The Redeemed Backslider
“Welcome to The Redeemed Backslider—with your host, Kathy Chastain, Christian-based psychotherapist and a redeemed backslider. This podcast dedicated to those who have wandered but are ready to return to the life-changing power of grace and the freedom found in Jesus.
In Luke 4:18, Jesus proclaimed: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.’
This is the heart of our message. Whether you’re wrestling with regret, despair, seeking freedom from spiritual chains, or longing to see the light of God’s love again, you’re not alone. Here, we share testimonies, biblical truths, and encouragement to remind you that no one is too far gone for God’s redemption.
This is your invitation to find healing, hope, and restoration in Jesus. Welcome to The Redeemed Backslider—where grace is greater than your past and your future is abundant when God redeems your story.”
The Redeemed Backslider
God’s Healing Power- TRB #15 Victor Molano
When Victor Milano was just five years old, a Sunday school bus ministry changed the trajectory of his entire family. That simple knock on the door began a spiritual journey spanning decades—from childhood faith to teenage questioning, through marriage, divorce, and years of backsliding, before ultimately finding redemption and miraculous healing.
Victor shares with raw honesty how his early years in Pentecostal churches provided a strong spiritual foundation, yet couldn't prevent the inevitable questions and temptations of adolescence. Despite being active in youth group and church leadership, internal struggles and a lack of transparent mentorship eventually led to a painful divorce that severed his church connections. For years afterward, Victor lived what he candidly calls "just living in sin," until concern for his sons' spiritual future prompted a return to faith.
The most powerful moments in this episode come when Victor reveals the deep healing work God performed in his life. Through tearful prayer, God revealed childhood trauma Victor had suppressed for decades—memories that explained the sexual struggles that had plagued him throughout adulthood. Even more remarkably, Victor shares the medically documented miracle of his blood disorder healing. After years of transfusions and chronically dangerous blood levels, his hemoglobin inexplicably jumped from 7 to 12 overnight without medical intervention, leaving doctors stunned.
This testimony brilliantly illustrates how God's redemptive work addresses both spiritual and physical brokenness. Victor's journey demonstrates that no matter how far we wander or how deep our wounds, complete restoration is possible. His powerful message to fellow backsliders resonates with hope: "You're worthy. God will accept exactly who you are... His precious blood was enough and His grace is sufficient." If you've walked away from faith or know someone who has, this episode offers compelling evidence that it's never too late to come home.
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Redeem California, With God it IS Possible:
God of the Impossible: 30-Prayers for the Redemption and Restoration of California
Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider with your host, kathy Chastain. Christian-based psychotherapist and Redeemed Backslider. This podcast is dedicated to those who have wandered but are ready to return to the life-changing power of grace and the freedom found in Jesus.
Speaker 2:Hi, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider. I'm your host, Kathy Chastain. I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and I'm a Redeemed Backslider. Today in the studio with me is Victor Milano, Victor, welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you Appreciate it. Glad to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Victor goes to a church in a nearby town and I know some of his family, but I don't know anything about your story. I don't even know if you know how I got your name.
Speaker 3:No, I don't actually.
Speaker 2:So my pastor, pastor Kane, told me one day you have to interview Victor Milano. He's got a wonderful testimony. And so he said but reach out to Pastor Grogan first and ask. And so I did. I reached out to Tiffany Grogan and asked if it was okay that I do your testimony. I guess she checked with you, but anyway. So I was so glad for that recommendation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that makes sense now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing you know what God has done in your life and a little bit about your history. So where would you like to begin?
Speaker 3:We can begin well. I mean, I'm 53, so it could go way back and that would probably take a long time. But we can start from.
Speaker 2:You were a backslider. I mean, you're a backslider, so somewhere along the line you were raised in church.
Speaker 3:About five, five years old.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah. Okay, I can start there in a nutshell, then move forward quickly, okay yeah, I'd love to hear what life was like for you as a kid, until that fateful day when we all seemed to wander.
Speaker 3:Sure, absolutely so. Actually, I love to tell about how I believe that God finds us. He's the one that calls us, and I was five years old and I remember we had just moved from a small town called Corcoran and we moved to Tulare and I have four siblings that are older than me all sisters and we lived on West Street in Tulare and an apostolic preacher came and knocked on our door and he was in a Sunday school those little yellow Abbey buses, but they had painted it blue and asked my parents if they could pick us up for church. The kids, all of us kids.
Speaker 3:We didn't go to church at the time. I had been baptized Catholic, but we weren't practicing. Catholics. We just didn't know the Lord. Right. So we started attending Sunday school and my parents, of course, thought absolutely take all five of them.
Speaker 2:Right, I get a free day off, and so we started going.
Speaker 3:My oldest sister that's about six years older than me. She quickly received the Holy Ghost from a Sunday school started going to church and the Lord began to move quickly into our lives and eventually my mom started going. We transferred over to Brother Abbott's church on 8th Street in Tulare. They had a larger youth group. They were English speaking and we were more English speaking. So it made sense and God began to move and he began to baptize us and we all received the gift of the Holy Ghost and we were saved, without excluding my father. My father had not come to church at that time but in time God brought him.
Speaker 2:So I want to give a little plug, because what you said is really dear to my heart. That's the children, but a lot of. I don't know how many actually, I shouldn't generalize, but I know the Sunday school ministry bus ministry used to pick up a lot of children, even with local churches around I don't know how many churches have a bus ministry and door-to-door knocking. That five children came to church. You guys all got filled with the Holy Ghost and then now your whole family, as far as I know, has been serving the Lord.
Speaker 3:We are definitely a product of Sunday school, not just me and my four siblings, but my parents now and now our children and what an incredible testimony to to that, absolutely wow um.
Speaker 3:So from there, uh, you know, I I begin to understand who god was with a. Uh, we had a revival church. Until I always had revivals, um, brothers and sister, I were always having revivalists come through and their friends that were coming through and preaching large youth group. I have to plug in that my parents, my mom especially, decided to put us in the Christian school, which was tough. We were, we come from very humble beginnings and to put five people, young people, into a Christian school was there was a price tag for it, but she made a way, whether it was through selling candy apples or banana nut bread or whatever.
Speaker 3:So I wanted to plug that in because we'll get to it later, but hindsight that in because we'll get to it later, but hindsight that one of the curriculums in christian school is to learn the word of god and you have all your subjects, but we will learn sometimes chapters at a time yeah and um knowing the word is critical it's so crucial.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that word is a lamp unto my feet and a light into my path, and when you study scripture, um, it will remain with you forever. And I'm very grateful to the word of god because he is the word, and I truly believe that had I not had the word, um, I may not have ever routed back as a backslider.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's powerful just in and of itself. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Very powerful. So we went. I think I went my fifth, sixth, seventh and part of my eighth grade year to Christian school. That's four years. I remember being accelerated. I was always in competition with one of the seniors in the high school that would challenge me with having more scriptures memorized. But around eighth grade my parents pulled us back out and we went into the public school system.
Speaker 3:I think I was still fairly innocent and naive at that point. But when I entered a high school and I hung out with church kids right youth group, um and uh, we were. Uh, I would just say that my parents were very lenient with me as a young man. I was the only son. They were more strict with my sisters but pretty lenient with me. I kind of could go where I wanted to go and hang out with who I wanted to hang out with, but really I was always hanging out with church kids.
Speaker 2:I'm hearing that more frequently. It's the church kids that pull us out.
Speaker 3:I mean it could have church kids that pull us out. I mean it could have been me that pulled them out. I wasn't the innocent one, and even during that period of time I learned I met people. We would go to conventions every year. We would go to junior camps and then senior camps every year. So our parents and our pastors and those that mentored us were always instilling, instilling instilling in us.
Speaker 3:But sometimes we take for granted what's right in front of us. And you know, there were a lot of times that I've always felt like I had a calling, that I was close to God, but there was always that pull of the world and to try things. I've always had that in the back of my mind. Well, what about this? Or what if I didn't go to church? Or what would my life be like?
Speaker 2:And do you think that that had to do with the rules, the things that we you know growing up in church, the things that we're not allowed to do? Or do you think that that had to do with just life difficulties of figuring out who you are and trying to fit in, and you know any kind of hurts or things. I know that loneliness is a thing for kids and you know any kind of hurts or or things. I know that loneliness is a thing for kids and you know trying to find your place. If you don't really have a place, there's lots of reasons. What do you? What do you think it was? Can you have you thought about that at all?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think it could be a little bit of all of it in totality. You know, when you're a teen anyways, you're trying to find your identity, who you are, and then you have the structure of the church, the apostolic Pentecostal church in particular is what.
Speaker 3:I was raised in and you know my mom was of the nature that it's Friday night and you have youth night, so you're going to church, right, and I thank God for that now, so do I but at the time it was like but all my friends are going to the football game or or they're going to go do this, so we would go to youth group and and then we leave and we'd go sin, and you know, hindsight were again. We were just taking for granted what was there for us? Um thank god for the hedge of protection that we had. Um from people that prayed over us and covered us um, because not everybody is uh has everybody has that hedge over them.
Speaker 3:And I thank God that I had a praying mother and still today is a praying mother that she would war in the Spirit reluctantly and without hesitation. We knew when we get up in the morning. Many times we could hear my mom speaking in tongues and warring in the Spirit and sometimes I thought thought how radical. Does it really? Is it necessary?
Speaker 3:yeah, it has to be that much, that much yeah right, um, but um, you mentioned something about, you know, adolescence and um, insecurities, absolutely. You know. I remember being a young man and not always having the leadership in my life as far as a male figure in my life to speak into my life. My pastor at the time was a great man. He was a great man, but my father and I I have a great father we weren't always that close and in my teen years my dad was not saved and I'm not here to tell his story, but he had an addiction.
Speaker 3:And somewhere around my senior year. The Lord saved him and gave him a radical move of the Holy Ghost and what he thought he would never do. He did.
Speaker 3:And that was give his life to the Lord and he's got an amazing testimony Never gone through a 12-step program but God healing him from the inside out, physically as well, and so there's so many things thrown at you at that age when you're that young. You have church, you have the world, you have public school system, you have drinking, partying, you have all. And then you have seasons of youth camp and seasons of convention, where you pull yourself back in and you're there for a week.
Speaker 3:So you're going to get back on fire yourself back in and you're there for a week, so you know you're you're going to get back on fire, um, and so it's very important that that we as adults, that we pour into our youth and that we are more transparent and where we are. You mentioned something to me earlier that's critical and that's why I am here to tell my story and to speak that I'm not perfect. I've never been perfect. And I'm not perfect now.
Speaker 3:And Brother Victor has to go to God in prayer daily. And when you're a young person, sometimes you think that the people of God are perfect. And they're not, no matter how they look or how they dress. We struggle, we find the Apostle. Paul telling us that he had to die daily, and so all the more we have to teach who we are and how God sustains us.
Speaker 3:It's not just through prayer, but it's through the consecration of prayer the word of God getting in your heart and being around the people of God that you can speak to and confide in. I never did feel, I think, my where I was, I was deficient was I didn't have anyone that I could speak to that I feel that I could speak to on a level of transparency when I was a young person.
Speaker 2:Right. Right, because I think when I grew up, because everything was considered sin, we couldn't talk about the real wrestle that we had when we did want to asking those questions. You know why can't I do this? Why why is this wrong? And everything was just because it's sin, and so there was not ever really good, clear answers.
Speaker 2:You know, it didn't always make sense, um, but I, I I want to say something to what you just said. You said now I have to pray daily, stay in the word, and, um, you said one other thing, and I know that for those listening who don't, who maybe haven't been where we've been and coming back to the Lord, but that it might sound really cliche, but when you know where you've been which I know, this is why you do it, why I do it when you know where you've been, you have to constantly keep yourself in the place where you're just in alignment with the Lord, because there are so many things I think everybody actually in the world things are getting pulled at them. They're just not always aware of it, but when you've been a backslider and you come back, you know it's so much easier to stay in the word and stay in prayer.
Speaker 2:There's a desire for that yeah like it's not someone telling you, victor, you need to go pray, you need to go to church, you need to, you know, read your bible.
Speaker 3:No one has to tell you that you do it because you desire to do that right I believe that the difference for me now is you know, as you grow in God, you learn what consecration is. But something that the Lord has even recently took me through a season and I realized that when you serve God, you really should serve him in victory.
Speaker 3:When you serve God, you really should serve him in victory, not always in that place of condemnation, when you do fall short of the glory of God because, the Bible tells us we all fall short, and so I've learned that when I do fall short, I go to God immediately and I'm like God, I shouldn't have done that, or I shouldn't have said that, or I shouldn't have done that, or I shouldn't have said that, or I shouldn't have watched that. I no longer feel like, oh, poor me, and I'm so condemned and I'm such a bad person, right and uh. You know we learned that from david, king david, and all the things that he did. Yet the bible tells us he was a man after god's own heart. So, that being said, the Bible says where sin did abound, grace did much more abound, and the Lord has had to teach me to have grace on people and, if you're watching this today, have grace on yourself.
Speaker 3:Have a little mercy, because Jesus died for us and he paid the price Right. Right, or I've sinned, but to learn to come quickly to God, because he does convict us. The Bible says he reproaches those that he loves but he doesn't condemn us, he forgives us, and then from that we learn that I'm not going to get in a cycle constantly doing this, because now it's not a matter of deliverance, it's a matter of discipline. Right, big difference, huge difference. Right yes.
Speaker 3:And so, even as an adult, I've had to learn it's not a matter of deliverance, god, I, just, how do you, how do you get into discipline, right? Well, I stopped going to the places that I used to go. Right, I stopped talking to the people. I know I shouldn't be talking to. You know, I stopped watching things I shouldn't be watching or speaking things that I shouldn't speak, and then I began to live in the victory. The.
Speaker 3:Bible says that we are made overcomers. There's too many people that don't live in the victory Right, right, right.
Speaker 3:So when God, when we repent and we get the Holy Ghost, or we're baptized, or even if you're new and you haven't even got there, you're just in the stage of what we call justification. That just means that God has justified us through the blood and through the cross. But once we move from that level and we take on the name Jesus, I believe we go a little farther. We elevate to living in sanctification, sanctified and in victory and through. In that level I no longer feel condemned, even when, I make a mistake.
Speaker 3:I feel convicted. Right. And I tell God and I get rid of it. But I move forward. I don't take 10 steps back to where. I was anymore. I don't let the enemy or people pull me that far back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm glad you just used the distinction conviction versus condemnation, because there is a lot of people that grew up, I think, in the Pentecostal movement just from years and years ago where there was a lot of that and, I think, done a lot in ignorance, where things seemed very condemning, but I do think there was just a lot of misunderstanding, I think of how that was communicated. But conviction, the Bible says, is godly sorrow. When God convicts us, he lets us know hey, this hurt me, and it allows us to have godly sorrow and then repent and say, lord, I'm sorry, I didn't even realize, you know versus condemnation being judgment and almost like a death sentence to some.
Speaker 3:Penalty.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, and that is not at all who God is. So I'm so glad you said that it's good for people watching to kind of know, the difference.
Speaker 3:So I don't know. I mean, I could go back to being a teen, but even becoming a young adult, I think I struggled with many things, even identity, like who am I, what will I be? What course will I take? Will it be the church? Will it be ministry? Church, will it be ministry? Because when I was good with the lord, I always felt ministry, always felt like that was a calling.
Speaker 2:And when you say ministry, what did that look like for you and your imagination? What did you think that meant?
Speaker 3:you know I remember my mom many, many years ago was a pivotal point in in our family's life. She went to to a conference that was called the Well Conference. It was women of worship with Richard Gazowski.
Speaker 2:I remember Brother Gazowski yeah.
Speaker 3:And when she came back from this conference it was like it was just like powerful, because my mom was at a pivotal point of not serving god versus serving god when she went there.
Speaker 2:She came back a changed lady, but it was radical a radical change he was kind of radical, yeah, he was a radical preacher, yeah, and uh, he taught a lot on spiritual warfare.
Speaker 3:Uh, I remember she called us all that week. She would call us three, four, five in the morning telling us we've been up all night, we've been praying and telling us things like I was elevated, just, it was like mom, it's just, it's kind of out there, um. But when she came back, she was still in spiritual warfare in our home, in our bedrooms. This is when my dad got converted and I remember her sweeping but not sweeping through the house, and she'd be praying.
Speaker 3:And she said that she was praying for this guy to go, pulling down all imaginations. Of course, as a young, young man, I don't know all the ins and outs, what's going on with my parents and relationship and all the things of that nature, but things started to happen and the spirit of god began to move and I remember bishop abbott started a five o'clock morning prayer and my mom was going and I was, I think, a junior, maybe a senior in high school, and I started going up with her because the Lord began to to wake me two, three in the morning, and so when I talk about ministry, it was like why are you waking me up, lord, and calling me to prayer? And I begin to deal with the demons in my life. I remember maybe you've heard of the. I forget what they call it now sleep something, paralysis.
Speaker 2:Sleep paralysis yeah.
Speaker 3:And I remember waking one night and because I was a boy, I had my own bedroom, all my sisters had a share and my door was always closed that night and there was a dark figure right at the foot of my bed and I knew that a presence, a dark presence, had come into my bedroom and I had that sleep paralysis. I couldn't speak, my eyes were wide open and I couldn't see the face, but it was just the presence and and I and numb, I finally started saying in my mind in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, and eventually it left. It called me to prayer. So you best believe that I started getting up every day at five o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3:I don't know if my mom had prayed about it and said god put a fire into him or whatever who knows, but I do believe in the power of prayer, and I started to go every day, every morning, and that's where my prayer life really began, and I began to know who God was and what spiritual warfare is, and even at that time, though, I hadn't been taught like what is actually putting on the armor of God. Right the helmet your loins, your feet, the sword, the breastplate, shield of faith. And I didn't understand it even though I had probably heard it.
Speaker 2:And memorized it, yeah, so.
Speaker 3:I'm just going and um, and you know, lord has, since then, has always dealt with me in that manner and spiritual supernatural manner right and but unless you consecrate yourself, right, you could have that calling but never work in that gift.
Speaker 3:And so, um, uh, you know, at that time I again, my dad, was saved and our family had always, um been close to the lord and we were a big family. And then, you know, I pentecostal church with um at that time was the first pentecostal church, now abundant life center. So then I got married and um, and we were youth leaders so you stayed in church.
Speaker 2:So this presence that appeared, did it go away after you started going to five? And did it only happen?
Speaker 3:once. It only happened one time. I find that so interesting. We'll come back to that later it only happened, happened one time.
Speaker 2:I find that so interesting. We'll come back to that later.
Speaker 3:It only happened that one time. But I believe that there's other realms of the spirit that you deal with because the enemy's cunning.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, and he's sly.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of things that happen at night Right, that happens in general, that happen at night right, and it happens in general, but at night, you know, he, I found and I've never really discussed this, but, um, through those years my, uh, my go-to was alcohol. If I wanted to hang out with my friends and and I just wasn't in the season of serving the Lord, it was like go out with my friends and party, and it was kind of a common thing that we would do late at night. What do you do after midnight?
Speaker 2:So you're in church, but occasionally going out with friends drinking, but staying in church and participating in church, and so at that time you really didn't consider yourself to be away from God or backslidden. You just know that you weren't doing right, Right.
Speaker 3:Okay, and I think a lot of times young adults live in that room. They don't feel fully backslidden because they go to church. They still feel the spirit of god, yeah, but you're feeling the blessing that other people are bringing to the house, right? And god shows up. The bible says, um, he inhabits the praises of his people. Yeah, and then I have my mother, who is a prayer warrior, so the presence of god is always near me.
Speaker 3:Again, we're taking it for granted you know, a great pastor, a great pastor's wife and leaders, and so, um, this is just a little prior to my marriage, and so I have a little bit. I have a lot of god, but I have a little bit of the world that I hang on to it's those ties that bind us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's deceptive because, like when you go to church and you feel like you're okay, you're not okay.
Speaker 3:The scary part is when you no longer have the condemnation. Yeah, right or the conviction and it becomes norm.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And our friends in the world that were doing all this. This is one reason so many people think there's hypocrisy in the church and there is but it's not always because we want it to be. I think it's just because, we're just people that struggle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, who doesn't struggle, right, right, there is such an expectation that if you go to church you're supposed to do all these things perfect and good and you shouldn't have feelings. You shouldn't say a bad word, and it's not like I was doing Bible studies and trying to save souls.
Speaker 3:I wasn't. I was just barely hanging on myself yeah. So I guess I didn't feel the guilt of being a repubate or a hypocrite, although maybe I should have, but you know I wasn't. It's not like I was, you know, doing prayer walks and things of that nature. Anyhow, we go through these seasons and eventually I got my spirit more on the right track. And eventually I got my spirit more on the right track and you know, I just got on what I guess you would call the straight and narrow. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right Started to exclude, of course, at that time my buddies are getting married and you know I'm thinking about marriage, and so we're. You know you go from that 18, 19 year old, even 2021, to maybe 23, 24. There's a difference there.
Speaker 3:You start finding who you are you start letting go of ties. People are getting married or going off to college, and so that's another stage. You got to start finding well, who am I? And again, god had never left me. He's a faithful God, he's right there all the time. And so I did get married. We loved our church, we were close to the leaders in our church, and so we quickly became youth leaders ourselves. We didn't have children until about six years later, and that's when my son, seth, came along in 2000. Okay.
Speaker 3:So I'm 30 years old, 29 at the time, so you know I had transitioned into marriage and trying to be a good husband. But we waited, we, we both wanted to grow our careers, um, to purchase a home and, um, we, we did a lot of that. But somewhere right around that time, the enemy, he creeped back in. And this is a warning to you that are watching be careful, because it wasn't really that time.
Speaker 3:It was way, way back yeah when you're playing with the lord and I've learned that there's breaches, that the enemy will come in and he'll take those breaches where you were weak and those spirits that that hang out with you for many, many years. The bible says that he is the author of confusion and I learned for many, many years I was a double-minded man, which the Bible tells us is unstable in all his ways. Thank God for scripture Right right, it wasn't, you know.
Speaker 3:Eventually my second son came and my ex-wife and I we divorced when my second son was eight months and my second son was eight months, so there was.
Speaker 3:My sons were very young and I was broken at the time. I didn't have anybody that came to me and said why are you getting divorced? Why is this happening? Or I, if I'm being honest, I felt betrayed by the church because we were, I was supposed to be a leader, but yet I have failed. So I'm feeling a lot of things. I'm feeling like I failed as a husband, uh, I failed as a leader in the church and sometimes even as leaders.
Speaker 2:You, you need somebody that's going to be there, especially as leaders, because I think as leaders you're standing alone often and there's a lot of expectation on leaders that they should have it all together and they're just flesh and blood yeah trying to walk it out I think there were a lot of assumptions to my divorce and what happened, but that's all that is is an assumption, unless somebody comes and you're able to speak with them.
Speaker 2:So um, so the word gets out that you guys are getting divorced and and no one reaches out to you nothing do you feel like they took sides? Not even my family okay, no one reached out no are you going to talk about? That I can what happened, why you guys got divorced? What?
Speaker 3:so I, I leaned on myself, which is the wrong thing to do. Right, when you're in a position of of that you're supposed to lean on the lord, not on your own understanding. But when you stop going to church or uh, you, you, all the carnal nature, you start to lean on yourself. And and I didn't lean on people I didn't lean on, I wasn't going to run to people for help. Um, my ex-wife and I, um we, we had actually a great relationship in the six years that we were we were married nine, but I want to say for six years we had a great relationship.
Speaker 3:Um, as anybody who's ever been married, there's times in your life, there's going to be seasons where you know you're starting to uh, feel a certain kind of way, or, or you're like, well, I feel like if I did this I'd be better, or, you know, is that is this love? And and I remember there was one time I did have a conversation with my pastor and, um, he said something to me. He said, well, love is not a feeling and I understand that now, but I didn't understand it then. And um, to me, that was the answer be consecrated to someone that you don't feel like you love. I do understand that now, right, but I can't change that now.
Speaker 3:It's 20 years later right right but I didn't understand it then as a young man and as a young father. Um, so all I can say about that is that I hope that when we don't understand and when we lean on people who maybe haven't gone through what we've gone through, and if you're hearing and you haven't gone through that, still try to understand, or or or. I don't want to say pass the buck, but if it's something that I can't help someone, I sure would like to find someone that can help someone because we want to give someone godly advice, scriptural advice, but also someone their sympathy versus empathy advice, scriptural advice, but also someone.
Speaker 3:Their sympathy versus empathy.
Speaker 2:And so a lot of times if we can't empathize when we haven't been through it. So can you sort of unpack what you are beginning to go through, what the temptations are, what you are wrestling with in your thoughts, in your emotions? One thing sounds very clear to me, just that seems to be a thread that I can see, is there seems to be a lot of isolation to where you felt, a lot of loneliness. You know, um, I, just when I I just kind of see you moving through life very alone and then getting into marriage, probably, even though it was good, still just feeling alone.
Speaker 3:Very independent, and that could be a good thing, but it can also be a weakness at times, because you're so independent, you're just laying on yourself because you're so independent. You just lean on yourself and I mean I'll be transparent enough to say that you know with independence can come pride and arrogance, and I've had to learn now that I have to submit that to God.
Speaker 3:Even confidence you want to have confidence, but you don't want to be overly confident, and so when you feel that way you mentioned alone. Yeah, there's times where, because someone puts you in a position or makes you feel like a leader, and then you feel like, well, then I can't go to someone and just tell them all my weaknesses or where I'm struggling. Or is it okay that I'm a husband and that I feel alone, because I think probably people would say, well, man up.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the wrong advice.
Speaker 3:And that's probably good advice, but it's not always the right advice right sometimes someone needs it, dismisses a little bit more it dismisses what's really going on.
Speaker 2:Right, I think everyone knows we have to, we have to walk through it, but it it doesn't take away the feelings and you have to address what's going on. A lot of times the lord is in those things that he's trying to expose. You know, if we just stuff it and keep manning up, it's not gonna change anything yeah.
Speaker 3:So here we are, me and uh casale we're. I don't think she'll mind, we're wonderful friends now and god has blessed us to be friends again. We have amazing children that are in ministry and God has just been good to us. But here we are struggling. But we had never talked about divorce or even separating, but we probably missed the mark when it comes to communication at that point to reach out to people that were supposed to be our mentors or the ministers in our life and, um, I think we might have gone to people, but at different times, in different scenarios, but not together as a couple, and that was a mistake, right?
Speaker 3:So, um, because then you're getting different advice from different people. And long story short in that we divorced and then I kind of I was hit and miss with church, and she was hit and miss with church, and she was hit and miss with church and she eventually, I think, stopped going to our church. So I was hit and miss and my sons were young and they'd see a week with me and a week with her and I left Abundant Life Center, probably when my sons were about seven, and maybe Cole was five, if I think back correctly. And so this is where I now I'm like I'm not tied to the church at all.
Speaker 3:And this is what I would say is you know, I'm not playing with God, I'm just not going, period. And this is what I would say.
Speaker 3:Is you know I'm not playing with God, I'm just not going period and, um, you know, a little bit of of strife is in my heart and um, and I'm just going to live my life and I'm going to, I'm going to work harder as far as secular world and career and jobs and things of that nature. So I do that for a few years and, um know, I'm just living in. Sin is what it is. It's just living in sin and call it what it is. But at the same time I'm very protective of my sons because when you're instilled with god and the things of god.
Speaker 3:I I'm, and then I knew I was the disciplinary. Even though we're divorced, I'm still the disciplinary, and mom's a little bit more lenient and and fun natured and dad's like you can't do that.
Speaker 3:And so, um, I raised these boys and they were just they've always been amazing young men and they beat the status quo of, uh, what statistics statistics would show as divorced parents, when a lot of times there's a statistic statistic with, um, kids of divorce, right. So, anyways, about, uh, when they're about 11, 12, I start realizing, like, um, if they're ever going to make it, god starts to deal with me again. Those nights start to waken me up.
Speaker 3:I could feel the call to prayer and I'm thinking God, I don't deserve that. And this is the condemnation hitting I'm like I don't deserve that. I've done this. I condemnation hitting, I'm like I don't deserve that. I've done this, I've done that and I know that if my sons are ever going to make it to heaven, it's going to be because I drive them there.
Speaker 3:And so, rather than going to my roots, I start going to a non-denominal Christian church and it was great. They're beautiful people, wonderful people, had good services, but there was no connection and my sons would go there and they'd be like we gotta go here again, it's so, they're so long, and they didn't have a youth group and things like that. So, um, it just was one sunday night and I remember it was somewhere around 2011. My sons were with our mom that week and I decided I was going to church and I'm going by myself, it's not for my sons, it's it's for me. And God had been pulling me and I pull up to the non-denominal church parking lot and I'm like, why am I here? Because when I'm here, it's such a good church, but I just don't feel the presence of God like I used to and I just get this impression go to Abundant Life Center. You're only like 10 minutes late, 15 minutes late. So I turn around and I drive all the way across town.
Speaker 3:I go to Abundant Life, I walk in and I go, sneak into the back row and I sit back there and Sister Margie Abbott who is not just my pastor's wife at the time, but she's my friend, she's the one that got me into real estate and we've been friends she came and she gave me a big hug and um, um. It's so important that when people walk into the house of God, that we love on them without fail and without condition, because had she known how I felt that night and had someone not reached out, I may not have ever came back. But it was true love, it was genuine and I just felt immediately like I'm home and this is where I need to be. And I've never be yeah.
Speaker 3:And I've never stopped since then. And doesn't mean I haven't had struggles. I did. You know, you have all these things that here I am now in my 30s and have struggled with ends and outs of living for the Lord and not living for the Lord and not living for the Lord, and having the pulls of the world and allowing sin in your life, and going through a marriage and having kids and sometimes even feel like, well, that was a failed marriage. I love my church today and I'm grateful that they're loving and it's provided a way for me to be loving to people and to love people and to not condemn and to not criticize.
Speaker 3:And so here we are in 2025, but I still had struggles that 2011 and I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you that my, my sons, immediately were just tied to the youth group. They were just doing fantastic. They had great youth leaders and I've never struggled with them having alcohol issues or party issues or wanting to live in in the world. Um, I mean, they were scholastic. They're both athletic, um, they love sports. They played all of them during high school, um, and but somewhere along the line, I had to learn to break those curses. To break those curses and and to break the chains that that we have. We have generational curses and chains that bind us, but you have to really find what they are and that's. You can only do that, living a consecrated life. And I'll be honest, it was years, even after 2011, that I came back and I struggled with this and that and are you prepared to talk about what that was?
Speaker 2:it's pretty vague you know, because I I think where whatever god has delivered I've heard this whatever god has delivered us from is where our ministry is going to be too yeah um that like if god heals you for cancer. You have authority over cancer. You know, so I just um, like I said earlier, before we start, I know people are really apprehensive about sharing where they have been. Yeah, but I think that is the miracle from where you are now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you know, um, if you could, you know, be a little more specific, so that sure people understand what a miracle this really is so I'm getting there okay, I thought you were wrapping up because you said and then here we are today so, um, so I'll try not to be vague, but a struggle for me was promiscuity and having that, I remember my older sister. She was one that I was able to talk to about it and we talked about sexual sins and you know, when you think about sin, sometimes people in church in general, church people in general, will put a bigger price tag of sin on certain sins.
Speaker 2:Yes, they do, but God said lying is the same as murder.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because if a man cheats on his wife but then says he's sorry and comes back, it's like it's not a big deal. Hey, you know, let them come back and comes back, it's like it's not a big deal. Hey, you know, let them come back. But you have other sexual sins and they could be um more demonic or more sinful, and that's not true right right when there's a breach and there's sexual sin or there's that perversion of. That's what it is. It's a perversion?
Speaker 3:I don't care whether it's umosexual, homosexual, molestation, incest. It's all perverted spirit and so I had to deal with that sin. And I wasn't really sure, because I mean, I had been married, I was sexually open I'll say that. Sexually open, I'll say that. And um, I had dealt with a lot of different sexual immorality and I remember I was tired and my god, why is my, why am I so dysfunctional? Sexually.
Speaker 3:And it was somewhere around 2019 before COVID, or it might've been 2020. I was so stinking tired of it, because now the battle of the battle and the opportunity what do you mean by that? I could have sex anytime I want and was ever rarely denied sex by anyone.
Speaker 2:It just doesn't do what it used to do for you and I know that sounds arrogant, but that's the world that we live in. That's the world that we live in, correct.
Speaker 3:And I think the church sometimes can be clueless to that. It's a very open sexually and now I can. I can discern it everywhere. Sometimes I'll walk in a room and immediately good, we need more, and I've had to just like just turn away or walk away or don't. This is what god's teaching me now like when to say something and when to just be quiet. Because, and pray against it right and then the word of knowledge is to know when to speak something at the right time the word of wisdom word of wisdom.
Speaker 3:So I was dealing with that and, um, I went to the lord one day and I was in my bedroom and I got on my knees and I began to just confess everything to god, even though we know he knows right and we say god knows everything.
Speaker 3:So I just begin to verbally confess god this, and I've confessed to god that. And god, why do I feel this way? Or why, why do I have these, uh, lust of the eye, lust of the flesh, pride of life, and I, just I was starting to learn the tabernacle and I'm starting to learn from the outer court going into the inner court, and I, I'm learning that in the inner court. This is where you lay all your emotions, your will, your passions to God, and I'm learning all the intricates of the light, the bread, the word, just the incense, all the different things that are happening on the inner court.
Speaker 2:The symbolism right From the physical to the spiritual.
Speaker 3:So I'm starting to understand spiritual warfare, right, and I'm starting to pull down imagination that it exalted self against God. But I'm going to God and I said God if you will just show me, because I had already gone to counseling, and I said God, if you will show me and give me understanding, I must have wept for three hours solid straight. And um, god did.
Speaker 2:He began to show me and he began to reveal some things to me that I didn't know that was hidden from you that was there, but, but it was just hidden from you or brand new knowledge, both.
Speaker 3:Okay, Both and I literally had flashbacks like pictures being thrown in my head as I'm praying.
Speaker 5:And the Lord began to show me some things that happened to me.
Speaker 3:I don't know how old I was but I had been touched. I don't know how old I was, but I had been touched, I don't know. I guess you could call that molestation, but I had been touched in areas I shouldn't have been touched with, played with and I hadn't. I'm like what in the world? You didn't remember. I remembered after the flashback.
Speaker 2:Yeah, after the Lord revealed it.
Speaker 3:But I had never thought on that, dwelt on that. I never thought it was an issue in my life. Let me tell you something very interesting. I cannot taste or smell because of a car wreck I was in in 1998, and my senses were severed here. When God revealed that to me, I could literally smell that bedroom. That it happened in.
Speaker 2:That it happened in.
Speaker 3:I could smell certain things. So I knew it was a revelation for me and I just laid there and I wept before the Lord for the little boy yeah, but I begin to thank God that you would. The Bible says in John I think it's 1426 that he will send the comforter which is the spirit of.
Speaker 3:God, the Holy Ghost, will reveal all things. I'm telling you. When I really got my life right, I knew that it was the word of God that would help me and set me apart from all the things I struggled in my life, because his word is true and now I lean on his promises, dare yea and amen, and he began to show me some things and began to heal my heart, because healing starts here. Yes, it does.
Speaker 3:And he began to heal me. And when he began to heal me, and when he began to heal, it was a 180 for me to look at everything differently, started to make sense and to love people. That spirit of pride began to break.
Speaker 3:Loss of the eye, loss of the flesh, pride of life they're crazy that they're all three are together yes, and so now all sin, I believe, began to to look at the Lord and in different ways, and understand that God loves me and God wants to reveal things to me and he wants to heal my heart. He began to use me and put other people in my life that I trust and that I can speak to and open doors for me. And it's funny because when God heals you in one area, it seems like it domino effects in other areas of your life domino effects in other areas of your life.
Speaker 3:In hindsight I look back. Since my marriage I've had little spotty relationships, nothing longevity I really didn't have the desire. It was always me, me, and same thing with my jobs. God has blessed me with wonderful jobs but, they've been spotty. You know, I'll do one and I'll flip that one, and it's greener. God began to heal even those things, and finances and relationships, and it's wonderful when God begins to heal you and you begin to know who you are. Right right Not just in yourself, but in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 2:Right, right, the real identity comes forward, right.
Speaker 3:Right. And so now I live in that realm, that his name has been applied to my life, and I walk in that vein, not in Victor's vein, right. And so do I still struggle? Um, not so much. Um, I did for a little bit, but like I said when you, when you, conquer right. It made up mind when you conquer undervalued yeah, when you conquer and in um, god gives you revelation, word of wisdom, wonder of knowledge, you can walk into places, you can recognize the same spirits that you've dealt with sometimes even see them, and you either know in the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 3:Is this a time to pray for it, or is this a time just to walk away. Maybe at another time pray for it, or is this the time just to walk away? Maybe at another time?
Speaker 2:I, I mean I, I I spoke to people even in our general assembly that I know are dealing with exactly what I dealt with there is way more of that in the church than I think because you know, I, because of my job, I'm just privy to knowing some things about that kind of stuff. Just overall, there's a lot of wonderful Christians out there, but the enemy, like you said, he's very cunning, he's very sly, he will do whatever he can to get someone to fall, and I think there's so many things that exist in the church and not because the church people are bad, but because they're human yeah you know, and we're all susceptible to sorrow, to loneliness, to um frustration, to all these things right, all all these things.
Speaker 2:There's hurt in the world and so the enemy I read one day from. I read someplace that he's an opportunist, so he will come at us in our weaknesses and tempt us with whatever we are most susceptible to. And often, when abuse occurs in childhood, it can take many forms of sexual immorality and perversion. And in 2000 or 2001, I read a statistic, I read a journal article six out of 10 people had already been victims of childhood sexual abuse. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that was 25 years ago, you know. I personally believe, you know, we might be like eight out of 10.
Speaker 1:That's what we know of Right Correct Eight out of 10, nine out of 10.
Speaker 2:And just growing up in my circle in church I knew of a lot of kids who had been victims, my childhood best friend who died on her 21st birthday, you know it does. I'm so grateful to have been raised in a safe home and going to church and being protected, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because we are so naive to what the world faces. But outside of that hedge of protection there's a lot of things, and then those people come to church and so it's no wonder that people on the church pew struggle with things, because they've been out in the world like the rest of us. But there is a lot of it and I think the conversation is so important because, as you said, in the church world some sin seems to be worse than other sin, but in God's eyes there is no sin that is any worse than the other. You know, and if we don't get better at being able to have conversation and learn about really where people live and what they struggle with, we're going to alienate them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Cause people. I think we're not careful, we get that cliche could come up like well, why bring it up now?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:So long ago.
Speaker 2:Right what's?
Speaker 3:the point now. Um, I spoke to my pastor the other night and, by the way, I've never had this conversation with anyone, so I think there's going to be a lot of people that are like what in the world? And it wasn't. I wasn't hesitant or a fear of shaming myself, because I don't live in shame. Well, that is the beauty.
Speaker 2:The enemy can't use it against us anymore, right when God has really set us free. We can say anything in freedom, because the enemy can't use it against us anymore.
Speaker 3:Like you can't even like I would be like. But I was more hesitant because they didn't want the conversation to come up like that. I need to expose someone right, right yeah um, so it was that issue.
Speaker 3:But, um, we were just talking the other night and, um, you know, I had mentioned him, that I was coming to see you, we were going to have a conversation, and that there's power in transparency and there's healing, and so, for those reasons, I feel like, if this will encourage someone else to know that it don't matter what you've been through, right, the god that we serve, there's a. There's a word I just studied, uh, during christ or easter, it was called, I think it's tetelestai. It's a greek word that, um, you know, the lord spoke arabic right when he was on earth, but in greek it meant I have paid the debt. What comes from the words that he hung on the cross? It is finished.
Speaker 3:And when you realize that, that it don't matter what you've done or what you've been through, the price has been paid. There's no reason for you to live in that muck or that realm the debt has been paid. It's silly for us to want to live in a debt that the Lord has already paid that debt. And we can have freedom from all bondage. I heard Brother Keith, and it don't matter what we've done in our past.
Speaker 3:Man. God is just a healer. Healer, and when it comes to the sins of the world, it doesn't matter if it's perversion or murder or lying or gossip. I think it all comes into a nutshell where God wants to heal and when he heals you of that, it's so powerful because you almost become relentless with the Lord.
Speaker 3:You almost become radical, like I talked about my mom at the women of worship when she came out of that, and that's how I feel with God today. There is nothing that's going to stop me or keep me. There's no words that someone can say to me of my past, because I know who my god is. We're heirs of the high priest that stands before us and that's paid the price.
Speaker 2:So and victor I'm. I am pretty convinced that when the devil comes against children the way he did with you and the way he's done with so many, it is to destroy the call of God on their life so that they never achieve it, they never reach their identity in Christ, they never really understand why their life took the turns that it took. And going back to your childhood, I just want to make a distinction, and this is I don't mean this in the catchphrase that it's going to sound, I don't mean this in the catchphrase that it's going to sound the enemy is who is to blame? Okay, for where you've been and where others have been. It is the enemy who was out to destroy you.
Speaker 2:We do have free will, we do have choice, but a lot of choice is made in ignorance. I know that we're still responsible for that, we're still accountable for that, but I think when you do come into freedom and the Lord does really deliver you, you can look back and see all the places that the enemy was just on your heels right and out of, because it sounds like that you always loved the Lord, right, and I think that's why God has always kept you. No matter what you've been through. God always knew your heart. But people very much get bogged down in their own condemnation because they think that they're so bad.
Speaker 2:But it's the enemy who is trying to destroy those people and they just fall prey to it because they're ignorant. You know, my people perish for a lack of knowledge, and so, when you look back at your life, clearly God did have a call. You had that spirit show up in your room Like why was that spirit there? Where did that come from? What was its purpose to be there?
Speaker 3:To bring fear Right.
Speaker 2:Because what then does fear do? It prevents us from moving into the supernatural, to be there or to bring fear Right. Because what then does fear do? Right? It prevents us from moving into the supernatural, it prevents us from going deeper because there's, I think, an awareness there, right, but the fact that you could see it in the spirit. Yeah. The fact that the Lord's always dealt with you in the supernatural. I believe the enemy just wanted to keep you in bondage so that you never walk in these places that you're walking in now.
Speaker 3:You know if the enemy can isolate you.
Speaker 2:Yes, if he can isolate you.
Speaker 3:He does a good job at that he does a real good job at that. Whether you're confident or insecure, he will manipulate you to isolate you, that you don't tell anyone, that you could deal with it on your own Right, or the reverse, that nobody loves me or no one cares about me. Right. If he can isolate you, then he's got you. But I have found now with the wonderful people I have in my life that their greatness is not from perfection.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Their greatness has come from overcoming and conquering and being transparent and dealing with all of the mishaps that happen in their life and realizing the enemy. You had me for a little bit, but I read the back of the book. I know my story and I'm going to walk in the will of God and I'm going to tell people my story and I'm going to tell them the testimony of Jesus. That's the spirit of prophecy. And I recently I have a friend that she was asked to speak at a women's conference and tell her story. And here I was, I hadn't told my story, and she's like, no, and I'm like go Tell Tell your story, and I hope that I can. This will help other people tell your story. God will heal you, he'll heal your heart and you'll conquer, you'll live in the victory. And, um, those battles that were once there, now they're just like little flies the deal. The devil don't deal with me with that now. Now, if he's dealing with me, it's like man.
Speaker 3:I shouldn't have said that, lord or you know um, I need to keep my spirit right and it's now. It's learning the fruits of the spirit kindness and meekness and gentleness and long suffering and um, but the one thing that is in that and in the gifts is faith, and it's really helped me to have a greater faith in the God that I serve, that in faith I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me? It's not me. It's him.
Speaker 3:And I've learned that he is my source and it's not me. It's not accolades, it's not degrees, it's him. And I've learned that he is my source and it's not me. It's not accolades, it's not degrees, it's not jobs, it's him. Bible says the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. And. I thank God for it. What an amazing God that we have, and he definitely is a healer, not just in the physical, but in the emotional. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's some of the greatest work. I think the body follows. Yeah. Your sister told me on Sunday that you were hospitalized and almost died. Like when was that? I don't know anything about the story other than God performed a miracle so, as God begins to heal you, it will dominate.
Speaker 3:It will domino effect and this is what's happening now. I'm starting to feel the domino effect, but it had to be here first, right, because it was all black in here and corrupt and confused. But I've dealt with a blood disorder for years and I've been chronic anemia for many, many years. But a lot of people have anemia but my blood volume will go to a critical under seven.
Speaker 2:I've been down to 5.9 what does that mean for people that are not medical, like what is our normal blood volume? So my.
Speaker 3:A man's normal blood volume is 14 to 17. A woman's is somewhere around 12, 13 to 15, 16 is that core to that? Leaders that would be, I think about equivalent to a pint okay right, okay, right, that's what we get.
Speaker 2:So 14 to 17 pints.
Speaker 3:So if you can, imagine, you know, 17 bags of plasma is usually what a man will function with, and I've been functioning with an average of 7 to 9. So I'm always low.
Speaker 2:And that's your normal rate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I've been fatigued, tired. You know he's attacked my health, the enemy has attacked my health in a lot of different ways. But then, on top of that, I was having chronic anemia. I went to see a hematologist because my heart rate was always jumping really high. I feel like I'm having a heart attack and out of breath, short of breath, labored, fatigued, a heart attack and out of breath, short of breath, um, labored, fatigue.
Speaker 3:And so, uh, uh, they start sending me to a cancer Institute and they tell me you have no iron, you're not just anemic, you don't. You're down to 0.02. So they're going to start injecting me with injectifer, which is a iv iron infusion. But they told me, when you have this iron infusion, you'll do a cycle of three for three weeks, because it's too strong to give it at one dose, and you'll have, you know, inflammation, all this side effects. So they said, after the three cycles, in one month, you'll be fine for a year. This started in 22. No, sorry, 2023. And a month after those three cycles I went to get my labs and it was gone. It was completely gone.
Speaker 2:The iron was.
Speaker 3:The iron was, and this hematologist told me he's Dr Bryson here in Viselli. He said in the 60 years I've been doing this, this has never happened. So he starts me on a new cycle. Long story short, I go through uh 39 infusions in up till now in two years you've been through 39. Yeah, and my body it was just tired, yeah, just worn out. And in between there, I'm getting blood transfusions, because my blood will just drop.
Speaker 2:So Is there a source that's causing? I mean, you don't have to answer that, but I've never heard of this before, so I didn't know if it's a disease process or if it's just. I know some people have very low blood volume he told me that, um, there's something called avms.
Speaker 3:They're atrial venous malformations. So the best I could explain that is if you look on your eye, under your eyelid, you see those little red varices. They're not quite big veins, but they're little small varices. I in here, you have them in your esophagus and they think that they expand and they bleed out on me so you're bleeding internally internally, and then um, for I don't need to explain the rest, but there's only one way for um for it to come out.
Speaker 3:So I'm losing blood constantly okay and um, they're like the only way to heal that or fix that is when we go in surgically down your throat. Um, unless they're expanded, we can cauterize them, but that's generally not what happens. It just randomly, when they it happens, they bleed out right I've had probably 12 colonoscopies, maybe five to eight endoscopies.
Speaker 3:Everything comes back clean, no cancer. They started, uh, testing me for leukemia and then they started doing a bone marrow testing and told me that my bone marrow does not produce any iron. And then there's something called an iron saturation. So if you're not producing iron, you can eat iron or take iron tablets, but if you have no saturation, that iron doesn't bind right to the blood cell, right?
Speaker 3:so they do. Iron saturation is. That don't work either, so says you don't even need to take iron pills because it doesn't saturate. So your only treatment is going to be inject your fur infusion through IV the rest of your life. So now I'm getting mad.
Speaker 2:Get your life right, and now you're dealing with this. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But one of my mentors told me you know, ben and me especially men when you get everything straight, he'll come after you then with your finances or your health. So my health had been attacked and my finances had been attacked. So I had told the Lord, god, I just it was the day that I text you oh, you said there was a miracle that happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, something that was the.
Speaker 3:This is all coming the day I text you and why I told you I was going to do this podcast. I uh, my sister had called me that day like at five in the morning, and she says I had to dream about you. I woke up, was praying for you and I was down and I wouldn't say down like backslid down, but down we're like god fix this kind of thing you know what I mean, like I'm tired of dealing with this.
Speaker 3:I'm tired of going to er, tired of infusions, getting poked and being tired and I can't do what I want to do. After she called me, I'm like, oh, I still got an hour to sleep, laying my head down thinking I'm going to sleep an hour, and I couldn't. I was like, okay, god, I'll get up, started praying and just something clicked and I'm like I'm not going to be telling God, like poor me, or nothing like that. I'm going to do exactly what I teach in my Bible studies and I'm going to do what the word of God tells me to do. And I started to just proclaim and speak in faith. And I started to walk around in my house and I just started to speak faith and I had been reading a brother Winslow's book and he talks about the.
Speaker 3:The four angels that are the cherubs, are around the, the throne, and he speaks on the levels of one being having a human face and an eagle and a lion and ox right and just one of them, which is um the lion is about authority and I just started just speaking that authority and going before God and I just man for an hour I was just like I feel good in my spirit, I feel horrible in my body but, I'm glad I feel good in my spirit, got dressed because I had to go to Fresno corporate office that day and I'm just going the whole way on the highway just proclaiming everything.
Speaker 3:usually I turn on a podcast or something that day and the Lord spoke to me to do this podcast and that he would heal me.
Speaker 2:Wow, praise God, I'm looking for that, victor. So um that he didn't bring you this far, not to do that not to complete the work he didn't.
Speaker 3:I mean God will. He'll make you whole. You know, when you think about the lady with the issue of blood he was caught. God was constantly telling people go and be made whole and when you, when I started studying wholeness. It means to revert back to your original state yeah, it's not just to help me feel better. God Right, Give me new blood.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:And when we know that it's not about us, it's about his purpose through us, why he did it. He wants someone to hear it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, but it's also about, I believe, whatever your gift set is and what God has called you to be, you're going to have authority, you're going to understand a little more about God's process, you're going to be able to speak the word of faith to people for their healing. This is about I think this is about our last day revival and what God's going to do in the church and in the world 100%, and he's equipping you.
Speaker 3:This is an equipment process, in my humble opinion, and through the last three to four years I've had different prophets speak into my life and they're always aligned. One was Brother Winslow. The year before he passed. He came and spoke into my life and they're always aligned. One was one was brother winslow the year before he passed came and spoke over my life very direct, very precise you want to share it yeah, so he he, just I remember I love that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:He said some of you. Tonight you've been dealing with some things and I don't know why I took it personal. He's talking to me and he said but you would think he was talking to people who don't know him because he started talking about repentance. We're going to repent right now and you're never going to deal with that again.
Speaker 3:This is where God started to heal me here, right and I remember he said raise your hands right now. And I raised my hands and I said, god, I don't ever want to deal with those types of spirits or that that I've battled my whole life. And when I did, I just felt refreshed, nothing huge, right, right, put my hands down. And he says brother, can I? You right there? And he's been coming to our church for years never, called me out.
Speaker 3:Right, he called and he says you, I, I see a light. The lord just spoke to me and of course you know I'm doing this and he says you.
Speaker 3:He says common and he spoke over my life. He says, um, I see a light over you, uh, the word you have, the word of wisdom, and uh, god is going to use you. And he started talking about my family, that I was going to give a word and they would not fall to the ground void. And he just began to speak many things over my life and I, you know, when you someone speaks the word of faith to you, or prophetic word, sometimes it's you're trying to pray and and not, you know, go a little radical because you want to hear.
Speaker 2:Right, right right.
Speaker 3:And take it and receive Right. So I was trying to do both, but I just remember the Lord touching me. But I remember both. My sons came and put their hands on me and I could feel the Holy Ghost between the three of us. And then he spoke a word over them the next night, so um two years, uh, last year brother Lava, justin Lava, came and spoke, spoke another word over me and just began to speak about anointing elevation, um, wisdom, knowledge um and then finances.
Speaker 3:And elevation, wisdom, knowledge, and then finances. And then last year Sister Floshaw spoke a word over me and talked a little bit about the spirit of Winslow and that God was going to use me in those gifts, and those are huge.
Speaker 2:For anybody who's watching, who doesn't understand what we might be discussing. We're talking about the nine gifts of the Spirit that are found in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. And God gives those to the church to edify, to encourage, to correct, to strengthen. But you can read about it in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. And bookmarked in between those is 1 Corinthians 13, which is the chapter of love, by which nothing else functions. So he received a word of prophecy, a word of knowledge spoken over him, and so it all fitly joined together.
Speaker 2:Right God. Whatever began in the beginning of your life, the completion is where he's going to use you, in ministry, and that is probably who he's always called you to be. The enemy just tried to subvert that purpose.
Speaker 3:And you kind of know that as a person, but you don't always speak it because you're like well, you know, I kind of messed it up or I diverted through my life and maybe that anointing left, but they had confirmed that the anointing hadn't left.
Speaker 3:and um, the last couple years I've learned before the gifts of the spirit, before you can use them, and what sister flo had told me was he's going to use you because you've been asking him and you've wanted to be used this way and I've always asked that but was unsure that God would impart that to me and I said that to say that the last couple years God began to take me through some things, through some seasons, but I've learned now that they're just seasons. They're to develop the fruits because you can't use the gift correct.
Speaker 2:Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 3:Right fruits, I cannot give a word of knowledge or a gift of healing or discerning of spirit, or the gift of faith without love. I have to have love, I have to have faith.
Speaker 2:I have to be patient, meekness.
Speaker 3:I can tell you too, right now, that I'm lacking the other ones. I feel like, okay, god, now I know why you did that or why I went through that. Am I there? No, not at all, but God, it's developing and when you let God develop, he'll show you. And you, up to this point, you kind of keep, I kept it to myself, because it actually makes you more God. When the time is right, I'll do it, but I'm not going to say anything and it's not for my glory or to boast.
Speaker 2:But when you put me in a place to do it, yeah, but I'm not going to say anything and it's not for my glory or to boast, but it's for the church, it's for the world to do it, yeah, yeah it'll happen it's for people to you know, look at how much your faith is built and my faith.
Speaker 2:over the years, I mean since I've been a little kid people been giving me words and I look back now and I think it's because they have kept me. They have kept me through all the things that I've been through, knowing that God okay, you saw me there, you made me this promise, you know, and I think that's what they're for. That's why you know, I think the gifts are going to increase. But I think it's interesting that you said you were so rooted in self-sufficiency, dependent on yourself, and and the confidence and the arrogance and the you know, um, all the things that come with self-sufficiency, and so when you allowed God to really work and heal you, he just balanced that out with all of the humility that you were going to need.
Speaker 2:Because I feel like what he has taught me is when you really know your source, when you really know it is never going to be about me, your source, when you really know it is never going to be about me. We don't always know that until the Lord really humbles us, but he humbles us gently, through love, through a place of surrender that we can. Then okay, whatever you bring. Is so not going to be about us?
Speaker 3:It's going to be about him. And I'll share with you how he showed me and then I'll get back to the healing Cause. I know we diverted, but I I didn't forget it. So he showed me because last year I resigned from a a very good corporate office, great job and the Lord blocked me from having a job for 10 months, couldn't get a real estate.
Speaker 3:I couldn't get a real estate job, even though I have a real estate license. I couldn't get a good medical job even though I have my degree. And I couldn't get a job flipping burgers. About five months down the road I realized okay, god, I get it. What do you want from me? Anything you want, I'll do. And I just began to just dig it who my source was, and he began. He showed me like I'm the source right, he's the source.
Speaker 2:Isn't that the greatest lesson? Cause you never worry about it again, and that's why I started quoting that scripture the earth is the lord's influence.
Speaker 3:Everything belongs to him yes even when you get a job, that employer didn't give you that job. God gave me that job. Um, whatever you accelerate, you can thank the people and honor them but know that god placed them in your life or that he aligned you with the right people or the right job, and so he showed me, he orders our footsteps.
Speaker 3:He sure did show me Ten months. I was blocked. I mean I would get blocked by people. I knew in the industry that before they would have just picked me up and I was like, ok, so I just begin to start, start my bible studies back up. I begin to lean on him. Uh, I painted the church. Oh, throwing myself God, whatever it is like, show me what you want. So I did all that and I realized so I'm not going to go further with that, but I know who my source is, and it's him. And then he aligned me in January. And until now.
Speaker 2:It's ridiculous how God has blessed me financially. But, now you know you never have to fight that battle again, but you learned to trust him in that area.
Speaker 3:And he was developing a fruit right.
Speaker 2:He was equipping you for ministry, so that you were, you know, because without the fruit you can't do it.
Speaker 3:And it's important to understand do you suffer through that? Sometimes you do. It doesn't always feel like a blessing Right. It's going to feel like a blessing right. Gonna feel like why, god don't you know that I'll, I could lose a house or I got I still got to pay the bills, all the secular things of the world.
Speaker 2:But just remember, god will take you through it, but the bible says too that wisdom is in the house of sorrow and there, and you and all our tears, he holds in the bottle and he will pour them out in blessing. There is so, so, so many verses about sorrow and suffering. That is tied to wisdom and knowledge and understanding, and if we could ever understand how the spiritual world works in the opposite of the natural, we will walk around rejoicing when we do, like the bible says when you fall into divers temptations.
Speaker 2:Rejoice, you know, give god praise like it's the hardest thing in our flesh to do yeah, but it does not come without purpose.
Speaker 3:And now, when something comes my way, I feel like there's a breakthrough coming.
Speaker 2:There's a reason, right right, bring it on. Yeah, bring it on.
Speaker 3:But you know, be careful what you pray for. But if you really do want it, god will take you through it but he'll bring you out victorious. You through it, but he'll bring you out victorious. So back to last Wednesday, when I'm talking to the Lord and I text you and I said I'll do this podcast, I begin to tell the Lord on the way home from Fresno. I say God, I don't know why I'm just thinking I need I know what I need I need a 12 level blood. I haven't been that in 10 years. So I need 12, 12. I don't know why I'm just asking you, god, I'm not asking for 14, I need 12.
Speaker 2:If you'll do that for me to bring your blood count up to 12 uh liters in your body and the week prior to that I was at the hospital and my blood level was 7.1.
Speaker 3:They will not transfuse you until you drop below 7. That's policy. So I know in a week it's already below that. So my doctor calls me that same day that I text you.
Speaker 3:And I had asked the Lord I want 12. Show me 12, lord. And Dr Bhaskar, who's an amazing physician here. He calls me. He says hey, dr Bryson sent me your labs. I need you to go to the hospital tonight and get a transfusion. I said I know I'm going to work right now I have clients still six. I'll go after work. He says you promise, and I said I promise I'm going tonight because I hadn't been feeling well, I knew I was weak. He says okay, because by now you're probably below seven. So I already put an order in they'll transfuse you tonight. Uh, I went and I sat in the. They took me right away and did my labs, did my whole workup. Heart rate was like 130. My blood pressure was about 180 over 110. Those of you that know that's not good, that's not my norm. And they took all my. They triaged me and said we're going to, we're setting up a room for you, we're going to give you transfusion, of course, took my blood labs um.
Speaker 3:An hour later the physician comes um and he said he takes me to a triage room and he says good news and bad news. And I said, okay, well, just give me the bad news first. And he says bad news is I can't transfuse you today. He said the good news is your blood level is 12 point something it was 12.1 without a transfusion.
Speaker 3:Hallelujah so I, just like you know, wide-eyed to him and I said well, you know that's impossible. He says that is impossible because your doctor sent us the other labs. He said so we could do, uh, a couple of things. He says but we can. We can either, um, you know, do another lab and or you can go back tomorrow and see your provider and figure something out so I said, well, I'm already been here two hours, let's just do it.
Speaker 3:And um my heart rate. I'm always checking, it's always on and it's always high I saw it when you came in, so uh, he says, yeah, I agree, let's do that. As soon as he leaves, the lord prompts me like I'm blessing you, and I said you know what, god, you are blessing me and I'm probably healed yeah here I am still questioning god, right?
Speaker 3:so I put my heart rate deal on and I'm even sitting. I'm usually a 110. It was 69. Wow, which is normal. And I said, lord, I know you just healed me. Yes.
Speaker 3:And I'm going to leave, and so I find the provider. I literally walk and go find him and I said can you have just do my stats real quick? And I think I'm going to reconsider. They came back, did my blood pressure? It was normal. It was like 120 over 80. Um, everything was normal praise lord and I said I've reconsidered god still does miracles.
Speaker 3:I said I'm gonna go home and I'm just gonna count my blessings he goes okay. I went home that night. Sister kathy and I slept for nine hours straight which is not my norm. I just can't do that. I knew god had healed me and um those of you that are watching, that would take five transfusions to get me from there to there, or two years for it to build up.
Speaker 2:God had from seven to.
Speaker 3:God had did it in a matter of hours.
Speaker 2:Wow, with no transfusion.
Speaker 3:The day that you went to conference which we had the ladies conference. I had went that day Didn't plan on going to host or anything and went to my provider Just to get confirmation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think we need to do that Because people need to see that. Yeah, and I think we have to. We need to do that because people need to see that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and a lot of times it's just a verbal oh my God, I want it on paper. And so I went and my provider says how was your transfusion? And I said I didn't have one. He says why? And I said because it was a 12. He said that's not possible. He says, and he has a nurse practitioner with him. He says let's do an in-house today. He said cause it's possible. They gave you labs on the wrong patient and I said Dr Bhaskar, I don't know what your faith is, but I know that God is healing me. And I knew that day that I was going to tell my provider that I don't know why I just felt impressed.
Speaker 3:That day. I was going to tell my provider god is healing me and I did. He says okay, let's just double check. They checked it, come back and they told me it's actually 13 abundantly above all that we could ask or think right thank you jesus, that's amazing. Thank you Jesus, that's so exciting he is amazing and I have it on paper. I have two labs dated just days apart and no transfusions in between.
Speaker 2:And so, Victor, when I saw you on Friday night at church, so I totally got blessed watching you. Did you? Have you ever prayed for people like you did that night, or was that? Do you feel like that was the beginning of something for you? Uh, I have, but in smaller settings, I felt like you, were across the entire church praying for people and, um, I I didn't plan on going to church that day.
Speaker 3:I had just got back from the doctor. Sister Grogan had called and said hey, someone's going to be missing. One of the young men can't host. Can you host? And I said, sure, since they have me on the phone, let me tell you what the Lord did for me today. Then we wrapped it up. I said I'll be there in an hour. When I got to church, she church. She says, hey, I kind of told sister flow a little bit and she's kind of going in the direction of miracles tonight and she would like you to speak a word of faith and, um, maybe even tell your testimony. But the, the, the. It just didn't work out that way, so I just let whatever she directed me.
Speaker 2:She was in the holy ghost and she did ask you to share your testimony. I thought so after she did, but I think you were in the Holy Ghost and you just got excited.
Speaker 3:She did. I thought about that. I think I was radical and excited, but that's just how you feel when God just does something amazing. I just felt to just speak. I literally felt like anybody who needs prayer. I'm going to pray for you and I'm not just going to do it, I'm going to it's because I truly believe that I knew that the lord had what?
Speaker 3:he did for me so, but she did give me a word after and she said I don't know if you know, but god imparted something today and you were able to impart it. And that's what it's about. It's not about me or you. It's about his work. Yeah. And what he's doing. Right. And moving forward in the kingdom and I thank God that he would love me enough that through all that I've been through yeah.
Speaker 2:To use you in such a beautiful way. So what a mighty God that we've been through. Yeah, it doesn't use you in such a beautiful way.
Speaker 3:So what a mighty God that we serve. Amazing, he's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he really empties us out of ourself to fill us more. Um, I was going to ask you something else about your ministry, so that's what it was. Do you like? Do you feel like? Um, the Lord is calling you to like the healing gifts, to be able to pray for the sick, or you know, because we have a lot of people in the church that are dealing with physical ailments. Yours was very scientifically proven, if you will, but I do think a lot of things in our physical health are scientifically proven, but spiritual in nature. Not everything, lot of things. I think a lot of things are and, um, how was I gonna say just now? Um, but but god definitely did work in you. So what are you? What are you feeling? Led to in in all of that? Do you know?
Speaker 3:I do. I, I feel in the holy ghost that god is taking us to the next level, not just me, but the bible. You know, I in my bible, so I teach about oikos. Oikos is those around you your family, your friends, those that surround you, and that's why, when you get in the presence of people that are consecrated, it almost just like jumps on you or you know. Yeah, you feel it.
Speaker 3:It's not them, it's the holy ghost, it's god it's him and I want god to do that through me, that that where I go he goes we are the church we're supposed to be that not the four corners where we go.
Speaker 2:Right he goes we're supposed to do what the apostles did.
Speaker 3:Healing right now. Then we pray and we speak the word of faith and um. If you need the Holy ghost right now, that we do it right now we don't say well come to church.
Speaker 3:On sunday right no let's pray right now, yeah, let's let god do what he's gonna do and take us to that level that I am the church yeah and I bring with me the holy ghost because he lives in me right and and um, where we get out of the patterns of three songs, offering in a sermon that we walk out when the Holy Ghost tells us to walk out, and we're obedient to the word because he told us to go pray for so-and-so. They're feeling God right now and they don't need to wait till the altar call to be healed or to have the Holy Ghost or to have a need met right here right now.
Speaker 3:I have a need met right here right now and I'm learning in this stage of my life is obedience, and that's tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think all us backsliders. That seems to be key, because I think it was a bad word. As a kid, you know, but as an adult, obedience comes because we love him. Yeah, we desire to please him. And to serve yeah yeah, right to serve, and it's not a bad word anymore.
Speaker 3:It's a desire of your heart, Because the world looks at Ingo's servant serve.
Speaker 2:Right, right yeah.
Speaker 3:But what an honor to serve the king yeah, it's an honor because, uh, there's so much that comes with that. Yeah, and when the lord? It's one thing for us to trust the lord, but now, when the lord trusts us. Yeah, it's a great feeling, yeah but um it's, it never stops it's still, I still feel, the more I feel like okay, god, now, the more I need to seek you the more I need to read your word the more. I need to consecrate less of victor and more of you, um. And so I?
Speaker 3:I tell people transparently victor's selfish, uh, victor has to die out yeah constantly, yeah, and I have to remind myself it's about him and so, um, I don't know what else to say, but I love god and I love what he's doing, and we are the end time church. There's no doubt about that. We are the end time church and, uh, we don't live in fear. God is coming um. I don't care if you're pre-trib or post-trib, I don't care if I go through the tribulation or he just raptures me. I'm happy that he saved me for such a time is this me too, and he's gonna be amazing.
Speaker 3:Yes, we're gonna see, this is such a time as this, me too. It's going to be amazing.
Speaker 2:We're going to see. This is such a wonderful miracle. I mean all of your story, but the healing piece too, because I think that's going to encourage quite a lot of people. God is doing all of that now, victor, I always end with this what would you say to the backslider who has not returned?
Speaker 3:What would you say to them? I'm sure you've heard it many times that God loves you, but I would say that you're worthy, you're worthy, you're worthy and God will accept exactly who you are. It doesn't matter what you've done, because he paid the cost. When we don't move forward, we're telling God you didn't pay enough. Right, but he did right. His precious blood was enough and his grace is sufficient. We don't live under the law. We live under. He came to fulfill the law right and um, give god a try yes, yes, god, yes, give God a try.
Speaker 3:Even when you think you're not worthy or I've done too much. This is just a small glimpse of the good and the bad from Victor. I could take you to dark places, spirits that I've seen, not because they were attacking me, because I invited them in. There's dark places we can all go to in life, but then there's a light and that's the.
Speaker 3:Holy Ghost and that God wants to reveal to you who he is. You're never too late. You're never too late. You're never too late and it's worth it. Yeah're never too late and, um, it's worth it. Yeah, so worth it.
Speaker 2:It's worth it.
Speaker 3:There's nothing like him.
Speaker 2:No, what do you want to say to the parent or the loved one of the backslider?
Speaker 3:Uh, believe, I was going to say war and fight. But just believe, believe, speak it. This is something that I do Now. I speak the word of faith before it happened, I speak it into existence, I speak as though it is. That's good and I trust and I believe because the Bible says his promises are yay and amen, and if you're sanctified and you're righteous, you're in right standing with God.
Speaker 2:And he doesn't desire that anyone should be lost.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. You pray it, you speak your child into and even if they're grown adult, you speak them into salvation. That's good you tell them I'm pulling you in. Yes. And you could verbally tell them I have a sister right now. That's good. You tell them I'm pulling you in. Yes, and you could verbally tell them I have a sister right now. She's always talking about her backslid son. I'm like you. Just tell them. Yeah.
Speaker 5:I'm going to drag you there if I have to but you're going to be saved, yeah, and so I speak it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good, that's so good, well, I really appreciate you coming on. That Bless me, bless me. On Friday, I'm really excited about the body of christ overall in our central valley, california, I think we're.
Speaker 2:we're all on just the verge of wonderful things and god's gonna do a mighty work here, yeah, so, um, if you are a backslider or if you know of a backslider, please share this podcast with them. But also, if you have a story to tell, please reach out. Our contact information is probably in the description someplace, but we would love to hear your story because we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. We overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony, and I am so encouraged by the stories I get to hear talking to people. So I mean, please feel free to reach out and thank you for watching. Really appreciate it. God bless.
Speaker 1:Thank you. We are so glad you joined us. If you have a story of redemption or have worn the label of a backslider, we would love to hear from you. If you'd like to support our ministry, your donation will be tax deductible. Visit our website at kathychastaincom. We hope you will tune in for our next episode.
