Something Spiritual Sports
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Something Spiritual Sports
Finding Home: Barbara Culver's Journey to Faith
Barbara Culver shares her journey from a loveless childhood to finding Christ at age 16, which led to a 62-year walk with God that transformed her life through numerous challenges. Her testimony demonstrates how God's love can heal wounds and bring purpose to pain.
• Found spiritual family at church from age six while growing up in a home without emotional nurturing
• Encountered Christ at age 15, surrendering her heart and life to Him on her 16th birthday
• Views Bible as "God's story told through everyday people" that guides her daily decisions
• Maintains continuous prayer throughout daily challenges, especially during medical procedures
• Discovered divine purpose when disinherited assets went to the church that introduced her to Christ
• Faces ongoing health battles with diabetes, eye complications, stroke, and heart problems
• Compares Christian life to a football game - sometimes gaining ground, sometimes getting knocked back
• Encourages young people with the message that they are truly loved regardless of circumstances
Remember that God can transform what others meant for evil into something beautiful, and His joy becomes our strength through every trial.
So, hi, I'm Zach Evans. I'm here with Barbara Culver with me on Something Spiritual Sports and this is her story. So, barbara, what is your testimony? How did you come to Christ?
Speaker 2:I didn't grow up in a Christian home, even though I went to church. Ever since I was six years old, my parents, my dad, would drop me off, and the first day he dropped me off at a church that at that time, was the largest Protestant church in our county. It was a church he had never been in before in his life and it was a church I didn't know. One place, no one person there, not one. But when I walked into that building it was like this is home, this is where I need to be. Well, every Sunday I was being told how much Jesus loved me and I would say no, he can't love me that much Because it seemed to me as a six-year-old no one cared anything about me.
Speaker 2:I lived with my dad and my stepmother. My mom had walked away from my life. I did not know her at all and it just. My stepmother had no children and made it very plain she didn't want any children. It just happened. I come with a package. So I grew up in a home where there was no love. I was taken care of, all my physical needs was met, but as far as my emotional and spiritual needs, there wasn't anything fulfilled in that house. But in that church I found peace and I found a family that loved me, didn't question me or expect me to produce or be the person they wanted me to be. They just loved on me. And I didn't realize that until I was an adult. But my Sunday school teacher, that very first Sunday she took me by the hand and she let me sit with her family for I don't know two or three years doing church services. So that church family became very important in my life.
Speaker 2:But then, when I was 15, at a church camp one summer, I had my first encounter with Christ. I had my first encounter with Christ and I heard the voice and he said come to me, just come to me. And I said I can't do that. And I heard the same words again and I said I cannot do that because you can't love me the way I read about in your book you love people because I'm not lovable. And I heard it the third time. Well, I went home and those words just kept popping up in my head and so on my 16th birthday I walked the aisle of my church and I surrendered my heart and my life to Christ.
Speaker 2:Now I don't know what happened in that moment. I don't even know what he did, I just knew for the very first time I was loved. Wow, and it felt so good, wow. I went home and told my parents what I had done and my dad looked at me and said you didn't do anything but join a church. But I knew it was so much more. I didn't argue with him because you didn't argue with my dad, but I knew it was more than that and so I have followed him for now it's been 62 years and he's never failed me.
Speaker 2:He's always been there for me and it's his book that directs my life, Because I received my first Bible at the age of nine from my church and when I speak I take that Bible with me. Because I have a friend who is an atheist, claims atheist. I kind of chuckle at him when he says that to me, but the first time he ever heard me give one of my speeches, I belonged to a Toastmasters club and they would let me practice my speeches that I was given.
Speaker 2:First time he ever heard me. I had used my Bible as an example in that speech and he said he come to me. He told me. He said when you go speak, you need to take that Bible with you everywhere you go. And I went, well, why? And he said because when I see that Bible, because it's pretty well tattered and torn, he said when I look at that Bible, he said I don't see you living by it, I see you living in it. He said I don't see you living by it, I see you living in it. And so I usually, when I speak somewhere, I take my Bible. I don't have it with me. Today I put it up somewhere and I don't know right now where I put it. I looked for it and couldn't find it, but I try to take that Bible with me everywhere I go.
Speaker 1:Nice, that's awesome. Yeah, it's funny, my sister and dad, they both do Toastmasters, so yeah, so they do the public speaking. And I don't know if you knew this about me, but I, uh I worked for fellowship of Christian athletes and uh, I, I some I'll sometimes speak in front of, like students and stuff like that, like student athletes, and uh, share the gospel with the kids and everything.
Speaker 2:So that's important, you know, and and I'm glad that my club did allow me that privilege of speaking. I joined the club just to to become a better speaker, but I learned so much from those people because they would give me, they would critique my speeches, they would tell me things that I should put in, that I shouldn't, that I should take out. They were just very good to me.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So how do you apply the Bible to your personal life?
Speaker 2:I believe because after studying the Bible, I had read the Bible all the way through three times before I accepted Christ Right, because I simply, when I got the book, I was so excited I love to read and I thought of it just as a book. I didn't think of it as being God's word or something that was going to be a part of my life the rest of my life. It was simply a book and I started in genesis and I read to revelation. But when I got through reading it the first time, it was different than my other books because I couldn't just lay it aside and never pick it up again. It was like it just kept calling to me.
Speaker 1:So as.
Speaker 2:I have become to read it and study it, as after I became a Christian I realized the Bible is simply God's story and it's being told in everyday, ordinary people's lives, just like us. And he does it in a way that no one expects. But when he intervenes in life, life changes totally. Everything about me changed that moment. I gave my life to Christ, and I didn't just give him my heart, I gave him my life Right. So the Bible is the one that leads me when I go to speak. Often I'm sharing with people the fact that you know, the main thing I hear from people when I go to places is the fact that they don't read the Bible because they don't understand it. And I say well, how many of you understand how Internet works? I don't understand it, but it doesn't keep me from using it. I don't understand how cell phones work. They blow my mind.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't prevent me from using it and trying to learn from it, and I've learned so much just in the last eight years because I didn't know what a podcast was. I had no clue what a podcast was, and here I am speaking now on podcasts, and I had my phone for a while and things happened that I've had to shut it down, but I don't understand how it all works. But it doesn't prevent me from wanting to learn from it. So when you read the bible, no, there are.
Speaker 2:I've been a christian for 62 years and there are thousands of scriptures that I don't understand still right it does not prevent me from opening up that book and reading it right, trying to learn something from it that will help me in my everyday life and help me to encourage other people to find christ in it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, um, so what, what is your prayer life like? And, uh, do you, do you like to? Do you like to pray in a journal or do you like to? How to how, how does your prayer life, what's your prayer life like?
Speaker 2:there was a time in my life when I did pray with a journal I have. I think about three, three big notebooks full of prayers In the I don't know. In the last 10, 10 or 12 years I stopped doing that. But, I had a gentleman tell me one time when I was leading prayer ministry at our church. I asked him because we had to pray for an hour and then we would call the next person and tell him it was their turn to pray.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I asked him how his prayer time was going and he looked at me and he said Barbara, I pray all the time, all day long. Oh wow, you're kidding me. Nobody does that. Well, I have learned. Yes, there are times I pray all day long, especially when I have a test or a trial in life, I have to stop and pray. I have diabetes and I had it before I even knew I had it. It's damaged before I even knew I had it. But I have bleeding behind both retinas and so I have to have shots put in my eyes every so often, put in my eyes ever so often. And this has been going on for eight years and I still, when I leave my house, I pray all the way there, I pray for his presence, I pray for his power and I pray that he will give me strength to do this thing so that I can see, because my retinal specialist made it very plain If I don't get the shots, I would go blind.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So I have to have them, but that doesn't make it any easier to get them.
Speaker 2:That doesn't make it any easier to get them. But when I pray and I've learned this in the process of all this that when I pray now I pray for the same thing, but I also start praising him. I praise him for his presence in my life, I praise him for his power, I praise him for the knowledge that he's given this doctor to keep my eyesight going, and so my prayer life is very strong with him. I recently was in the hospital with AFib and I was very short of breath, and that night, the first night, I went I don't know how I'm going to sleep, lord I was having chest pains and my breath was very short. I don't know how I'm going to sleep.
Speaker 2:So I tried sitting up and then I tried to lay down a little bit and I kept scooting the bed back. Finally I just laid my bed flat, and when I did that, a scripture came to my mind that I have read many times, but just in the past five or six years have really used in my life. But it says I give to my beloved sleep. And so, as I laid there and I prayed, I said, lord, it's written in your word that you give to your beloved sleep, and I need sleep. I went to sleep, zach, and I need sleep. I went to sleep, zach, and the only time I would wake up was when the nurses would come in to monitor me, but I would go right back to sleep and I slept all night long.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:God is faithful and he will do what he wants to do in our lives. But we have to cooperate with him uh-huh, yeah, that's, that's powerful.
Speaker 1:I mean like I've had times where I've prayed and like like god will answer and it just it kind of blows my mind, you know, like it's like it's this kind of like. So, for example, I went on a missions trip to costa rica and I've, I think I've seen like prayer, yeah, prayer answered before, but like almost I, when I tell you every prayer request that we had prayed for the trip, that god had answered every prayer, I was like it blew my mind, because I was like I knew God answered prayer but not it changed Because my, so yeah, my story is I was the prodigal son because I prayed except Christ, and then I went on the run and then I went on a missions trip and that brought me back to Christ. So yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he can blow your mind real fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he can, so I know you're a Christian speaker. How do you use that platform? How do you?
Speaker 2:glorify God by using that platform, by telling how he has worked in my life.
Speaker 2:As I said, I didn't grow up in a Christian home right and as I became an adult, I didn't know how to honor my parents as an adult, because I was constantly being criticized and I said, lord, I don't. I don't know how to do that, so you're going to have to teach me. And if we ask him to teach us, he is so willing and he won't do it in a way that we think he's going to do, because he led me to study the life of Joseph and I learned so many lessons from him. Number one, that we're all dysfunctional families. I don't care what your family's like.
Speaker 2:There is some kind of dysfunction in your family, right, but you can overcome that dysfunction by trusting Christ.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I grew up in a family where alcoholism was rampant, Divorce was rampant, and I told the Lord. I said I don't want this a part of my life, and I share with people the fact that I can't drink liquor because I can't get it past my nose. It stinks so bad and I believe God gave me that so that I wouldn't turn that way. Then he has given me the ability to forgive, Because when my parents, when my dad, died, he died first. My relationship with my stepmother was even more strained, but I did everything that I possibly could as a human to help her. I knew that's what the Lord wanted me to do. But when she died I realized she had disinherited me of everything that was my dad's.
Speaker 2:I didn't even get the flag from his casket, and that's the angriest I've ever been in my life, and the Holy Spirit kept telling me I had to forgive and I said I can't do that right now. He said okay, so I can almost point to the time. He shut down in me and I lived without him being part of my daily life for seven days and finally I said I can't do this anymore. He said now forgive. Well, how do you forgive dead people? They're dead, they're gone, and I didn't know. I said so. You're going to have to teach me. I don't know how to do this.
Speaker 2:And I believe it was the spirit that gave me the understanding. I went to their grave. I stood at the foot of their graves and I said what you meant for evil, god would mean for good. Well, everything that I was disinherited from went to the church that taught me about Jesus. Now, they never went to church with me as a child. I never sat in a church service my entire life with my parents, but they had actually joined that church about 15 years before my dad passed away. I did not even know that and I asked my stepmother. When I found it out.
Speaker 2:I said then why would my dad object me talking about the Bible? Because every time I would try to talk to them about my faith, he would always tell me I don't want to hear any of that. He said you just take care of yourself. So I said why did he object to that if you joined the church? She said we just joined the church. We didn't want to hear all that stuff, but god sent them to that church, I believe so that my inheritance is not earthbound but it's heaven bound, and I was privileged to give that testimony to that congregation in 2019. And I asked them I said do you still give out Bibles to their nine-year-olds. And they said yes. In fact, they had just done it the Sunday before I spoke.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I said then you keep handing them out, because every child that accepts Christ, because you've given them this Bible, that's my inheritance and it's in heaven.
Speaker 1:Wow, so, so how much of a blessing was it to find out that your church, the church, has saved you, that god. So my verse, romans 8, 28 for god works all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Like, how did that, how? What was that like to see? Wow, like god, like he. Literally, I didn't get the money, but the church that that that blessed me so much got the money yeah it.
Speaker 2:At first I didn't realize it. Even after I had you know forgive my parents and other people that was involved in all that, I still didn't understand it, and about I don't know. It was about three or four months later. I was in my quiet time and the Spirit said you really don't understand what happened in your life, do you? Well, I guess, not because.
Speaker 2:I don't want you talking about that. I said, well, I guess not, because I don't want you talking about that. And he said where did your inheritance go? I said, well, it went to the church I grew up in. And he said who guided your parents there to that church? And I went back to the scripture where the Lord says I direct man's feet, I direct their paths, and I believe God sent them there on purpose so that I could win the victory and God would take what they meant for evil.
Speaker 1:And he made it good. That's awesome. Um, so what? What is your favorite book of the bible? And also, what is your favorite scripture verse?
Speaker 2:And my favorite scripture verse is one that's kind of unusual. Most people don't think about it, but as I studied the Bible I've come to realize that Christ is my strength, and so my favorite verse is Nehemiah 8.10. The joy of the Lord is my strength, because when he gives me joy, then I have strength, and it doesn't matter what's going on around about me or what's happening in my life. I can have joy because I have him. I can live with joy because I know what my future is.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I know that he has plans for me, that I don't even understand this very podcast he brought to me. I had no role in applying for you to interview me or anything he gave it to you to send to me, and so he directs my path, he directs my life. So the joy of the Lord is my strength. It's my favorite verse. My favorite book of the Bible is hard because I love so many of them, but I guess I would have to say Genesis is my number one.
Speaker 1:Oh nice.
Speaker 2:And Psalms is my number two, because I read a Psalm every night before I go to bed, oh wow. And as I go to sleep at night I try to meditate on what I've read. But Genesis is where he led me to really study the life of Joseph, and so Genesis means a lot in my life.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Yeah, my favorite verse is actually well, it's Romans 8, 28, but it's also Ephesians 2, verse 8 through 9. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. There's none of yourselves. Is the gift of god, not by work, so that no man should boast. Those two verses are kind of like my life verses and I don't know, yeah, book of the bible's tough because like there's so many good books in the bible, you know like romans is up there and uh, yeah, romans, the roman road, and you know that the way, one of the best ways to share the gospel, and uh, so yeah, but um, so you? So I know, uh, so yeah, so like the verse verse you said it in when you messaged me I know you said you weren't an athlete. But 1 Corinthians 9, verse 24, do you not know that in a race, everyone runs but only one wins the prize? So run to win. How do you relate this verse to your personal life?
Speaker 2:You know, after you messaged me I got to think about it. I know Paul talks about life as a race and it is. We have a race of time because we're only here for a short time and we have to make use of that time. So I began to think about my life as a football game. I'm, I'm, I like football. I understand football. I don't always enjoy watching football, but I do, uh, understand a little bit of it.
Speaker 2:And in my life, and especially in the last eight years since I was diagnosed diabetic, I get a first down but then I get knocked back and it may be two yards, it may be two yards, it may be 15 yards. Like I knew, I had the bleeding behind my eyes. We had to get that corrected. We did that and I asked my doctor. I said what can I do to help this along? And my retinal specialist said keep your your sugar down. It's imperative. Now most people their sugar can run 150 and that's good For me. I can't have my sugar over 120 because if I do, the swelling comes back behind my retinas. So I have to really watch that and I have to watch which way I dart. I have to know what I can eat, when I can eat it and how much of it I can eat. A football player has to know which way to turn, how high to jump and if he can come in in bounds with the ball. So my life is that way.
Speaker 2:I I've been going along with this journey and all of a sudden I had a stroke. They found out that it was caused from afib, so that knocked me back a bit and I'm still struggling with that. Because I went to the hospital three weeks ago with AFib and chest pains, they ended up having to shock my heart to get it back into rhythm. I went to my and I thought I was doing great. I was feeling so much better. Went to my regular physician just this past Monday and he tells me that my heart is down racing again. It's got extra beats in it. That's not supposed to be there. So I don't know what they're going to do with that.
Speaker 2:But every time I get knocked back it seems like God presents something else in my life so that I can tell his story and let people be encouraged by the fact. If he does it for me, he'll do it for you the things that he done for people in the Bible. If he did it for them, he'll do it for us and we have to remember that. And all the promises that he gives to the Israelites were ours as well, because we have faith in him. Now I have a lot of people say to me I wish I had the faith you have. And my answer is always the same you do, Because the Bible says to every man is given the measure of faith not a measure, but the measure Meaning we all get the same amount of faith.
Speaker 2:But we have to use that faith to come to Christ, because that's how you get it. How you come to Christ is by faith, and it's by his grace and through faith that we are saved. It's not anything that I've done, it's through my faith in the Bible. But then, after I came to him, faith comes by hearing the word of God, and that's why I try to encourage people to memorize verses, because there are times in your life when you need strength to get through that test or trial and to move ahead toward the goal and know that Christ is with you. But the more you say scripture, I've learned in my life the more I say scripture, the more my ears hear it and the more. It goes into my spirit and then it can come out of my mouth when I need it. So it's imperative that I get that, so that when I struggle with life, faith will come, because I know scripture Does that make sense.
Speaker 1:One last question and then uh, so how, how does your story relate to a younger audience and how, how would your story relate to, because there's a lot of young people that are falling away from god, so, like, how would you relate your story to, like, a younger people?
Speaker 2:That's really a hard one, because I have eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren and when I'm around them, when I'm around them, they act a little different than what they would if I wasn't there. And I tell them all the time I said don't worry about what you do in front of me, worry about what God sees you doing, what God hears you saying and where God sees you going and the people that you put around you to strengthen you. I don't want them to be leery of the Bible. I want them to be encouraged by the words that they read and the words that they hear from it. That it will help them and give them strength, as it has me in my life, and I try to share.
Speaker 2:I used to teach for a while. I taught at a drug rehab, a women's drug rehab center a few miles down the road from my house, and it was so encouraging to me. I would go there trying to encourage them, but they encouraged me because they were so hungry for the word. I know they don't think they are, but they encourage me because they're so hungry for the word. I know they don't think they are, but they are because the Bible is the only thing they can have. That's truth.
Speaker 2:You want to know truth in your life? Open up the word of God and read it, and at some point you have to agree with God that I'm no better than what you say I am. I'm not worthy of anything that you could give me, and yet you pour out grace upon me every single day. You give me mercy that's new and you give me love that is indescribable and can blow your mind away. But you are loved, and that's what I try to encourage young people with the fact that they are loved, no matter what's going on in life. You are loved, no matter what's going on in life.
Speaker 1:you are loved Well. Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. I love hearing your story and it's been an honor.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's been an honor to be with you. Thank you, it's been an honor to be with you.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, thank you for being on and we'll see you on the next episode All right. Thank you very much All right, god bless you.
Speaker 2:God bless you.
