ~ John Perkins is a hero, and to me he's a modern day apostle Paul. So he grew up in Mississippi in the nineteen twenties, experienced Jim Crow segregation, wasn't a Christian. His family was actually bootleggers. And so not sure in the UK if if you know what that means, but they sold illegal alcohol and they would sell it to the sheriff, actually. Well, anyway,~ as he was growing up, his brother went into World War II to fight the Nazis, only to come home to Mississippi to get murdered by a racist white police officer. So he's like, I'm out of here. So he goes to California to build his life, and his son Spencer comes home from this Bible club and he's singing a song about how God loves all the children, all the children's the white I mean, he was singing a song and John was like, I need to find out about this. Anyway, John goes in his church and Jesus meets him and shows him the beauty of his forgiveness, shows him grace, but also shows him that racial unity is Jesus' idea. This isn't an addition to the gospel. So he moves back to Mississippi. He's involved in the civil rights. And what I think makes him so beautiful is that he Clearly proclaim the good news of Jesus, and that was not divorced from justice.
Justice simply means this:loving your neighbor as you love yourself. And so as a young seminarian, I went to an event and he was there, and I looked at this man. He was in his 60s at that time, and I went, I want to be like that when I grow up. And so I ended up writing my doctoral thesis and dedicating it to him. And over the years, we have just become friends. He's preached at our church. And he has passed away. But so to be the second recipient of his award is pretty awesome for God to give me that privilege. And I feel like now that he has gone on to be with the Lord, he's handed me that paton. And I want to grab it and I want to run the race of grace to continue the legacy of what he's done. And healing is a part of that.
Jo Hargreaves:Yeah, yeah, I love that. And I love that idea of racial unity is all God's idea, like racial reconciliation, any kind of reconciliation, anything where there's wholeness and healing and is God's idea. And that comes through in your work as well of kind of all of this stuff pointing us back to God. actually. Let me get onto that. Let me just get a little bit more nosy about you actually, because is a Therapist in me where I'm like, I just want to get a little bit nosy. obviously, when people read the book, they'll get a bit of an understanding, but tell us a bit what it was like for you growing up. What were you born into? What did you experience? And then what did Jesus like rescue you,
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:Yeah, so so the older you get, the more you appreciate God's grace. Because when I look back, situations and circumstances I experienced, I had no idea that that was ~ abuse. I had no idea that living in a high stress, violent context was not normal. That's just what you were born into. I love my family. They're the only family I got. I love them, but we were a mess. My mom was 17 when I was born. My dad was 19. He was one of 17 children. Both of them went through various forms of abuse. Both of them had substance abuse issues, which, as you know, when a person has substance abuse issues, don't ask why the substance abuse say what was the trauma that you're trying to self-medicate and hide from. And so the family I grew up in, lots of addiction, lots of abuse, lots of violence.~ I don't like guns to this very day 'cause as a five or six year old there was a man that literally got his brains blown out and I remember looking his looking at his blood drip down into a gutter. And so even to this day I'm just repulsed by guns. I've seen domestic abuse. I seen some things that no kid should ever see but I didn't know. That was just what you did. I went through various forms of abuse. And so at age 13, I decided I'm not gonna be like my family, and football was my way out. So I grew up in Texas and football was a big thing. Now, when I say football for the UK people, I don't mean to kind you kick with your foot. I'm talking about the shoulder pads of you know the big guys. And so football was my way out, and I worked really hard. And eventually I had great coaches who poured into me and I got a football scholarship to Brigham Young, ~ which, you know, I'm a black man, and you know, that's a whole thing. And back then, not very many black people went to BYU. And I wanted to escape. Now, Jo, I couldn't have said this in my mind because I couldn't articulate it, but I wanted to go as far away as possible. And Texas to Utah was a long way to go. And so people go, Why did you work so hard? Because I didn't have anything else. That was it. And so freshman year, I meet my wife, we connect instantly and end up having a great career there. And I get drafted to the NFL, and I'm thinking, okay, this is this is it. The money is gonna help my family fix their problems, the money's gonna help me. And eventually what happened, Jo is in 1995, my third year in the NFL, I felt like I had gotten tricked because I'm a poster child of the American dream. So I'm in an NFL, I'm a star, I got celebrity, I got a beautiful wife, I'm helping my family financially, I got nice clothes. But here's what I didn't have. I didn't have forgiveness for my father. I didn't know how to emotionally regulate from all of the abuse. I lived in constant fear. I now know I had anxiety, Jo, but we didn't talk about anxiety in the 90s. There were there were nights I couldn't even sleep before a football game. And a lot of my anxiety was rooted in fear. If you're not a football player, what will you be? You'll be a poor kid from San Antonio, Texas that grew up as a compulsive stutter. Who was abandoned by his father. Now, I couldn't have articulated that, but that's what my nervous system was telling me. And so eventually I had a teammate, his name was Steve Grant. He played for the cults like I played for the cults. And every day after practice, he would take a shower, dry off, wrap a towel around his waist, and he'd ask my teammates, Do you know Jesus? And in my mind, I'm like, Do you know you're half naked? So this big old muscular guy walking around with a Bible, half naked, asking my teammates, do you know Jesus? And I literally tried to avoid him, but one day I was in the locker room by myself and I saw him coming and I'm like, no. And he asked me, he goes, Rookie D Gray, do you know Jesus? And that question has me on this podcast with with you. Because I looked at him and I said, I'm a good person. And he said, Well, good compared to who? The standard of good is God, and no one is good but God. But here's some good news. Jesus came to live a sinless life you could never live, died of death, you should have died on the cross because he loves you to forgive you. But then he rose again to live his life through you. And I was like, What? So that was a five-year process of this existential crisis, of this anxiety, this fear. I kept everybody at arm's length because my experience taught me if you get close, you hurt me. If anybody's gonna hurt me, it's gonna be me. And so I feared intimacy into me, you see, because if you really saw me, you would leave me like everybody else. and so I started experiencing injuries, but August 2nd, 1997, after five years of hearing about Christ, it was after lunchtime. At training camp with the cults. And we went back to the dorm room at the college where we were. And I called my wife on the phone and I said, I want to be more committed to you. And I want to be committed to Jesus. And that's where I had what the Bible calls in John 5 this born-again experience. I literally felt the love of God wash over me. And I knew I was loved. And he wasn't letting go. My whole life was one of performance. As a football player, they measure your hand size. They measure how long your arms are. They measure how tall you are. And then they watch your film to say, you know what? You're good enough. We want you. I see your resume. You're good enough. Well, Jesus looked at my resume and it had one word on it sinner And he said, But I want you and I love you anyway. My goodness, my love will change you. And so Vicky, my wife had come to faith about six months before I did, through a woman at her job who basically asked her over coffee one day, Are you a Christian? And my wife said, Well, I'm a good person. And she's like, Well, and she explained the gospel to her. And then my wife came to faith. She didn't know what happened. She just wanted it to happen to me. And so both of us, these two unchurched kids, Jesus finds us, and he's the best and most beautiful thing that we've ever seen. I mean, we were like these new Christians, like, guys, do you know that 2 Corinthians 521 says God made him who knew no sin? To become sinned, that we might become his righteousness? Do you guys know that all the stuff we've ever done has not only been forgiven, not only been forgotten, but then God makes us his righteousness, Jesus? Do you know that? And these other Christians will look look at us like, what's wrong with you? And we're like, no, what's wrong with you? That's the problem, is you're thinking more about what you do instead of what God has done. God infected us with this holy virus called grace. And ~ God has brought us a mighty long way 'cause she was a mess and I was a mess. And ~ as I look back, it's really a miracle. because of the things I've seen, the things I've experienced, the dark powers could have grabbed a stronghold.~ but God said no.
Jo Hargreaves:I love it. And as you're talking, I'm like, ~ restore to us the joy of our salvation. Just hearing that is like, ~ yeah, this is so good. Of course it's good news. Just so wonderful. And so in contrast to what you experienced growing up. I'm intrigued as to, do you remember when you first heard the word trauma or got the concept of it?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:my gosh. So I would say I've heard the word trauma in the early two thousands. I think now, and you being a psychotherapist, I'm sure you're probably like, guys, that's not trauma what you're describing. Cause now people will throw out ~ these psychological terms like, I'm so O C D and I'm like, Hey guys. You don't know the hell people with OCD go through, the intrusive thoughts. So please don't say your OCD or I'm so bipolar. No, no, don't say those things unless it's actually true because it is very, very painful. But but yeah, so in the 2000s, I ~ came across the word trauma. But here's what happened to me, Jo. And it's a part of God's grace. So as a football player. Here's what the coaches tell you to do. They tell you memorize the playbook. Think about the plays all day long. So when you get to the game, it becomes a spiritual reflex. It becomes a habit. I didn't know I was doing neuroplasticity. I didn't know I was doing cognitive behavioral therapy because they they said envision yourself playing the game. And if I saw a negative thought, I'd say, no, no, no, this is what I'm gonna do on this play. So when God rebirthed me and his son by the Spirit, it was like, wait a minute, God's giving me a playbook, but then it began to focus around who you are around Christ. And so what I would do in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, I would have these visions of things I did in my past. And I would go into football player mode and say, no, I am forgiven in Christ. The blood of Jesus forgives me.~ no, I'm the righteousness of Christ. No, I'm secure in Christ. Nothing can snatch me out of no, I'm a temple of the Holy Spirit. God gave himself for me. How valuable am I to the living God of the universe if he sacrificed the greatest treasure? Therefore, I don't need self-esteem. I have God esteem. And I didn't know for all these years I was rewiring my brain. So one of the things I talk about cognitive behavioral therapy, and then I introduce people to Christ behavioral therapy. That you identify the lie you've believed, you put a cross through it, and then put the truth. So I believe I'm worthless. I write that down, I put a cross through it and put, for God so loved the world that he gave his one only son for me, I must have worth. I didn't know that I was doing the stuff that you teach Jo. I didn't know you yet.
Jo Hargreaves:And so and so yeah,
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:yeah. So I'm incredibly hopeful for people to change their brains through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.
Jo Hargreaves:I absolutely agree with that, with this relentless hopefulness for anyone, anywhere, no matter where they are, no matter where they've been, what they've been through. Because what you're talking about isn't just toxic positivity, it's using truth, using the Word of God, that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, that you're using the Word of God. to lean into Romans 12 2 being transformed by the newing of your mind, to get into 2 Corinthians 10, 5 of taking thoughts captive and making them obedient to truth, obedient to the truth that we read in God's word. And that when we do that, like you said, it isn't just a spiritual principle, it comes and gets to work in your cells, in your neurons, your... all of the parts of our brain that construct our thoughts and our thought life and then our beliefs and then our behaviors.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:And so I
Jo Hargreaves:love that you doing that without even realizing it.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:Incredible. Yeah, and it shows you how God is so kind that he'll take football and prepare me. And for people listening, he's he's he's done that in their lives too. One of the things that I try to help people understand is I give an illustration called AM. So back in the olden days, there was a radio station called AM, and there's a radio station called FM. So both of those signals are going to come into your brain. And so you learn AM means words against me. FM means words for me. So both words are going to come, and you just got to learn to turn the dial to FM.
So what I teach people is this:becoming healed and transforming your mind is not the absence of thoughts coming. What it is It's the presence of mind to say, Today I'm choosing not to believe I'm worthless. Today I'm choosing to believe that I'm the beloved of God. And it's not a one-time act, it is a rhythm of grace that we're constantly taking captive to Christ. And here's what that produces, Jo. It produces a life of worship. Worship is ascribing to God who He is. It produces a life of praise, thanking God for what He's done in your life. And as you know, when you worship and when you praise, you're activating all these beautiful things. Like one of the things that I do is I find myself humming when I'm taking every thought captive. Jo, I didn't know I was activating my vagus nerve. I had no idea I was calming myself down. I had no idea. I just knew the more I thought about God, this peace came over me in the midst of chaos. And so peace is not the absence of storms, it's Jesus with you in the storm. And often in the storm is when we get to see Jesus the most because we cling to him the most. And so when I walk people through in the book, this acronym called HEAL, the book is based on. four frameworks and the H is a is stands for honest about what happened to you or honest about what you did. You cannot heal from what you will not reveal. God wants to heal the true version of us. E stands for expect pain on the journey. Healing is hard but staying unhealed is harder. The A stands for accept What happened to you without letting it define you? I love the A because for so long we have allowed the trauma of our past to take the ink pen and write our future. We're not gonna do that anymore. We're gonna say this happened and it hurt. But what God did for me is greater. I'm more than a conqueror in him who loves me. And then the L stands for Live from love, not for love.~ I think at the end of the day, and I know there's Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I think we can just move that just to one. And this is what I think. I think every human being wants to know that they're loved at their worst. Because at their best, of course, everybody loves you, but you really know the depth of love when you're at your worst. And God says.
In Romans 5:8, but while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And so we live from an eternal fountain of belovedness. We we live from an eternal current of love. We don't earn it, we don't deserve it. It's pure gift. And that love for us is seen in how Jesus goes, The trauma you experienced, I experienced it on the cross. The pain you experienced. I experienced on the cross. The rejection, the retro, every human thing that we've ever experienced, Jesus has experienced except without sin. That's the kind of God I want to follow and love. One who says, I know how you feel. And I've done something about it. It's called my life, it's called my death, it's called my resurrection, and through the Holy Spirit, it's my presence.
Jo Hargreaves:Yeah, yeah.~ I love that. I love that. And I love how this book, was written just from a kind of trauma informed basis, it would still be beneficial for people. It would still have some kind of benefit. But what I love, is that 1 Thessalonians 5.23 tells us that God's making us holy and whole in our spirit, soul and body. And so just getting that kind of healing from trauma in your body, okay, getting that bit of healing in your soul, your mind, your will, emotions, okay. But I love that you bring this holistic view that it's all, it's spirit and it's. Christ-centered because it's the difference between, and I've heard someone say this before, the difference between a bit of resuscitation, which is good when you're struggling, know, a of resuscitation and full-on resurrection.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:And I love that yours is just centered
Jo Hargreaves:on, your book is centered on full-on resurrection, new life, life with Christ. And so it's the whole kind of, in the UK we'd say it's the whole kitten caboodle. It's all of it. through its whole body, all of it with Christ at the centre. This idea of living from love really is being Christ-centred, isn't it? It's Christ-focused because that isn't just kind of like a nice slogan, know, live love, love, live from love. Like, this is like a deep, eternal truth, isn't it? That Romans 8.38, that nothing, no thing can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. Height, depth, angel, demon, life, death. But any of our experiences, anything that you said that's been done to us or that we've done, that in all of that, none of those things separate us from his love. And I love that you've really experienced that in such a transformative way.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:God has been incredibly gracious and I feel like it would be spiritual malpractice not to give away what God has given unto me. And so what I've done in the book, Jo, is as you know, every book is a lifetime of work. So I've taken what I think is my contribution to the body of Christ is really helping people understand their union with Jesus. so many followers of Christ are still trying to give God their resumes. They're still trying to do instead of receive and be. And then I take neuroscience. I learned from people like you and Dr. Daniel Eamon. And I've combined neuroscience, Union Life in Christ, with some compelling real life stories from other people and my own life to weave together. I wanted to present this. Holistic reality that I wanted to write it that if Jesus was taken out of it, people could still benefit horizontally from the principles. However, I believe all truth is God's truth. And so the ability he's given you as a psychotherapist is his hands and feet in the world. And here's some something else that I just learned. And I'm like, how did I not know this? One the words that Jesus uses for healing is therapu, where we get the word therapy from. And so he is a beautiful and wonderful therapist, and he uses all of these resources. But I wanted to create a resource where it's like people are sitting down over coffee with me and we're talking, we're learning union life in Christ. We're we're learning neuroplasticity, we're learning spiritual disciplines. We're learning the grace of God. We're also learning that It's okay to not be okay. But it's not okay to stay not okay. And when Jesus tells the man at the pool of Bethesda, who's been there for nearly forty years, do you want to get well? And this is a book, an invitation to get well.
Jo Hargreaves:Yeah, and it is exactly that in a holistic, beautiful, Christ-centered, freeing, discipling way. And I think your words, as well as being lyrical and beautiful and you're a wonderful writer, they do, they disciple people. And I love how you steward what God's given you. And so how can people buy the book? I know it's coming out, so September 10th, is that right?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:It's out. The book releases September 8th.
Jo Hargreaves:And September
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:8th. And you can buy it anywhere books are sold. And here's one of my prayers, Jo, is I'm praying that people will partner with me, that 20,000 people will begin the healing journey the first week of the release of the book. So if your listeners feel inclined to say, you know what, we want to help get this book in the hands of 20,000 people to begin the healing journey the first week, which starts September 8th, I would be honored to partner with them. And the the imagery that I see is I see a line of generations where hurt has been passed down, and people grab a copy of It's Time to Heal. And they begin to read it. And what was a curse being passed down, toxicity being passed down? It's like, no, this ends with me. I'm passing down health. I'm passing down blessing. And then what I see is generations of people who are healthy and flourishing, and they may not even know their ancestors that started it. That's what I pray. I pray for my family line. whether how long the Lord takes to come back, that there are people who don't even know my name. But as a result of going on a healing journey with Jesus, they're blessed.
Jo Hargreaves:The future generations
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:are blessed.
Jo Hargreaves:Amen and amen and I was going to say this to you when we finish but I'll say it on the call actually. When you were talking about the man at the Pool of Bethsaida, I remembered something that I'd read a while ago about actually the Pool of Bethsaida, the first time that you read about it is the gate, the beautiful gate that's built in the book of Nehemiah. And so the person who's rolling up their sleeves and building that place in the book of Nehemiah, who's working hard and, you know, sweat, blood, tears is actually creating a place all of those years later for somebody to sit and be healed by Christ. And I feel like that's a prophetic word for your book, actually. that like, it's the groundwork and even in your own life, like that groundwork. So somebody somewhere at some point can sit and Jesus will say to them,
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:Do you want to be healed?
Jo Hargreaves:Do you want to get well? They can say yes, because of somebody's obedience, somebody's rolling up their sleeves, somebody's desire to kind of partner and build things for God. I feel like you're stewarding everything God's given you really beautifully and brilliantly. So really want to get on board with this and it's a really good book. for yourself, isn't it? But it's a really good book when, like you said, when somebody is struggling or when you see a pattern of behavior to give to them and go, there's loads of hope for you. There's loads of healing and wholeness that's available for you. And it's all wrapped up in Jesus. And so I already know people who I will be giving copies to and just, you know, allowing it to inform whether you're working pastorally in church or outside of church, or it's just a family member. It's really worth reading for yourself, but yeah, on the behalf of others as well. So how can we, I know you've got a website. I know that you're brilliant on Instagram. I saw something very funny the other day where you said that you got signed by some football team. I presume it was fully AI, but tell us a little bit about how we can find you there.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:Yeah, you can get me on my socials. I'm more active on Instagram. It's @ Derwin Lgray. also DerwinLgray . com. And our church, Transformation Church, it's transformationchurch.tc. I appreciate you allowing me to connect with your audience. I don't take that lightly. And you know, you're gonna come preach at Transformation Church. My wife and I love your work. We're gonna take you to a great restaurant. We're gonna give you some good Southeast United States barbecue and some good stuff.
Jo Hargreaves:It's gonna be awesome. has provided for me.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:I love that.
Jo Hargreaves:Thank you. I am so, looking forward to it. And really looking forward to meeting you. Really looking forward to meet Vicki and looking forward to more of these conversations. I wonder if you could finish just by praying for people who listen, who are listening, who maybe feel hopeless or know that it is time to heal but not quite sure what the next step is. I don't know, you pray as the Holy Spirit guides you, but I'd love to invite you to pray.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray:Spirit, would you take these words, take this prayer, and make it an arrow of grace into hopeless hearts, into traumatized hearts, into hurting hearts, and that the beauty of Jesus would shine so brightly that the warmth. of his mercy would hold them close, that his life giving love would pick them up off the floor and lift them up, and that they would see the face of the Father, and they they would see his smile of kindness And then he would speak over them. You are my beloved. You are my son's righteousness. You are my friend. You are my child. You are mine. And I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Jo Hargreaves:Amen Amen Thank you so much for praying that for people. And, may you receive that as you're listening. Thank you so much, Dr. Derwin L. Gray. Great to chat with you. Look forward to seeing you at some point. And, yeah, be blessed.