You Are Not Disqualified: Finding Hope After 5 Failed Marriages (Feat. Anjel Camenzuli) - EP 123

Do you ever feel like your past mistakes have permanently disqualified you from God's love or a meaningful life? Maybe you feel like you have burnt every bridge and there is no hope left for your situation. In this episode of the Walking with the Savior podcast, we sit down with Anjel, a woman who shares her incredible journey from feeling like a modern day woman at the well to finding total restoration and joy.

Anjel opens up about the heavy shame of five failed marriages and the lie that she was too broken to be used by God. Her story is a powerful testament to the fact that Jesus does not come at us with condemnation or snark, but with a love that transforms our deepest hurts into our greatest strengths. We explore her personal but God moment where she surrendered her dating life entirely to the Father, leading to a miraculous and specific answer to prayer that changed everything.

Beyond her personal healing, Anjel discusses her passionate work with Warrior 321, an organization dedicated to anti-human trafficking awareness and education. Her life serves as a beautiful reminder that no matter where you are or what you have done, you are not disqualified. God is a good Father who is always looking for his children to return home, ready to cover them in love regardless of their past.

Chapters
0:00 Welcome to Walking with the Savior
2:45 Breaking the label of being disqualified
6:12 Lessons from the woman at the well
11:30 A history of looking for love in the wrong places
15:55 Surrendering the desire to date
19:40 Meeting Vinnie and the Good Friday miracle
25:10 How God heals a broken heart
30:15 Finding joy and freedom in alignment
34:22 Warrior 321 and fighting human trafficking
39:50 Redemption in adoption and family restoration
44:30 The Father's love and the prodigal son

If this message touched your heart today, please like this video and subscribe for more stories of faith and redemption. Leave a comment below sharing how God has turned a broken area of your life into something beautiful. Your story might be the very thing someone else needs to hear today.

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https://www.instagram.com/imahappygirl73/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I could have ended up being a drug addict, an alcoholic, a prostitute. I like my life could have just gone in, and I don't mean any disrespect for anybody that that has been their experience. I just want you to know if that is your experience. It doesn't have to stay there. You are not disqualified in this very moment while you're inebriated, but you're hearing my Jesus loves you. He loves you so much that he gave it all for you right now. You're not disqualified.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Only you're valuable, unshakable. You are the child of God.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

Welcome everybody to this week's episode of Walkin' with the Savior Podcast. Hey, have I told you lately that you are awesome, my friend? And I got my CTR hat on. Choose the Redeemer. Thank you for choosing the Redeemer and joining us today. I got an amazing guest, but before I get into uh how amazing this guest is, I want to ask you this question. Do you feel broken? Do you feel like you're about to quit? Do you feel like there's no hope for you? Do you feel like, wait, John, you just don't get it. I don't, you don't understand my life. I've made too many mistakes, and the savior is done with me. I've burnt every bridge and he is done with me. If you feel that way, I've got an amazing guest. You've probably read her story in the Bible. Yes, I have brought on stage today the very woman at the well. Now I'm joking about that, and Angel is smiling brightly if you're watching the YouTube channel. But she is honest and sincere, but she's gonna tell you her story. And basically, I have woken up today and met the woman at the well, and you are gonna be impressed and excited as we talk about Jesus Christ. Now, why would I say that, Angel, as you have this big smile?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Just give us a short intro, Angel. So thank you so much, John, for inviting me onto your podcast. I have so looked forward to this all week long. I've thought about, I've asked God, you know, what is it that you want me to share? And you said a couple of things that has one word as a blaring red flashing sign, and it is the word disqualified. So if a person that ever listens to this feels initially like they are disqualified in life, they're really good at a lot of things, but they overall have a feeling of God is dissatisfied with me, and therefore I'm disqualified from really being a good participator in this thing called life that He created us for. Um, I want to introduce you to the Father. I want to show you that God is better than you think. And my own story is very much that it is a but God story. So you had said that you had met in the flesh the woman at the well, and I tell you, that's really my story because one of the disqualifications in life that I had gotten from the enemy, never from God, was Angel, you're really good at this and this, and so just go do this and go do that and go be this over here. But don't you ever open your mouth about the fact that you've been divorced five times because nobody's gonna listen to you. Who in their right mind in the Christian community would ever want to hear anything from you? You're disqualified in that area of life. So why don't you just go over here and sing? Why don't you just go over here and be the public speaker? Go over there and run your little business, don't let anybody ever find out about the five failed marriages. And so for a long time I tried to shove that down. And when I asked God one day, what do you want? What do you want from me? And he said, I want you to talk about. And I was like, Why are you doing this? Why would you do this? Because I was not free. I had believed the lie where Satan said I was disqualified. And God says, No, you're not. So I mean, not only that, I you know, it's everything that led up to the marriages that failed. Looking for love and all the wrong. I'm sure there's 13 different country songs about looking for love in all the wrong places. I'm I'm the chick in all of the videos of all of the songs about that. That was me. And and I had jokes, I would say, Oh, well, what's the difference between me and you? How many relationships have you been in? Four or five serious relationships? I married all of mine. That was how I would kind of try to navigate the embarrassment that I felt once it had been exposed. So I felt exposed. I felt naked in front of God, like Adam and Eve after they ate the fruit that they weren't supposed to. But God never chose that life for me. And to prove that very point to me, he told me to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

So you are not disqualified.

SPEAKER_04 5:47

So if you guys aren't familiar with the woman at the well, let me just clarify some things. You know, uh Jesus in the in those days, Samaritans and Jews didn't get along, that whole story, right? And they're gonna go. I can't remember where they were headed. Samaria. They were going to Samaria. They were gonna go around Samaria, and he's like, Oh, we have to go through Samaria. I must needs go through Samaria. In other words, he has somebody he needs to find, and that person was this woman at the well. And the story goes that they come to this well, and Jesus sends off the disciples, and he's there by himself, and then this woman comes and he has this conversation, and and that's where he tells her, I know you've been married five times, and you're living with somebody right now who is not your spouse. And right, and then then today I meet uh Angel, who's been married five times. Now, what was the rest of this woman's story? Let's can let's tell this story, and then we'll jump back into your story a little bit. I I love her story.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

I love it, not just because I identify with it, um, but if you think about it, you're talking with a stranger. So, first of all, she she was at the well at the most inopportune time. She was there in the dead, the hottest part of the day. And so that's not a great time to be drawing water from the well. It's not going to be cold, probably. It's it's and you know, luke water, lukewarm water, even God says, I it's I'll spit it out of my mouth. And so it just nothing about the experience. So why was she there? Well, she's probably hiding from the Karen's and Susie's that were doing this about her as she's walking by. You know, when you know when people are talking about you, even when they're smiling to your face behind your back, they're talking about you. And she knew that it was a disdainful thing for her to have been married. And there's a number of things that people say, you know, well, the fact that they didn't stone her to death after she had had so many marriages might have indicated that her husbands might have passed away. And then there would have been chatter and talk about, you know, now she's like the black widow, you know. So it could have been a number of things. Um, but the fact was is that she had been married so many times and people looked at her like she was trash. And so she was hiding from people that made her feel like trash. So here she goes up here, and now she sees the sky, and Jesus looked very Jewish, whatever that must have looked like. I don't, that's not the part of the weeds I'm trying to get into. And she's like, Oh great. I'm trying to be by myself. And so he says, uh, hey, can I have some water? Great. Here's another man asking something from me. This was very much my posture at this time in my life. My posture was somebody else wanting something from me. Yeah, maybe I can do it, but I'm sick of it, you know. And I had bought into this thing for a while. Like, what are you gonna do for me? What have you done for me lately? Nothing, nothing, nothing, Janet. And so this woman is looking at God in human form, not realizing who she was talking to, which he did say something about. And uh, she's like, You don't even have anything for me to draw the water out of. Like, you ain't so all of the layers of now you're wanting something from me, sir. And so then he had said, if you knew who you were talking to, be asking for something different, because I can give you water that you'll never be thirsty again. And so I think to myself, like, what how would I have responded? Because I'm I'm seeing me in her in so many ways. So the fact that he called her out, I kind of did. He he says, What why don't you go? You know, he she says, You're a Jew, like I'm a Samaritan woman, like we don't have anything in common. Why are you even talking to me? Basically, you're getting yourself dirty by even being in my presence, sir. And he's like, Okay, go get go get your husband, have your husband come back up here so we can have a conversation. And she says, I don't have one. Oh and he's like, You're not wrong. You're not. As a matter of fact, you've had five, and dude, you're with right now, he's not even your husband. Now, full stop right there. Yeah, me seven years ago, eight, nine, ten years ago, I would have been pissed. Oh mad, fight you like not even hands, it's gonna be elbows. You've insulted me. And who do you think you are? That's where she and I separated because she was not offended, which tells me that Jesus didn't come at her snarky, Jesus came at her with love and with compassion, with everything about Jesus that the Bible tells us that Jesus is. He is full of love. The Bible says that he was full of joy. Well, when somebody is that full of joy and they're telling you the truth, it's so dang hard to be offended. And she wasn't. As a matter of fact, she was amazed. And the Bible says she took off running and she went and told everybody in town. They said there's they some scholars say 1,500 people. Y'all gotta come with me. There is a man up by the well that's told me everything about me. So the Bible only gives us a snippet of their conversation. Clearly, they talked about a ton of other things because she went back and said, He knows everything about me. You've got to come and meet him. And they were all saved in Samaria, the place that that the Jews, they there was they were worse than the Hatfield and the McCoys. They wanted to have nothing to do with each other, fights, um, complete segregation, separation one from another. One thought they were better than the other. These guys over here were renegades to the point where the Jews went, they did a three-day journey to make for a to what should have been a one-day, one and a half days of a journey. And Jesus said, I gotta go to Samaria, because he knew who he needed to meet. And the fact that she was a woman and is and is touted as the first evangelist, set me on fire right now. Set me on fire, can't put me out. There ain't enough water in the world to put me out. When I read that, I'm like, oh my god, that's me. That's me, because I too have been divorced five times. And when this story came to life for me, I was actually listening to Stephen Furtick, um, at El, he's the pastor for Elevation Church. And uh, and he talked about this, and he said, Don't we all have some area in our lives? And I'm like, Oh my God. Oh my god. And my Samaria was her samaria. She had been married five times, and the man that she was with was not even her husband. The man that I was with at the time that I heard that sermon was not my husband. I had just simply been divorced five times, and I was not offended. She was not offended. But Satan had told me, you better shut your mouth. If anybody hears that you've been married or you've been divorced five times, which which would make new dude the number six contender, who's gonna listen to that story, little Christian girl? But God says that which the enemy meant for evil, I turned for good. And my life now, because I'm talking about it, I it's a I'm at I I'm in a constant state of my cup runneth over all the time, every day.

SPEAKER_04 13:57

Joy, fullness, happiness. So tell us a little bit about your dating experience on the 6th of You you had talked about this before, and I thought this was really fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah. So so my dating experience was a train wreck. Have you ever seen an albatross fly and then land? You gotta YouTube that because it is it's it's terrifying to watch, but you can't look away because you just don't. How is it gonna end? And my dating was life was like an albatross's flight path. It was just, it was very much like this. No rhyme or reason. I didn't really have a type. Um, I just knew that when I was a little girl, when I was six years old, God told me, and I know that it can be off-putting to hear somebody say that, but I'm telling you, I've only ever known Jesus. My grandparents adopted me, and Jesus was brought to me by my mama, my grandmother. And my Lord told me that He created me to be a wife and a mother. I took that very seriously, a little too seriously. My two children that I have are from my first husband, we were high school sweethearts, and we were so young. And uh, and what do you know? What do you know when you're start dating when you're 15 and you get married when you're 19, and he was a little younger than me, and and um, and we were just so young. God was not in the center, God was not anywhere but in our prayer time before we ate, if I'm being honest. And so we tried and it didn't work. And then came the sequence, uh, the series of unfortunate events, as I like to kind of call it, uh, my dating and then marriages and then dating in the middle. And so I finally, after the fifth one, I'm like, I'm done. I'm done. Just stick a fork right in me. I am done. God, I'm not clearly I my picker is broken. So you play Cupid, you go find me my Boaz, okay, because I've gotten all of the other ases, and and none of them have been Boaz. So you find him for me, and meanwhile, please do me a favor, help me get out of my own way, cut off my ability to recognize I'm even getting flirted. Take away my desire to date, please, because I'm taking you seriously. You said I was created to be a wife and a mother, and I've screwed it up. I've got two beautiful, awesome children in the process, but I'm this is not the best life. This is not the life I believe that you created me for. So, in an effort to keep me from screwing up your plan for me, please just take away my desire to date. Guess what? Poof. Immediately. And I mean, God and I were talking like you and I are talking right now. I was just put out with myself. Sick of me. Will you help me, please? And he says, Yes, I will. Took away my desire to date to the point where I was very much being flirted with and was stuck on stupid man. I wasn't getting it. I wasn't picking up what he was putting down. And he actually asked me, ma'am, are you dumb? Are you dumb actually? Like, I'm really flirting with you hard. And I'm like, Ooh, are you? Either you suck or I suck. Like, I'm not picking it up, and okay. I said, Well, clearly you're not the boaz. What do you even mean? I was like, Yeah, see, there's that part right there. You didn't even pick up on the reference of um, I asked God actually to remove from me my desire to date, and to the point where I couldn't even recognize if somebody was coming on to me, unless it was the person that God had ordained for me to be married to. That's why I wasn't picking up anything. So why don't you have a nice day somewhere else? I am wasting your time, and you're not gonna waste mine because I didn't ask God to intervene, and he has. And so then there was the day that Vinny and I met. And his name is his name is Vinny.

SPEAKER_04 17:59

I love Vinny's name.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Vinny Camusoli, not Italian, he's gotta say that name, but not Italian. Doesn't it sound like it should come with a side of eggplant barbagon? Back and a cigar. Vinny got no hair, Vinnie got no hair, bald as an eagle.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

But God answered my prayer so specifically, ladies, listen, even men, get so serious with with Jesus. Sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and just write it down. God, this is my list. Because that's what I did before I, well, actually, after I asked God to remove my desire to date, I wrote out a bullet point list. You know what was not on the list of this is what I would like to have in a husband? Good looks, because God knows I can't be with nobody ugly. I didn't even bother to put it on the paper. You know, I can't be, I gotta look at the guy you've given me sight. I can't be with an ugly dude. So when you bring this handsome man to me, these are the things that are important to me. So instead of asking God for silly things like, you know, let him have good rhythm, he does not have good rhythm. Again, be real specific with God. He gave me all of the desires of my heart. And he's like, I'm gonna give you things that you didn't even think to ask for. Height was one of them. My husband is a little over six foot six. I'm five, two on a good day. I don't have to reach nothing up here. Nothing. Because God knows I'm a fall risk. I'm clumsy with my feet, I fall down sometimes. So my husband takes care of all of the things that could hurt me if I tried to take care of them myself. You know why? Because God is a good dad. He's a good dad, and he wants his children to have the desires of their heart. But what had to happen in my heart was my heart had to align with his. And so here I made this list. You know what I did ask God for? Good credit. Women ask God for a man with good credit. Somebody that has got some things together within himself because he's been preparing for you as a wife. Then he was preparing for to be a husband before he ever was looking for a wife. He was asking God for the same things I was asking God for. So, how's God for God for a sense of humor? He's a matchmaker and he's a comedian. Okay, he brings us together on Good Friday. It was such a great Friday. Such a great Friday.

SPEAKER_04 20:35

Good Friday.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yeah, and then our first date actually was on Easter. All right, and you know what? I just realized because we've been together ever since what happened on Easter. Jesus rose from the dead. Now, I'm not putting myself on any Jesus level, but I'm gonna tell you, I crucified my desire to date because I knew that God's best for me was getting also ruined by me. And so I asked God to kill that part of me. And then my husband and I had our first official date on Easter. And I made a Mexican, you know, because that travels. So, so I mean, there's a bird's eye view of like my dating history and my beautiful cottony landing point. God gave me the best boaz ever. That whole kinsman redeemer, that the man that is looking to protect, looking to honor, looking to respect, looking to honor you as nothing subservient, but as my come alongside me. Do you know that the that the name Holy Spirit is actually the same word that was used to describe the helper that God created for it? Adam. Their helpmeet is also the Holy Spirit. And our function as wives to our husbands is to come alongside our husbands and be their helpmeet. How cool is God? How awesome is God. He's got all of these itty bitty minuscule pixels of the most gorgeous picture in creation. And he has fit and fashioned us perfectly in his timing, in his place, in all of the perfect relevance of our lives. He has perfectly placed us there.

SPEAKER_04 22:35

Okay, now let me ask you this. I I I I first of all, my heart goes out to the hurting women.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 22:44

The woman at the well. I my heart just breaks and solid. Oh gosh. You know, because the woman at the well, we don't know. Was it divorce or was it death? Either one, either one, right? Five deaths, she's broken. Yeah, divorces, she is broken, she is hurting, and it's just tragic and it's unfortunate. And like you said, she might have felt disqualified. And you talk about feeling disqualified from God's love or God's work. And and now I know, and we're gonna get to him a little later, some of the works you're doing. But before we get here, how did he heal your heart? Because it just had to have been I just can't imagine the pain you must have gone through. I did. I know you look 25, but you can flip those numbers, and that's what I am.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

I didn't mean that, but I am 52. I've earned every moment of this life.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

I've earned them all every second.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

So, you know, for the first 45 years of your life, so you got married at 19 to 45, you had approximately 25, 26 years of you know, up and down and really really down, really down, yeah, some big downs. Some downs. So how did he heal your heart? Because I I hop on this Zoom call before everybody this was recorded, and you're just a bumbling rage sunshine. I have met my match people for energy and happiness and looking young.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Right?

SPEAKER_01 24:28

So I got great genes thanks to my mama and thanks to my mom, who I am my mother, my my mom. She she and she's all I have left. Both of my grandparents have passed away. My dad, um, my biological dad has passed away. And so my mom, who I look a whole lot like, I I give her so much credit for great genes. Um, but uh, so the brokenheartedness.

SPEAKER_04 24:54

Yes, that's it. Where how did he heal your brokenheartedness to make it help you become this such radiating light and uh a witness of Christ that you just want to come on podcast, you want to tell everybody, and you're you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 25:08

As often as I'm able to talk about um disqualification versus identity, restoration, how God gives you back the years that the locust ate, it makes no sense. It's like trying to smell the color nine, it doesn't make any sense, but in God's equations, it is perfect sense. I talk about it as often as I can because I can tell you, and this is going to sound cliche, and so I hope that I don't lose anybody because the gold is on the other side of what I'm going to say. He just did it, and this is how there are some healings that take time to heal. There are some things that are healed in the moment, supernaturally, miraculously. There's no rhyme or reason, it just happened, but it didn't just happen because I had spent time on my face crying and asking God, what is wrong with me? Other people are asking me what's wrong with me. What is wrong with me? Why can't I get this right? You told me when I was a little girl, you you created me to be a wife and a mother. Well, I got that mom part down, man. Come on, I've now got a grandbaby. You know, one grandbaby now I have four, but at the time I just I had one grandbaby. Why can't I get this right? And so where is it written? I can't, it is written. If Jesus can say it is written, I can say it too. It is written in our weakness, he is strong. And I hit a weakness point many times. They they felt like broken moments to me, like where I felt like I I broke completely and just shattered, like a glass on the floor that could never be put back together again. Yet here I sit with more joy than I've ever had in my life on the other side of things that the world says disqualifies you from being a person who is seen as successful or credible. Nobody even wants to talk to you when you when you've got so much ish that that has been attached to your name. And so I sought the Lord and He heard and He answered. I got real specific with God. I am sick of this life. Now I never felt myself like suicidal, but I did go through a period of time where I was like, I'll never judge a person that does it again because the heartbrokenness that I had suffered a lot of times because of my own um choices, and that's just the truth of the matter. I felt like I'm really done. Like, what's the point? Why would I even continue? But then I was like, why would God give me this huge personality with a very small stature uh to do nothing with it? So I felt like I was living a life of just walking contradictions. But I also believed that God was not good. No, I believe that Jesus was good. Jesus loves me this I know because my mama told me so. And the Bible told me so. But God, he's more like the big wooden spoon in the sky. He is like the Almighty Smiter in the move in the movie Bruce Almighty, when when he's just like, Almighty smiter, come and smite me. And I was like, well, don't do that, because he might. But that just reflected back to me my own opinion of who I really thought God was. And I had a very improper, misaligned, really crappy idea of who the Father is. But then how could I feel a very different way about Jesus? Well, I learned, and we're going a long way, and I'm gonna land this plane here in a second because I'm gonna answer your question slowly and then definitively. Jesus says to his disciples, when they're just like, we want to see God, like we want to, what's he look like? And Jesus says, if you have seen me, clearly we're right here together. You can touch me, hug me, we're breaking bread. If you've seen me, you've seen the father because I and the father are one. Well, how can I think that God is this way and Jesus is this way? When Jesus literally said, if you've seen me, you've seen the father because we are one. And so then I was listening to a couple of pastors a couple of years ago, Jamie Englehart, um Um Baxter, and uh Paul Young, name a few. And the question, the challenge that was posed is what if God's better than you think? And that made me sit down. Not a whole lot in this world causes me to sit down and hush. And I started thinking about that. Now Vinny and I are already married. I realized that God healed me of the brokenness in me that had me constantly looking for my husband. That God promised me when I was a little girl, that that's what He created me for, to be a wife and a mother. We ain't gonna be a wife by yourself. You gotta have the husband part. But I wasn't looking for God. Therefore, the man that I would be attracted to, of course, he wasn't going to reflect God. And so when I asked God to remove my desire to date, and he did, and I'm telling you, it was almost like the air got sucked out of the room. It really was, where I was sitting on my farm in a trailer that I was doing a rehab on, getting ready to rent. And I was just like, just take it from me. Just take it. Because clearly my picker's broken. Take away my desire to date. And the next man that I see, I actually see, that's gonna be the boaz that you bring to me. I'm gonna see him because you caused him to be seen because he is the one that you have for me. And it was like the air left the room when I said, take the desire. The desire was taken from me. And then what happened next? I went about my life. I went to work, I was fixing the roof, I was fixing plumbing, I just lived my life for the next number of months. God didn't also make me wait for 10 years, for five years, for a year. I asked God that in the at the end of 2019 and on Good Friday, four months later, when I saw Vinny, I instantly knew, and then I was healed because not because of Vinny, but because I recognized in front of me God answered my prayer faithfully. And when God answers your prayers, healing does come instantaneously so many times. There's your long answer.

SPEAKER_04 32:38

And what what change did that bring into your heart?

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Joy and uncontainable joy. Now, when God removed my desire to date, I didn't realize how free I was, I didn't realize how consumed I was with looking. Are you it? Are you kind of like the book? Are you my mother? Are you my mother? Hey, hi, are you my mother? No, no, none of these people are your mother, none of those men are your husband. Quit asking, quit looking. I had to ask. So I came into agreement with God's word. I my heart began to align with God's heart for me. I didn't even realize at the time that that's what was happening. But I realized when I saw Vinny and I saw, and you know what was wild? When he saw me, it was almost like we were seeing the same thing. It kind of freaked him out. It freaked him out more than me. I was just like, are you serious? Right now, he's so freaking tall. He's so tall. He's so handsome. And guess what? I found out a couple of weeks later, he had an 825 credit score. I didn't even know you could get that high of a credit score. But I literally asked God for good credit. He was, there was no, there, there was no holding things back. There was no, you know how like you just want to put your best foot forward, and you almost feel like you're scamming somebody because you don't really feel like you're that good. Because I did that so many times because I just wanted to be received. I wanted to be accepted. See wife material in me, please. And that's not what was seen, but it was definitely everything that I was putting out there. I none of that was present with us. None of it. It was the most honesty and the least amount of effort. The least amount of effort. I'd never experienced anything like that before in my life. Well, then I found out later on he felt the same way. But then he told me what he had been praying for, which was the same thing. Let me know, God. Like, give me a real sign that when you bring whoever the woman is, that I'm gonna know. He said he felt like he was having a heart attack.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Which I was like, is that good? Turns out it was.

SPEAKER_04 35:07

That's adorable. Uh so now you have become an advocate for the savior, and you're you're rescuing people. And tell us just a little bit about your rescue work. That sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Well, so um I joined forces with an existing group called Warrior 321. Um, we are a local anti-human trafficking awareness and education organization. And so our efforts in the community to teach people what human trafficking is, what it's not. But once you start having those conversations, then the next question that the populace brings is well, what can we do? They want action steps, and so we are in an effort to show people what it is, what it's not, and now what you can do, raising awareness in our community. We've been doing this for five years. Um, I have been part of the organization for four. A gentleman named Alan Wilkett and one of my best friends in life, Tony Rivera, they actually founded the organization five years ago. And then I came on board about six months or so after they had started. And when I started coming to the meetings, we have monthly awareness meetings that are open to the public. And um, if you go on our Facebook page, it's Warrior 321. It's just very simple. And um, for most months, we do a live Facebook stream of our of our monthly meetings. And um, we have guest speakers that come in um that are local. This next month, though, we have a federal organization. It's called NICMIC, uh, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They are going to be our guest speaker. And um, I'm very excited to hear what some of the more recent statistics are, the trends. Uh, we talk about current trends in the IT world, um, in how um the human trafficking industry, how they move people along, how it can look like prostitution, but it's it's not exactly prostitution. Prostitution is the end result, that's how they're they're selling that person. Um, but so so anyway, showing the people what it is and then how you can protect yourself. We are um actively looking for Endroads to partner with our local law enforcement um to make everyone's life easier and better and safer. We want to live in a county where it's safe to let our kids go outside and ride their bikes and play basketball in the cul-de-sac. You know, like when we were children, I feel like the world that my grandparents reared me for is not this world that we are experiencing. Um so, so um, doing that, my huge goal, I will tell you, my ask of the Lord and uh and and let him use the people that listen to this however they he sees fit. I would love to have Tim Petebow come and join us at one of our monthly awareness meetings, and so he could speak to the people. He is doing amazing work for raising awareness, and he's doing so much more than that. Um, I Tim Ballard, which was, I think that the that one was called Operation Railroad, um, Railroad Underground. Oh, I'm getting that wrong. But anyway, um, he really kind of blew the the lid off of that as far as raising awareness on a public platform, and now you can't unsee it. Once you see that, once you hear that, you cannot ever go back. And so um, so that's what we're doing in our local area. Um, I have a lot of opportunities that I get to speak, I take them all. And um, but the three two one part, because I get asked this a lot, we are a faith forward organization. Because listen, dude, I'm a Christian. I love Jesus everywhere. How you do one thing is how you do everything. I ain't telling Jesus he's got to stay in the car when I'm going to the bank or wherever. Jesus goes with me everywhere. And so 321 stands for three nails, two boards, one savior. And we are warriors in this fight against human trafficking. That's what we're doing with that.

SPEAKER_04 39:14

So here is the woman at the well. Discarded, disqualified, brokenhearted, and now redemption and healing, and now purpose.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Oh gosh, yes. Perfectly said, perfectly said, and from from also part of my story, the way that my little story started out was I was adopted. Both of my parents, they were high school sweethearts, again, too young, too much. They had different ideas for their life path. And then here I showed up. My dad named me very specifically, and I ended up embodying everything that he asked God for, and he did not want me. Now, my story could have very easily stopped right there, and it could have sounded like it could have gone in the direction of a lot of other people that are slapped in the face with that kind of rejection on a core level. I could have ended up being a drug addict, an alcoholic, a prostitute. I like my life could have just gone in, and I don't mean any disrespect for anybody that that has been their experience. I just want you to know if that is your experience. It doesn't have to stay there. It doesn't, you are not disqualified in the middle of your moment right now where you're actively high, but somehow or another you ended up listening to this podcast, or you're drunk off your socks and you can't even stand up and you're stuck in front of a screen because you're gonna wobble too much, and you're hearing my voice right now. You are not disqualified in this very moment. While you're inebriated, but you're hearing my Jesus loves you, He loves you so much that He gave it all for you right now. You're not disqualified, you're not disqualified. But my adoption story was also part of my redemption story because that's where my grandparents of all I've ever known was Jesus. That might not have been my life with my mom and my dad. And now we our relationships were restored. Talk about God gives you back the years that the locust ate. Those years after I was adopted, they were consumed. You're not getting time back. Well, guess what? Yes, I did. My mom is my one of my best friends in life. I love that woman. I look just like her, so it's a good thing. You reconnected with your biological mom. Biological mom when I was 15 years old.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

I was 15. So it sounds kind of weird to say I met my mom when I was 15, but you know, I did. But but her and my dad divorced when I was very, very, very young. I was I was less than two, less than two years old. And you know, my family's from Kentucky on my mom's side. She went home. My dad, um, my dad was a drug-using, drug-dealing, alcoholic pastor. Right? All of those things at the same time. Now, he when he was pastoring in front of a in a pulpit, kind of hard to sell drugs that way. But I can guarantee you that every time he was on that pulpit, he was either high or he was very intoxicated. And usually both. And at the end of my dad's life, and listen, we'll take it, it was at the end of his life, but his life didn't end before he met Jesus for real. My dad was a theologian, he he he was selling drugs, putting himself through Bible college. He was a he was also a walking contradiction, yeah. Like it's wild. But my dad's end of his life, and guess how many times he was married? Five times too. Oh wow. His life story, which I would love to have another podcast where we because there's there's layers to a person's life. The layers to your life didn't just start with you, they were layered before you, and the enemy has sought to steal, kill, and destroy from you from even before you were ever born. And so, like, there's a whole nother discussion that can be had here. But God restored my dad's life, he restored my life, and he restored our relationship before he died. The last two years of his life were the best years that we could have ever had. And I'm grateful for that. But my mom and I, I love her, she's so much fun, um, and she's so smart, and I just love hanging out with my mom. And um, but those things were not robbed. I wasn't robbed of life because I was adopted. And I know a lot of people that were adopted that they go their life feeling so slighted. And I can understand how you can get sucked into that hole, but God bless, don't stay there. God don't stay there because your story was. Not defined by that. It's part of the pixels of the portrait of your life, but you're not identified by one single solitary pixel. Because he's so much, he's so much gooder than that. Jesus is God is gooder than you think. He's gooder than than you want to then think he is. It's the enemy that is the accuser. God doesn't accuse us of anything, he compels us, he pulls us close. He is a good dad. And he loves his children infinitely. The prodigal son, I love the part where the father saw his son afar off. He saw him when he looked like a little dot that was on the horizon. And he's like, I've been waiting for this. There he is. That's my boy. And he, the father, did all the undignified things. He was a rich, rich man. Wealth like that had people to go and do things for them. The father took off running. He ran to his son who was covered in slop. He was covered in every kind of excrement that the Jewish culture deemed unclean. He was unclean and the father embraced him and yelled, get him a robe, get him a ring, get sandals on his shile covered in crap. The father was covering him in love and he was redeeming him and restoring him in the midst of his affliction. In the midst of his filth, the father never left him, never abandoned him, was always looking for him and running at the opportunity to redeem his son.

SPEAKER_04 45:47

That is an incredible way to end this podcast. Yeah. Jesus Christ covers you in your filth. And hasn't disqualified us. In fact, if our filth causes us to get on our knees, or as you said, get on our faces and plead to him, then that very filth that we despise becomes a great tool to heal ourselves with Jesus Christ. And that's what we all need to heal. That is the gospel. Jesus Christ. That is the gospel. Let us come unto Christ, celebrate him, and walk with him every day. Thank you, everybody, for joining us this week on Walking with the Savior podcast. All the links to Angel's stuff will be below. Have a great day, everybody. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

Your future is bright when you walk with Christ.