Dear Christian Girl Podcast
The Dear Christian Girl podcast is a podcast for christian girls who are trapped in performance-based Christianity and want to really break free to live a life that genuinely pleases God.
Dear Christian Girl Podcast
Divorce, Four Miscarriages, and a Deadly Car Crash: Juliet Dawn's Story from Tragedy to Redemption
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Juliet Dawn opens up about her painful journey: a decade-long difficult marriage ending in divorce, four miscarriages, losing her twin boys after a pioneering surgery, poisonous spider bites, a car crash while pregnant, two nervous breakdowns. From X Factor to Royal Albert Hall, this British singer-songwriter reveals how Christian faith rebuilt her life with husband Jason and sons Sam, Max, and Leo. Her new album "Born To Be" can be purchased here: https://rocketfuelhq.com/product/11788
You can learn more about Juliet Dawn here: https://www.julietdawn.co.uk/
This podcast is hosted by Mo!
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My story is epic and it is a testimony years and years of trauma, PTSD, nervous breakdowns, debilitation, you know, passing out. I thought I was gonna die. I got rage just like so many. My legs were weak, shaking. I just I said I am not going to let this define me.
SPEAKER_00It is always a blessing to sit down on this couch and bring to you another episode of the Dear Christian Girl Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in today and for listening. My guest has a very interesting story that I'm sure will be a blessing to everyone who is listening today. Her name is Juliet Don, and Juliet is a British singer, a former ex-factor contestant, and she has performed on one of the biggest stages in England. She has faced many challenges from miscarriages to losing her twin boys to facing life-threatening accidents and also several emotional breakdowns. Through it all, her Christian faith has been her anchor, and she continues to use her voice to inspire hope and also lead people to Christ. Please welcome with me today Juliet Dawn.
SPEAKER_01You're very welcome. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Um, Juliet, you have such an interesting story, and you've been through a lot of things. I remember just reading reading your bio and I was like, the fact that she's still standing here today, uh, that's that's a testimony.
SPEAKER_01It is a miracle. It's a miracle that I'm still here because any one of those things could have finished somebody off. Like these these scars are deep, these challenges are sometimes insurmountable for people. Um, my story is epic and it is a testimony to God's grace, God's healing. And it's my having been willing to partner with God to allow him to restore me, to allow him to, you know, you've sometimes you've got to really dig deep to allow him to minister, to allow him to make, to mold you, to change you, to strengthen you, to go, you know, restore the memories, restore the healing, the cells. It's like it's a deep work when your traumas have been as deep and as extensive as mine have. Um, yeah, it's a crazy, crazy story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we are going to talk all about that in the podcast today. And there was something you said, which is it's a testimony that you're still, you know, standing here because I don't think that anyone who there are many people who have gone through maybe similar things or maybe not even up to that, but are no longer in the faith. So it's a you know testimony that you are still in the faith. And so I'll just like to learn more about your background, where you're from, you know, did you grow up in a Christian home? Can you tell me about that?
SPEAKER_01So, yes, I grew up in a Christian home. Okay. My was I grew up were Christian leaders, um, and they went on to become pastors. But I don't ever remember a time as a child or growing up that I didn't know Jesus, that I didn't know about God and believe the Bible. I grew up with Bible stories and with church and Bible study um and crusaders and all these, they were all just normal things for me. And it really gave me such a firm foundation in my faith. So, and as well as that, you know, I came from a very stable, loving home, and I was also a very determined, um, a high-achieving, aspirational child. I don't know where I got my resilience and determination from, but I had it in bucket loads even from a very young age. So I, you know, I it was a great uh foundational chapter of my life that again I think was part of what set me up to be able to cope and manage and navigate all that was ahead of me. I think if you have, you know, a wobbly childhood and difficulties, I just think you're at a disadvantage, perhaps, to deal with if life throws you these things, but God knows the beginning from the end. Yes. And I he knew that my foundation was strong and secure, and a bit like Job, you know, God allowed him to be tested in that way because he would Job was secure in his faith, in his family. It's a bit like that. I think God allowed what's happened to my life because he knew the foundation was strong.
SPEAKER_00For people who don't know you or haven't heard about your story, I want you to take us back to the very beginning. You know, when did the losses start? Or when did you start to feel like what is going on here?
SPEAKER_01Um, basically at 21. So at 21, I left university, went to live in Spain where my parents were missionaries. And um during that transition to living in Spain, God really captured my heart and he convicted me of being a bit of a living a sort of wishy-washy, flip-flop, lukewarm Christian. And so he challenged me, and so I made the prayer in Spain at 21. I consecrated my life and I said, Lord, you've got me, and I just want to make a difference, no matter the cost. And that from that prayer, that was my like Joba prayer, if you like. It was like it's where things started from, it's where God took me at my word that if I wanted to make a big difference, I was there was gonna have to be a price to pay. Um, and so that that's when it started. I was 21, living in Spain with my parents, but I was in a relationship with someone who I went on to marry, but he turned out to be abusive and controlling. Um, and somehow I sort of got trapped in that relationship. But this all started at 21 after I prayed, after I prayed that prayer, and honestly, when I prayed that prayer at 21, and I said, and literally those are the words, I just want to make a difference no matter the cost. The interpretation that God has taken on that prayer is not the actual what was in my heart when I prayed it. I was thinking about the eschatology of the end times, and I was thinking, wow, God, well, even if I've got to be martyred or I'm gonna be persecuted, you know, even if I've got to pay a price for holding on to my faith, then that was what I meant. Like, I just want to make a difference no matter the cost. I wasn't thinking of years of trial, tribulation, trauma, and being refined in the fire to bring me to a place where I had an incredible story that literally could impact the world. I was not in my mind when I prayed that prayer. God had different thoughts about that. He he so yeah, straight after that prayer, my life started to, you know, saying it started to go downhill, it makes it sound kind of like, oh God put me on a downward trajectory. It wasn't like that, it was literally the stuff started to happen, and my life felt like it was spiraling, and the negativity and the difficulties and the trauma and the challenge. It's like it all started at 21 when I prayed that prayer.
SPEAKER_00Um, you spoke about being in an abusive relationship. Did you ever um like talk to your parents about it during that period? Like was there like any community, anyone you could run to like in that period?
SPEAKER_01No, there really wasn't. And it wasn't because people wouldn't have listened to me, but somehow in my naivety and youth, there was something in me that kind of thought, this is my problem. Like I've got myself into this, I've got myself to get myself out of it. And I think when you're resilient and tenacious, you believe that you can problem solve your way out of this. And there was also part of me that kind of thought, if people knew how bad it was, and would it this whole my life, my relationship, my marriage, which was all tied up with my career, would explode, implode, or whatever. Because if I if I literally started speaking to people about some of the ways I was being treated, it would have created such um a knee-jerk reaction. And I just don't know if I was ready for my world to implode in that way. So you convince yourself you can handle it, you convince yourself things might change. Um, you when I say normalise, I don't mean you begin to think it's normal, but you begin to think that you can cope with this normal, even though it's not, it became my normal. Yeah, and um well, I wasn't deceived into thinking that it should have been my normal, but it was, and so I think I just became um trapped in it, trying to work out how to how to get out of the situation with my without my life imploding. I didn't particularly want to, you know, get police involved or be divorced or lose my career, and all those things just felt like there were possibilities. So you hang on hoping things are gonna work out differently. But no, I didn't really speak to anyone about it. I had a best friend who kind of knew, and I had other people who were in the entertainment industry with me, who spent a lot of time around myself and my ex-husband who knew and saw they knew because they'd seen it, witnessed it, and were part of the circle of understanding. But nobody ever came to try and rescue me. Nobody ever took me on one side and was like, this is not right. I think perhaps as well that back then in the 90s, there was no such thing as a criminal offence of coercive control. There isn't the people know what it is, they know it's an offence, but back then somebody could have just as easily have dismissed it as um oh you know, a bad relationship, or you know, oh that's how they carry on, you know, or whatever. It didn't have a label, and in that way it was more difficult to define as being utterly wrong. Um, so yeah, I ended up just being trapped in it for way too long. But all I can say is that God never, I never like he didn't, I was always aware that he was with me. So I never kind of felt separated from him. Um, and I never also like I think a lot of people in abusive relationships, they can lose themselves. My my ex um abuser, he he would argue black was white and black, you know, black was white and white was black. He could just create an argument that was totally nonsensical. Um, I did not let him sway me from my firm foundation in any way, and some of that was done quietly defiantly, and just sometimes I would be outwardly defiant. But he never swayed me from my core, my values, my beliefs, my friendships. He just never swayed me one bit, and I was just so grateful to come out of that relationship, not messed up. Who I'm not like, who am I, what am I doing, what do I no? I wasn't, I I was emotionally in pain, battered. I wasn't messed up in my thinking, just so grateful for that. My faith was intact, my identity was intact. I still knew who I was and what I was on this planet for.
SPEAKER_00That's good, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Lots of people, I think, don't come out with such a strong outcome. Um, and again, that's why I think my the firm foundation was such a benefit for going through that terrible 10 years of my life. You were married for 10 years, yeah. Well, no, I was in the relationship for 10 years-ish. Okay. But we I was married for about five of those years.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01But it was bad, yeah, it was really bad. And, you know, some people who knew me after I'd left were like, oh, we don't know how you didn't end up in a mental home, or we don't know how you didn't get a kitchen knife and stab him, you know, like kind of like really extreme things that people were saying to me. And I was kind of like, Yeah, I get it, I know, I know it was really, really bad. But they only were making those comments to me after the event, after like, why did nobody come to me at the time to say how bad it was? But I could say I just guessed from the outside looking in, didn't have a name, it didn't have coercive control, it was just a bad functioning relationship. Um it's a lot easier to determine what's going on now and call it somebody abuse.
SPEAKER_00Well, did you have any of your friends at all who maybe saw signs and maybe left you a comment to say, Julie, you know, that relationship, or was no one saying anything at all?
SPEAKER_01Um, no one was really saying anything. Okay. I my my closest friend knew, and she would venture just like, you know, like telling me it was not good and he wasn't good, and you know, but it wasn't really discussed in like you need to leave him, you need to get out of this. It was not done in that kind of way, you know. It was like, yeah, I think it's difficult for people on the outside who don't know how far to get buried into your relationship, and it's difficult on the inside because you're entrenched in it. Somehow there needs to be better dialogue, and I definitely think that the recognition of coercive control is a massive, massive step forward in that to be able to better dialogue around it. I could if I'd literally had that label and some better um dialogue with friends, or I feel like I wouldn't have stayed in the relationship as long.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna ask, I was gonna ask if you ever saw signs. Did you ever see signs um before getting into the relationship, or maybe just even months or years into the relationship?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there were signs. But you know, I was 21 coming out of university, heading into a relationship with someone who was older. I didn't have any frame of reference for what that should look like. And it didn't look like my parents' relationship, but equally, he was from a different part of the country, he was older, he was a different character. Should it really look like that? Like you do question yourself. Um, there were signs, but yeah, for sure. If somebody would have come to me and said, we need to talk about your relationship, it's gonna make you ill. It it doesn't matter if you lose your career, it doesn't matter if you lose your home. Let's get you out of that. If someone had come to me and had a really serious dialogue with me like that, I don't think I would have stayed as long as I did. But it was it was like I was just coping with the decision making on my own. So my decision to leave him was my own. My wherewithal to get out was my own. My um shaping up to lose for my life to implode was my own. And I'm glad that I did have the wherewithal. Um, and obviously, when I came clean about everything that had been happening, my parents were there to pick up the pieces, and you know, my friends were there as well. And it's just I look back and I just think, how did I let that happen? How? But it's just part of my story, it it's it's part of it, and somehow the fact that I've been through it, I think, can help other people. Yes. Um, somehow, you know, even my ex-husband has rededicated his life to Jesus, and he wants to go back out to Spain now and like um have a ministry with the drug addicts and the homeless and things. It's like, wow. Not that I'm in touch with him, but he did just contact me at some point. So it's like, well, God even changed his life through our relationship, and it's going to go in to impact other lives. Sometimes we just don't see the bigger picture. Um, and I, you know, I really hope he does go on to make to make a difference to other people's lives, but it doesn't make it right what he did to me, but it is just part of the story, and God, like I say, he knows the beginning from the end. Um maybe one day God will challenge him to reach out to me and actually apologize. He'll apologize there has never been an apology till date. No, there hasn't. There hasn't been an apology.
SPEAKER_00And how how were you able to move on?
SPEAKER_01And have you forgiven him? I'd forgiven him for sure, because I had to do that as soon as I got out of the relationship. You know, wise Christian parents and people who were a lot more spiritually mature than me, you know, it's like you can't go forward with bitterness in your heart, and you can't ask God to forgive you for things if you've not given forgiven other people for things. So I had to determine to forgive him. Um, how did I get through? So, you know, the support of of strong people around me, that resilience and determination in me kicked in, and God's God's help and support in repairing you and putting you back together and shaping you is. Always, always the thing that makes the biggest difference. It's like if you've dedicated your life to God, He has to play a part in everything. I had so much prayer ministry on the back of that relationship that was about repairing the emotional damage, that was about um cutting on healthy soul ties, it was about um you know, God restoring the memories of things that happened, cutting off the victim's spirit, you know, so many ways that I let God minister to me to cancel out all the negativity of those years. Um I it's it's part of I think what I want to preach through my testimony is God's the first port of call is just he knows our spirits, our souls, our flesh, and as creator of who we are, um he knows how to put us back together when we're broken.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for sharing. And I love that you mentioned that you had a prayer ministry going on and you had support because all of these things are very important. And it's so good that you were able to just forgive, you know, even without an apology, because I believe that is such an important message in itself. How to forgive someone and move on without being bitter, even when they haven't forgiven, um, even when they haven't apologized. And I'm interested in knowing how did you find the courage to leave that relationship? Because you had mentioned that your career was, you know, tied to this, your parents were um ministers, and you had the you had a lot of things at stake. So how were you able to just make that decision and say, this is enough? I'm leaving.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think I was, I think I was literally for probably a couple of years waiting for the moment where it was gonna be that's that's it, I'm going. And I didn't know what I was waiting for. I actually didn't. I just knew that I needed to feel the push to go. Um, and actually what happened was is that he had an affair with somebody else, and he got that person pregnant with twins. And he on one particular morning, he like didn't well, he didn't come home and threw a magazine at my face and slammed a door and a cupboard door on my fingers, and was just like really vile and violent to me. Um, and then I it was this was the days right before mobile phones were really invented. These were little brick, funny phones, and we had one between us, and something came up on the screen that said, I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really do, or something like that. And I was just like, and he made some funny comment about what it was, and I was like, Well, I'd never even seen a text before. This was like literally, but I knew, I just knew in my spirit, I thought he's having an affair. And you know, I was relieved because I thought this is what's going to give me the path to go because he's broken not just all honour, you know, but now he's broken um, you know, our marriage sacred vows, marriage vows. So that was it for me, really. And I just thought, great, he's got someone else and he's betrayed me, so I can go, I can go. Um, and that's what just allowed me the courage to think, right, I'm going, I'm going. I don't know how to do it, I don't know how to do it. I want to take the dog, and I want to take my photographs and things that mean some sentimental things. Um, and I just kind of plotted this. It was a real soap opera drama, escape plan, and literally just had to escape. Um, and it was quite intense, scary. Um, it was literally if you somebody replayed the film of that day, it literally would have just been high drama. You wouldn't have needed an orchestra playing in the background to bring all the tension and all the drama, like those strings going. No, it was just high drama and tension. It was it was bad, it was bad, but I did it and I got out. Um, and then later on, when he trapped me to go back to the house to pick up some stuff, um he came there and he basically admitted to me that that day that I left, that morning when he'd thrown something at me and was being violent, he'd sort of said, Oh, that was me. He said, I'd got this woman pregnant with twins and they were going on an abortion. And he said, and I don't agree with abortions, and he said, But that morning we were going for one. He said, So I I was really in a bad place. And I thought, he spent 10 years in a bad place, like never mind that one morning, but that's so my my instinct, whether it was the Holy Spirit telling me or just my spiritual radar was correct. Um, yeah, a bad chap. That's a lot, yeah. That's a lot. It's a lot, and do you know what? Quite often when I speak about my life story, a lot of the focus is on other aspects of my crazy, crazy story. And quite often this chapter of my life that's basically 10 years often just gets wrapped up in, oh, that was 10 years of abuse, and it doesn't even tell the half of it, you know. Like you say, it's a lot, and you can just pass it off in one sentence: 10 years of abuse, but really it was terrible. You know, he'd spit at me, he turned me out on the motorway several times, he ruined a record deal that I had in London. He um, you know, he was violent, raids of abuse. He, you know, it was awful. It was awful, horrendous time of my life. He'd start fights in department stores, in estate agents. You know, he'd leave me in the middle of a drama that he'd create and then leave me sat in the middle of it with everyone looking at me, you know, just like terrible things. Got arrested in Malaga in a department store because he headbutted the manager, like just well, just terrible, terrible things.
SPEAKER_00Um I'm really sorry you had to go through all of those. Um, it's not it's not an easy thing for anyone to, you know, I've had to go through. So I'm really sorry you had to go through all of that. But like you are um sharing now, I'm sure a lot of people um listening to this will be able to learn um from your story, and your story will be a blessing, you know, to many, many women and men out there. And I just want us to talk about the miscarriages for a little. I know that for a lot of women, I've had friends who have had miscarriages, and it's not it's not an easy topic to deal with. For a lot of women, it can feel very isolating, very shameful. Yeah, you know, a lot of people don't talk about it. And a lot of women, I had a um, I was listening to a preacher once who shared that she had a miscarriage and she blamed herself for it for the longest time. She blamed herself for it. So um, I just want, you know, you to talk about that a little. Like what feelings were you processing when that happened? Did you feel like you know, God were you blaming God for it? Did you feel like, oh, God let this happen? How were you able to just process that those feelings and just move away from those feelings to healing, you know, and and and moving forward from that?
SPEAKER_01I think like anyone who's desperate to be a mom, that loss and that deferred hope is devastating in a way that is much bigger than someone looking on the outside can see. Because you know, my I had my miscarriages quite early on in the pregnancy, so not you know, a big belly to see, not anything. It's like, and I think from the outside it could just be, well, you know, you didn't even have a baby, you had a fetus, you know, whatever. That it isn't you still have the same hope invested, still the same instincts, the same desires, the same dreams. It's like it is such a loss. Um, and like I like anyone who has that kind of loss, I was grieving, I was crying out those why may, why may, why may, what's wrong with me kind of questions, which are natural. But you know, I've had a lot of wisdom growing up, and even through all my trauma years, I have like say parents who are very wise, and my mom particularly has been a strong ally to me and other spiritually mature teachers and preachers, and it was always a sort of like a mantra inside of my head, like you just can't indulge these negative feelings because they'll take you down, they'll take you down, it's it's they're not helpful, and so all the biblical things that are part of the foundations of our faith have to kick in, all the things that we've been taught that God is in control, you know, and that not to worry about things but to go to Him with them. Um like Ecclesiastes 3, you know, there's a time, there's a season. God's made all things in their time. It's like we have to hold on, which is what I did, to the word of God, which is immovable, it's immovable and it's a living, breathing word of God. So you can't hold on to, oh, I you know, I'm never gonna have children. No, that might not be true. Oh, it's gonna be alright next time. No, that might not be true, but what is true is that our times are in God's hands. What is true is that He who has begun a work in us shall complete it. Yes. What's true is that God God doesn't allow us to shoulder more than we can cope with. Yes, what is true is that um you know God cares more about our character than our comfort. So we can't hold on to the negative, oh that this is always gonna be, you know, I'm never gonna be a mum, or the positive in in our own thoughts and feeling thinking, in our human thinking, because God's ways are different. So don't you can't have a strong handrail of thoughts and feelings. You can only have a strong handrail of God's word, because nothing else is gonna, nothing else is gonna be solid enough to take you through those difficult times. So you can't have a pity party, you can't so I'm not saying to people don't have negative thoughts because we all will, or an emotions. What I'm saying is don't learn to become friends with those thoughts, you have to learn to lay those at the cross and find ram or words of God that can be your handrail, your strong anchor to get you through those tough times. Ultimately, in the great, much bigger picture of the scheme of eternity and life, our God is bigger and greater, and we have more um higher purposes than to be caught up in the momentary things of our life, and that's not to say that they don't hurt, and that isn't part of what shapes and informs us, but we it's part of life's lessons, it's part of what God allows us to go through, that we have to rely on Him, that we have to see the bigger pictures, that we have to learn to trust Him through those tough times, and that we have to use the Word of God as our strong anchor and handrail, as I like to say, because sometimes we don't just need an anchor. It's like I need to walk this whole chapter of my life holding on to something strong. Thoughts and feelings and words of other people, they're not strong handrails.
SPEAKER_00I love that. I love that you are you know talking about the word of God and using the word of God as our strong anchor in this seasons. And I also love that you are you're not saying it doesn't hurt. Of course it hurts, like it's a painful season, but just going back to the word of God um, you know, is is much more important. And whether things that maybe your friends did or your community did, or even anyone at all did in that season that just helped you through that difficult process, just in case there are people listening who whose friends have had a miscarriage, like how can we support our friends who are going through a miscarriage or who have had miscarriages?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, I mean, my friends who knew me well, um it was it was a really good thing for people to talk about it and not ignore it. Somehow ignoring it's it the the the this thing that had happened that seems taboo, not talking about it was worse because it felt like people were ignoring you. Um friends that actually talked about it, there was that was there was healing in that, there was processing reality in that. Um, and then there's you know, um there's little things. Um just for sakes of arguments, and this is slightly different, but see I had three miscarriages before my twin boys died, and I had a miscarriage after, so I've had four miscarriages. But when my twin boys died, so for sakes of argument, a friend of mine went to Israel and planted trees, one for each of them in the Yavashem gardens, and gave me you know this tree planting leaflet with their names on it and the date and things. It's like that was like a strong, lasting souvenir, memento, memory. It's like there are um markers in the sand, you know, that you put a flag in these moments in your life because they are pivotal to shaping it. So it's making sure that we understand how they can shape us for the better, talk about it and um and grow from it. Uh, in the not knowing what to say, to say nothing, that is the wrong thing to do. It's better to talk about it head on. I'm sorry about your loss. How are you feeling? You must you know talk about it, talk about it, give people books to read, and certainly from my own point of view, I've gone on to write poetry because of my loss. I didn't have access or didn't find, didn't you know, the maybe there wasn't a resource like I've written at that time. So I didn't have something to go to like that that was going to validate your feelings, validate your emotions. So I would definitely say, you know, you can find some poetry as well that it's validating. Um, and if anyone needs any of my poetry, you can find it on the website.
SPEAKER_00But my Yes, I I know you have one launching soon.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I've got one on there already. I mean, I've got a few other books um that I self-published that weren't published professionally, but um, there is so much healing in other people's in the experienced words of someone else who's been through it. And if you can find that, it is so healing. Because when it makes you cry when someone else is putting into words something else that you feel that otherwise is not recognized or verbalized. So if you can help somebody by finding a way to validate and verbalize their feelings in that way through poetry, it's a massive, massive help.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much, um, Julie. And I'm going to put your website on the description box so that people have access to your website and to, you know, the poetries as well, so that um, you know, they can use it in this season. And I'm also sorry for you know the loss you've had to endure in the past. It's not easy, you know, having four miscarriages and losing your teen boys. And I I want to ask, did you ever like seek Christian counseling for any of those losses? Or you just are leaned into your community?
SPEAKER_01Not anymore because I've had these years and years of trauma, PTSD, nervous breakdowns, debilitation, the the catastrophic losses that I had one after the other after the other, and compounded, they took me to a very bleak place physically, emotionally. Um, but I'm through that now. So um, but all those trauma years, oh my gosh, yes, I had to have so much prayer, so much well, prayer counselling, you know, you can um, and my mum's very experienced in that. So I was very blessed that I went through, I walked through my trauma with my mum. But it took a lot, believe you me, like an onion, layers and layers and layers of trauma from the various things that I've been told, from my experiences, from the breakdown of my flesh, from the crushing of my spirit, from the emotional violation, just like so many, um, and so many the gates to our soul, you know, the the eyes, the ears, so many senses had been violated by so much of what I'd experienced. Um, so yeah, I I really had to have an awful lot. I wonder if in pre in when we get to heaven, there'll be a little tally sheet of how many hundreds of hours of prayer that I had to to be whole like. I am, but um yes, indeed, so many, but not so much now. But you know, I'm literally in the time frame right now, as we're speaking, of the twins. They were born on the 3rd of December. Louis died on the 4th of December, and Elliot died on the 7th of December. Oh no. So I'm literally right in the time frame of that whole terrible chapter of my life. Um, and it can still make me cry sometimes. You know, I found it very difficult on the third, which was the anniversary, their 21-year anniversary. And I was very emotional, but it isn't the kind of thing I need prayer counselling with anymore. That's just the natural emotion of a mother wanting to feel that their lives counted for something and that my experience of going through that was going to be unto something like the chapter that I'm living now. I need it to be more because that prayer about making a difference and having paid such a high price, even in the lives of my sons, it needs to be a fruition that comes, that weighs out the balance. The balance, you know, of trauma, grieving, death, and all of that needs to be balanced by now what I see in this chapter of my life of kingdom making a difference, people's hearts and minds shaping other lives, helping, validating. And sometimes, like it was on the 3rd of December, just feeling that deep yearning so deep within that I want their lives to count for something so deeply, so deeply. Um, yeah, tough times, but I am out the other end. And in the overcoming chapter, I'm in the overcoming chapter.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, I love it. Umce again, I'm I'm sorry, you know, for your loss, and I'm glad that you are where you are today and you are able to just encourage other people. I also read that you battled a poisonous um spider bite, and I wanted to hear about that.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, I um it was actually two poisonous spider bites on the same leg, and that it actually found out afterwards that this particular spider, the reason why I didn't know I was bitten and that it took so long to diagnose, is because this spider had urinated on me to anaesthetise me and then bitten me. So I didn't know I was bitten by this particular spider. So I had three lots of poison really. I was bitten twice because I had four puncture wounds on my leg. Um, but I was this, I was urinated on the so I couldn't feel it. So this um whole poison and event that was happening in my body was misdiagnosed. You know, that I had doctors saying, Oh, it's the menopause, oh, have you got cellulitis, which is a kind of infection? Oh, is it a horse flight? Is it this? Is it that? It wasn't until way down the line when I got secondary problems with my legs and my skin due to you know the poisonous spider bite, that I um went to a dermatologist, and the dermatologist was like, This is a secondary problem, like what's going on with your leg? And I showed him the picture. I'd been showing all the doctors, like, this is what my uh leg looked like, and he was like, What's that mark there on the bottom of your leg? And I said, Well, I don't know, I couldn't see it, it's I couldn't get my eyes like he said, Well, stretch out the picture then. Let's have a look. And we stretched out, and there was four puncture wounds in the bottom of my and that's it. And then I just described to him what was happening for me. My legs were going dead, and then they were swelling up, I was having palpitations, I was you know, passing out, I felt I was gonna die, I couldn't breathe, just like so many. My legs were weak, shaky, just so many bad things. So, when I described all this to him, along with what we were seeing now on the picture of the puncture wounds, he said, Well, there's only one spider in the UK that can do that. It's a and it's called a false widow. It's uh it's um a relative of the black widow, and it delivers a neurotoxin, and it's the only spider that does that. Um, and so that's how I then knew what was going on for me. Um, but it was like eight, nine months until it was diagnosed, and by that time it was already through the whole of my body. Oh, um, but yeah, it was bad, and and I know people have died from um a false widow spider bites, it's not a pleasant thing at all, and it really did make me ill for quite a long time. Um it was just another thing that is this crazy, crazy. It's like people say to me, Oh my gosh, somebody should make a Hollywood movie about your life. I agree, it's just yeah, it's just another thing that was just crazy. You know, I'm fainting, can't breathe, shaking, turning up a hospital, and nobody's telling me what's wrong with me. I had to literally go through all this, you know, months to get the diagnosis and to find out what it was. And once I knew what it was, I was like, okay, I'm not going loony, there is actually a cause for what's happened to me. But also that spider bite then went on to cause another secondary problem, which my whole body was toxed out with this toxin. So when we went into lockdown during COVID, um, all the electromagnetic frequencies that come from streaming, from Bluetooth, from your phone, from the Wi-Fi, from smart meters, all that electromagnetic um is like hard metals in your body. But my body was already toxed out to the max with the poison, and it couldn't tolerate the electromagnetic from any of the equipment. And because we were in lockdown, my husband and my three boys were all having their school lessons on the phone, they were streaming music, and my body wouldn't tolerate it. Um, and it was at the time it was very, very scary because not only were the doctors so preoccupied with COVID that I did couldn't find anyone to help me, but I had to work it out for myself what was happening because it wasn't something I'd ever found out about before from anyone else. It was I was literally going on instinct and from Holy Spirit speaking to me about what it was. But my I started convulsing, and my heart my heart was in arrhythmias. I was I literally nearly died. Um, and it's only because I worked out that it was coming from the equipment, and my body was like I was shaking, convulsing, couldn't breathe. And I had to go and I detoxed from all equipment for about three days till I got to the stage where I could breathe because I couldn't breathe and I didn't sleep for three, four days. I was just at night, I was just square breathing, counting in four, counting out four, counting like I just had I literally was on the edge of life and death. And so when I at the end of that three days when I could breathe and I detoxed, I thought, oh well, I'll just go home. I was back where I was within half an hour of being home. So believe you me, that is one of the most scary, scary things that I've ever, ever gone through. My life's over. I just thought this we live in a technical age. I can't go near the TV, I can't go near a phone, I can't go near a computer. Every home has got a Wi-Fi hub, and literally I was just in isolation actually in this room where I am. There was a bed in here. Um, and I was just in isolation in here, not because of COVID, but because I couldn't go near any equipment. Um, anyway, when I kind of discovered that um what was on the street outside wasn't Wi-Fi or 5G, I started going outside and grounding because the ground getting your feet on the earth, it takes some of the electromagnetic and things out of your body. And then I finally found a naturopath in Israel who gave me a protocol of oils and various things, which started detoxing my body and stripping out the poison from the spider bite and stripping out the heavy metals from the um electromagnetic. Uh, it was that is seriously one of the most scary, scary times of my life. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That sounds um really scary, but it it sounds like you've now gone ahead to you now have a husband. I heard heard you say my husband and my boys. Um, can you talk more about that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to paint a picture, a false picture, right? My husband and I still together, but we are not in a good place maritally because when our twin boys died, well, so we had three miscarriage four miscarriages, the death of our twin boys, both died within four days of being born. He lost his dad at the same time. When I started to break down, and my body was just freaking out, breaking down because of all the trauma. He, having locked himself away emotionally because he didn't want to deal with the death of the twins, was not able to be there for me to deal with my breakdown. So instead of being a support for me, he actually passively, aggressively abused me for 10 years as well. We're still together, just but he's still shut away emotionally, he's never dealt with the death of the twins, he's never dealt with all the emotion from our losses, and although he has apologized to me only in the last year for the ten years of abuse when I was breaking down, and he was just he kicked me when I was down. He didn't support me, affirm me, validate me, care for me, sympathize with me. He literally kicked me when I was down, ignored me. That's so that's really hard to talk about because that does feel like you just said the earlier guilt, shame. This feels like that, but this is on him. That's this is not on me, it's not on me. I'm still in that relationship because we've got three boys that are alive, we've got all those four children plus the twins, six children in heaven, but we've got three boys that are alive, and our last son was a miracle because his bowel was growing out of the body in the womb, and we had a death diagnosis on him. But this time God did a miracle and put the bowel back in the body in the womb, and it's a total medical impossibility. Wow. I walked through that pregnancy in faith and in fear, in both faith and fear, faith and fear, faith and fear. But it was like um, but God did this miracle and put his bowel back in the body. Um, we have three boys, and at the moment, because of that, and because what we've walked through, we're still married and still working and seeing if we can restore this relationship, but he's still locked away emotionally, so it's very hard for me because he lost his faith when the twins died, so he doesn't have a faith, and he doesn't have an emotional connection to anything because he's locked it away, so it's really hard. I don't know where all that is um in God's understanding of my life and the chapters for the boys and Jason's life and hopefully. But what I do know is that God's given me the grace, the strength, the stability, the wisdom, and the wherewithal for the moment to still be in that relationship, despite the fact that he abused me for ten years as well. That's heavy. Yeah, it is heavy, it is heavy, but it's real, it's real, you know. I could just pretend that everything's okay, but it's not. But I know why it's not okay. I know, because he he's not allowed I was broken, totally broken. But he's not not only has he not allowed himself to break, he's he's disconnected from the god that could have fixed him too. And I said, he's just shot away, and like say, in his um, in his weakness of his human flesh, all he could think to do was to blame me for what we lived through, and blamed me for falling apart.
SPEAKER_00Was there any time when you left the thief as a result of all the difficult times you were going through? Me?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Oh, no, no, and that's so amazing, and that that refers back to the point I made about my firm foundation as a child, how strong those roots of faith and truth were established in me. And it goes back to the prayer that I prayed at 21. I just want to make a difference no matter the cost. God planted such a strong destiny and identity and purpose in me, that that tenacious, resilient child that was a high achieving, driven child, I was just too stubborn to accept that my life was in ruin and that this trauma was going to define me. I said to my mum, and no, she remembers that after the death of the twins, and that's only halfway through, part way through the really the whole of the rest of my story, which involves the miracle with Leo, the poisonous spider bites, the electromagnetic poisoning, uh, so the PTSD, so many other things. I said, I am not going to let this define me for the worse or for the negative. I am only going to um let this define me for good. But it was an absolute strong determination that came from within. Because God had planted such a strong identity there that I wasn't prepared to dump that purpose, that destiny, or the identity. I wasn't prepared to dump it because I wasn't prepared to do the work to get through it. I was just totally determined, whatever work it was going to take in ministry, in the soul, in the spirit, in humbling myself before God, I was gonna do whatever it took so that this could help define me for the good and not for the bad.
SPEAKER_00Well, I want us to talk about your career as a singer for a while. You are a singer and you were a former ex-factor contestant, and you also mentioned that you lost a record label deal in England. So can you talk about that for for um for a little? Are you still a singer? Is that still something you're still actively doing?
SPEAKER_01Well, that is something that God has resurrected in this chapter of overcoming, in this job second half of his life chapter. I get to now live the second half, the Job, second half chapter. I'm in it. God's opened up these doors to Nashville, to this producer, to a manager, to my mum and I writing together, recording, um, having these incredible opportunities and living to see the dreams and prophetic words over our lives be come to some fruition. Yeah, I had a record. Um, I was about to sign a record deal in the 90s, and my ex-husband ruined that. We were in a hotel in London, and he basically joined the conversation that we had, and he could see that he was not going to be part of what was going on. He was going to lose control of me to the record company's control. And during that conversation, I could see he just snapped, just changed because he could see what was happening. So he basically threatened the this threatened these people from the label, top off his glasses, offered them out for a fight, literally started swearing and stood up shouting in the middle of this Churchill hotel in London. Everybody was staring. He then took my handbag, took my keys, and left me, sat there on a table with these two guys, with everybody staring. He just he pulled the carpet from under me. Um, but during my life, I've been professional for a long time. Um, but also and I've had lots of opportunities to do some great things, perform in some big places, support named acts, win some awards. Um, and I've even managed to carry on somehow, still um working in that gifting, even when I was broken. Because my mum and I leave worship as well, and we've got worship gospel albums and things, and I still, in my brokenness, I've still managed to do some recording. Um, but it was all very um, I couldn't really commit to anything because my body was a wreck and always would let me down. My voice didn't always let me down, so like I say, sometimes I've recorded some beautiful things, and so my career and my ministry have run a long parallel, but in this chapter, God has just done this amazing thing and he's combining the two, so that the music is for secular audiences but it carries God's message, and now I'm preparing this in 2026 to get a team together and to go out and tour the album, but not exclusively in churches, but to resurrect my secular career and all those years of experience of knowing how to do that, but so to go out secular, but to carry a gospel message, so it's like nothing's wasted, all of that experience and all of that faith and All of that story and all of that backstory now is encapsulated in what God's putting together for this future next chapter. Nothing, nothing is wasted. It's so exciting. So yeah, I mean my my career as a singer has been varied. Um yeah, I sang at the Royal Albert Hall with my mum uh and at this amazing event for the Balfour centenary. Um, you know, we've led worship at the um Wembley Arena. Um I supported named Acts. Um I've done some amazing things, but we've also done lots of tiny things, small things, invisible things, things that only God knows. It's like for years and years and years and years, Mum and I have just given sacrificially, gone where God's called. I've literally tried to operate in my gifts, even when my gifts were broken, never wanting to lose my connection with the gifts and still saying to God, you can use me in my brokenness. I'm I'm still here, I'm still saying yes, Lord. I'm still saying yes. I'm broken, but I'm still saying yes. And um, and now, yeah, this last year we got an invite to Nashville. That's amazing. Which incidentally was just after my shop. I've got a put a closed shop in Lewin Cornwall, it got flooded in October 23, and I knew that this was God getting me off the hamster wheel. Don't I just knew that's a Holy Spirit thing, right? When you just know something, yeah, but you don't you know it, but you just know it. And I knew it was a God thing. And then within about a week of that happening, I got an email inviting me to go to Nashville. Well, I'd done my mum and I had produced a film called Pilgrim's Progress, which you can find on YouTube. It had taken us two years to produce this hour and a half film musical. Um, it was taken up by three TV stations. Um, so that was a big project we did. And um someone had found that uh an article about it online, and then had just reached out to me and said, We've just found you online, we'd like to invite you to come to Nashville. So we went, we seized this opportunity, my mum and I, and God demonstrated strongly and clearly his anointing through the gifting and through the music. And it's like he showed us the way, he showed us that it doesn't matter about genre or age, it doesn't matter about past opportunities, but that the anointing in the music can cross all genres, boundaries, demographics, because that's what impacts the spirit, that's what touches people, and so it gave us this new direction that the music that he'd given us that was so deep through all these trauma and life journeys that that was what was going to break people open, that was what was going to touch people, and it was like God's permission to go, go on, yes, yes, you've got the story, your brokenness can help heal people. You've got the melodies, you've got the gifting, now you've got the opportunity, and you know, so many prophetic words we've had over the years. He was even saying, You've had the prophetic words, so just trust me because I'm gonna do this, and we have trusted him, and he is doing it, and um it's such a privilege now to be able to be living in that prayer. I just want to make a difference no matter the cost.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing. Uh, you have a new album coming out, right? Born to be, or is it out already?
SPEAKER_01It's out already, physically out. It's not online at the moment because we're deliberately not putting it out, because each of the tracks on there is a life lesson, is a story, is a truth, is a healing bullet for somebody. And so we're gonna release some singles from it first before we release the album, so that each story has got time to breathe and permeate, and people can engage with that story without feeling they need to tuck into another meal from the album. So the album is out, people can play it physically. Okay, we've released one track from it called Arise and Shine. Um, we've also from the same session in Nashville done an EP called Soul Sessions. We released a song from that called Beauty for Ashes that's had nearly half a million views on YouTube. Wow. Um, and we're now the first song we released was called There's a Time, which was Ecclesiastes 3. And it's the song that I wrote at 21 in Spain. After I prayed that prayer, I just want to make a difference no matter the cost. God gave me these words to this song. And I went to my mum and said, I think I've just written a song, and she went, Yeah, I think I have. But she'd written the melody and I had written the words, and the song just fit it together like that. Wow, and that song is the song that we took to Nashville. We'd lost it for 30 years. Recorded it, we recorded it 32 years ago and lost it, but we found it just before we went to Nashville, and that's the song we did. Um, and it's such a powerful song. So we released that song first before the album. Then we released A Rise and Shine, then we released the EP and Beauty for Ashes, and now that the EP and the album are both out, the next song we'll release. Well, at the moment we've got a Christmas campaign out, um, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and a whole Christmas EP. Um, which people can go on and find out about because actually I'm helping support the RLI, which is a lifeboat charity here in the UK, because I want to help save lives at Christmas because I lost my boys at Christmas. So that whole campaign, if you go on, you'll find the links, hopefully, under Have Yourself and Marry the Christmas Juliet Dawn. And um, you can buy the Christmas EP, and 100% of the donation goes to the Royal National Life Boat Institute.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's good. And if you have one advice to give to that Christian lady who is watching or listening to this podcast episode today, who has suffered um deep traumas or gone through miscarriages or lost loved ones or even lost um their children, what advice will you give to such a person?
SPEAKER_01I would say find your biblical handrail. God's word is a sharp sword. Find your word or words that are gonna take you through that and that you can hold on to through the rough times, through the difficult days. Learn to live from your spirit. Your spirit is the part of you that connects with the Father that was given before we were fully created. So it's the part that's least impacted by our traumas and trials. So when our flesh is weak and our soul is weak, our thoughts and our feelings, which are so unreliable, our spirit knows who we are, knows the truth. Try and live from your spirit. Don't indulge a pity party, as my mum would say, the devil will be the first one to bring the cakes and the drinks to your pity party. Don't indulge a pity party. It's the way to spiral down, and the devil will be rubbing his hands together. So use the word of God to stop you from having that pity party. Surround yourself with positive people who will affirm you and who will keep you on the track, on the right track, keeping your feet one in front of the other. Because sometimes the word says, and when you've done all else, sometimes you can just stand, but you need those people around you who can say that that's alright to just stand sometimes. Life can be tough. So I would say listen to your body, don't go, don't use distraction as a way to get through trauma. Your body needs to rest, and there's lots of healing in that. Um, I would also say find someone who is spiritually mature who can give you prayer counselling, ministry, and can potentially break some of the trauma off you because that has been such a valuable um um part of my healing. There's I know I've said quite a few things there because that dear Christian girl sat out there. You're not gonna need just one tool to get through some of these hard things in life, you're gonna need a whole whole armory of tools. The Bible's your starting point, Christian friends, wisdom, ministry, rest, understanding, and living out of your spirit. These are all things. And if, like me, you need to write things down to get them out and onto a page. That I found that massively helpful and patharting, and God has used that as a gifting. Um, and remember, remember that patience waits for the best things, and there is a time in God's purposes. There's a time. Sometimes you're gonna have to wait for that restoration and to see the purpose and to see the outworking of God's plans, that he knows the beginning from the end, and he who has begun a good work in you shall complete it. So don't lose hope and don't lose faith.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Julie, for coming on the podcast today. Thank you for joining us. Um, your story has been truly inspiring, and um, you know, I even got to learn learn a lot from your story as well. And I can't wait for the rest of the world to hear your story. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching another episode of the Dear Christian Girl Podcast. I hope this episode was a blessing to you. And see you in the next episode.