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
When Innocence Is Stolen: TRB #19 Part 1 of 3
What if your spiritual struggles have been confused with willpower or belief, but in reality, they stem from wounds inflicted long before you could understand them? In this groundbreaking first installment of a three-part series, Kathy Chastain and guest Kelly Ventura illuminate the powerful connection between childhood attachment trauma and our ability to trust God.
Every human is designed as a whole person—body, mind, emotions, and spirit—yet childhood experiences can fracture this unity, creating patterns that follow us into adulthood and spiritual life. Kelly, a licensed Pentecostal preacher with over 25 years of ministry experience, brings profound insight as he explains how the first five years of life establish templates for all future relationships—even our relationship with our Creator.
This episode offers hope beyond simple platitudes. When we understand that "your spirit is what becomes saved first, but your mind, emotions, and flesh need saving too," we gain compassion for ourselves and others who struggle. The healing journey involves recognizing intrusive thoughts as spiritual warfare rather than personal shortcomings, developing consistent spiritual practices, and intentionally choosing to see evidence of God's goodness.
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Kathy has two books out and they can be found on Amazon or Barnes & Noble online:
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 podcast. I'm your host, kathy Chastain, and I am a Christian-based psychotherapist and a redeemed backslider. Today we're going to do something a little bit different with our podcast. But before I begin I want to give a shout out to the studio that I've been recording my podcast in Bright House. The two guys, michael and Steven, have been wonderful. They got the studio together with very little notice and just opened the doors and let me come in. This has been very impromptu. I just really felt to do it. I called them up and we were ready to go within a week. So today we're actually recording episode nine or 19 rather, and they've just been wonderful, so I wanted to shout out to them. Also, I wanted to tell you about our website. It's called the RedeemBackslidercom On. That website gives you a little bit more information about my history but really talks about how you can be involved.
Speaker 2:One of the things we are doing is we've created a prayer group, so some of the backsliders that we've had on this podcast. We meet every Sunday morning before church at 8 am and we have created a list of backsliders. It's so far six pages that we know of just between our local churches here, but what we're doing is we're really looking for the community out there to send us a list of other backsliders that you guys know of, as well as anyone that wants to join us and pray. We're hoping that over the course of this, as we evolve, that we'll get more people on board that will carry the burden to see people return to the Lord, and with that, so visit our website theredeemedbackslidercom, and there's lots of information on there, and with that, today's episode is going to be a little bit different.
Speaker 2:I am not interviewing a backslider today, but rather a colleague that works with me at my practice, kelly Ventura. Practice Kelly Ventura. We are going to do a three-part series on the whole person and how attachment and trauma and distrust and fear create the perfect environment for someone to backslide and to turn away from God, and how God's original plan of restoration through the cross can bring everything back together. I think that if you have any background of wounds whatsoever which I think all of us do I think this might be very interesting to you. So with that, in the studio with me today is my friend and colleague, kelly Ventura. Kelly is a licensed preacher. He's a Pentecostal preacher in the United Pentecostal Church International. He's been ordained for several, several years and has over 25 years of ministry, was on the evangelistic field for quite some time, kelly. I'll just have you give your background for the listeners so they can have a better idea of who you are.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, I was on. Well, I started as a youth pastor, actually did that for a little bit and then began to get invitations to go in other places and so really probably started full-time I would say probably late 90s, 99, 2000, right in that range. And I remember the day I was working and actually working for my father-in-law, and went into his office and said, hey, I feel like God's calling me to do this and this is what I want to do. And it kind of sounds now like he was trying to get rid of me. But he actually just reached across the table and shook my hand and said this is what you've been waiting for, go do it. Wow, what a blessing. Yeah, so it was really cool.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, so started early 2000s, probably traveled for full-time gosh, 15 years maybe, kind of just, you know, kind of like in that area there. But yeah, so travel full time with my wife and daughter. My daughter began to call the backseat of our truck because we had a truck and a fifth wheel. At one point she began to call the backseat of the truck her room. So yeah, we traveled for a long time preaching and, uh, once my daughter got older we kind of settled down more uh here locally, back home in visalia. So yeah, that's kind of uh, kind of, in a nutshell, that's kind of uh what, uh, what I've been up to and and your passion has been also acting and you have traveled with the.
Speaker 2:Uh, what was the name of the drama team from the organization?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did so. The United, the UPC, so it has split up in different districts, right. So the Western district at that time was all of California. So we traveled all over California. We brought together youth from ages I think we started at like 15 to 18, kind of that range and brought youth together from all over. I just bumped the mic, so sorry about that, but we brought youth together from all over the state and we rehearsed and did a drama called the Western District Drama Tour. We would do one production go all throughout the state.
Speaker 3:It was a very, very cool thing, uh, and was able to kind of I was able to kind of bring in my uh, uh, acting experience from high school and college and all that good kind of stuff, um, and kind of direct it into, uh, into church and ministry, and that was kind of a way that God kind of showed me. It was kind of like hey, you know, yeah, you have this ability, uh, but I can also use that ability as well, uh. So it was very, very cool, um. And so, yeah, we did that for about seven years. Uh, my daughter traveled with me. She was very, very young. She traveled with us, uh, I remember vivid memories of her on church pews watching us set up and all that kind of stuff, so yeah, so that was very cool, that was fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so for the last few years you've been more local. You still go out and preach different places and you still do your one man drama, which I think is on Paul right.
Speaker 3:The most recent one I'm doing is on Paul. Yeah, it's the book of 2 Timothy, so it's the last words of Paul, is what I call it kind of a title, if you will, but anyway. So 2 Timothy was thought anyway to be the last word before Paul was executed. So that's kind of like to me that's kind of always been kind of like his last words to, not only to Timothy, it's kind of always been kind of like his last words to, you know, not only to Timothy, but to the church, uh, as well. And if you actually read through second Timothy, it's kind of cool because he's bringing in all these sort of disparate ideas and kind of putting them in one bag and saying, here you go, um, but it's very, very cool.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's kind of what my latest kind of one-man drama is is the last words of Paul. And in addition to your ministry stuff, a while back I don't even know how long it's been now you really became interested in counseling and coaching Right, and so you've had a variety of working with me. Our practice is California Christian Counseling and coaching Right. Um, and so you've had a variety working with me. Um, our practices California Christian counseling. Uh, so works, has an office there. But but you're you really developed a passion for that. Can you talk about where that came from and what led you to that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've always, um, enjoyed cause I'm naturally uh, although you probably can't tell it right now I'm naturally a very quiet person, kind of I'm in my head a lot. You're an introvert, yes. So I always find myself talking with pastors or other people or ministry leaders or what have you, and really listening and kind of just kind of that's my part of the conversation, and then, at kind of the end of the conversation, someone going so what do you think? And then being able to kind of go well, here's my perspective, here's my take, and always been kind of interested in that On the evangelistic field. Sometimes, you know, you get to be friends with pastors and ministry leaders and people and just reaching out. So I think for me, counseling has kind of been kind of an outreach of that, just a natural byproduct, yeah, and being able to talk with people, individuals, couples. We all go through things and what my passion and my desire has been has been going okay, what have I? How have I messed up? You know.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 3:And then what can I take from that and give to someone else and go? Okay, because there's always, I know, a good pastor friend of mine, brother Granquist. Pastor Granquist used to always say he goes. You know what, kelly, there's two ways to learn things. You can learn by watching someone or you can learn by going through it. He goes, it's a whole lot easier to watch from somebody else's experience. And so I always thought, okay, well, if I can do that and I can go, okay, here's what I did, here's what I did wrong, and then here's what you can do to avoid this. I think it's always been something for me is kind of like a cool thing to be able to draw from. You know, like like Samson, drawing honey, you know, from the from the lion, yeah, from the carcass of the lion, right, Drawing honey from that and going, ok, here's the thing that I conquered and I'm going to bless somebody else with.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of been my my take, kind of my thought behind it is this is what I want to do, and so working with people because you work with people that is not just from our church, I mean, you're working with anybody that calls outside of church how has that been for you? How have you enjoyed that?
Speaker 3:Good Because, well know, at the end of the day, whether you're, you know whether you go to a church, you attend a church or you don't. I think at the end of the day you know. To quote a famous song from the eighties people are people, right.
Speaker 3:I was just thinking that people are just people, yeah, and so the best mode, Yep, and so um, when, um, when you realize that it's kind of like, okay, whether you're coming from a church and the type of people that come into my office are usually one of probably three types.
Speaker 3:But one is you know, I'm in a large church and maybe disconnected and don't have that outlet to talk with someone, which is sometimes a symptom of a large church Right, or I'm in between churches. You know, I had a church, but maybe now I'm attending a different church and maybe there's still that disconnect. Or maybe I've been burned out on church right, or never attended, you know and I, but I want still that kind of spiritual voice in my life, you know, and so that's kind of what I mean by people are people. It's kind of like we all are in some kind of stage of that, even if we're in church and we are thriving and everything's going great and we do have those resources. Sometimes it's kind of like well, I want to talk to somebody that doesn't know me, you know that can, can speak into my, uh, into my life, or speak to me, or we can, uh, have a, have a session, so that's something that that I I enjoy a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that that's the beauty of counseling, I think, is that a counselor is very neutral, right? There's no emotional buy-in there, so they have a different perspective because they don't, they're not connected, so it's easier for them to see, maybe, what you can't see as you're going through things. Right, and I'm not building a case for therapy, but, but it's so interconnected and we'll see. So we so thank you for that background of your little resume. We're going to be starting a three-part series on the whole person, which I just said, and so today is part one, and we're going to be talking about God's original design and when innocence is stolen from us as children and how that affects attachment, and you guys will see as we go along how all of this is very interconnected. But I think what you just said is a great segue into discussing the whole person, because people are just people, but we are all made up of body, mind, soul and spirit, right? So you want to elaborate on that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. You know, we were designed originally created for those. You know, I've always preached and taught my whole life. It's body, soul, spirit, but there's actually we can kind of call out another Aspect of that too. So it's the flesh, it's our emotions, right?
Speaker 3:Which we would always talk about as the heart, right, right, our mind and right and our spirit. So the flesh is that physical aspect of a person, our biology, our health. 1 Corinthians 16, 19 talks about that. Our emotions is one thing, and I think sometimes in church we really kind of downplay a little bit sometimes because it's kind of like maybe we don't understand emotions. I mean, church is emotional in itself, in our worship. But sometimes having emotions sometimes is thought of maybe as a negative thing In some denominations.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, exactly, but it's really the maybe as a negative thing In some denominations Right, right, yeah exactly, but it's really the seed of our feelings.
Speaker 3:I often tell people you know, hey, your emotions are kind of like that dash indicator on your dashboard of your car that says, you know, hey, check the engine, there's something going on underneath that we need to look at.
Speaker 3:So emotions like, you know, anger and all that kind of good stuff well, good stuff, all those, all those kinds of emotions, right, uh, are things that are underlying saying, hey, we need to check some things out, we need to look at, look at some things that are kind of going on underneath. Uh, our mind is probably one of those things that, if we can get a victory in our minds, um, it's one of those things that it's an ongoing battle, it's an ongoing process, it's an ongoing struggle, if you want to call it that. But we are constantly bombarded by all kinds of struggles in our mind and usually I find a lot of times, you know, talking with people is that, um, the struggles that happen in the mind usually result from something underneath, some, some kind of belief that people have about themselves, uh, that say you know, I'll pick one, you know I am unlovable, Right, and that kind of bubbles up into our thought processes Sometimes.
Speaker 3:Um, I'll sometimes talk with, with, with, with someone in my office and we'll talk about. You know, we're going to talk about how you were raised, how you were brought up, but we're going to talk about that so that you can have a better understanding or a lens of why you do things now.
Speaker 2:Right, right, because when they say in therapy, you have to go back to your childhood, right, there's a reason we say that, right, you know, because what happens in our childhood is critical to how we live out our adult years, which we will talk about in greater detail, right? So I, I want to, I want to pause for a minute and talk about the flesh piece, um, because I think so. This, this podcast, is really specifically designed for backsliders and for people who are apart from the Lord, whether they ever knew God in the first place but grew up in church and just didn't really have a relationship, or whether they left for whatever reason. But our flesh is, you know, where addictions occur, occur where our need to mask, um, you know, we, we typically will mask all of our hidden parts through our flesh, right?
Speaker 2:Whether, whatever, however we dress up our flesh, our temple, right, um, our central nervous system also is a part of our flesh, and so when people get into behaviors that cause avoiding, like um, particularly emotions, right, people avoid their emotions all the time through addiction, through, um, any kind of instant gratification, whether that's shopping, whether that's sex, whether that's um, whether that's sex, whether that's eating, whether that's substance use. All of that often is about avoidance and so that our central nervous system gets triggered through different things that operate in our flesh realm, things that operate in our flesh realm. And so when it comes to the Lord, like we're probably going to be all over because everything is so interconnected. But when it comes to the Lord, the spirit of God connects with the spirit of man, our spirit right, and our spirit is what becomes saved. But then that has to do a work in our flesh Right and sometimes that process is a little bit slower. So when a person gets saved, their flesh has to get saved, their mind has to get saved.
Speaker 2:Everything goes with that their emotions have to get saved and their spirit has to get saved. Right, their emotions have to get saved and their spirit has to get saved. And so, with that in mind, kelly, when a person comes to church and surrenders their life to the Lord, the first thing that gets saved is their spirit. Right, right, right.
Speaker 3:God's spirit inhabits theirs, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then it's the walking out process that can be super tricky. So do you want to talk about any of that?
Speaker 3:No, and I think that when you were talking about one of the things that kind of I was thinking about when you said we mask things, it's one of the things when we come to God and we do bring everything to him, one of the things that kind of— we think we are Right, right, right Until we're faced with it and it's harder.
Speaker 3:And then later on, God says, well, let's read and let's go through some prayer and let me show you some other parts of yourself. Right, but when we come to him we kind of do that masking. When you said that, that kind of triggered in my head the story of in the scripture, the story of the man the Bible calls it with the withered hand, or the hand that was drawn up.
Speaker 3:Right right Now the Bible man. The bible calls with the withered hand, or the hand that was drawn up right right now. The bible says one of the things in my head now this is the the preacher in me thinking you know, um in the bible it says specifically not enough caffeine this morning, sorry everybody. Specifically it says that it was his right hand.
Speaker 2:Um, and the bible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the bible is specific to mention right versus left, right versus left, because in the Bible right is the hand of power, right is the hand of anointing blessing. You know, the blessing was given through the right hand, all that good kind of stuff. Um, so that's. The Bible specifically mentions the right hand and when the man shows up to church that day, jesus basically calls him out. But when he calls him out he doesn't say show me your right hand. He says to the man with the withered hand he says show me your hand. So that mask could have come on and said here's my left hand right, here's the good hand, here's the hand where everything's okay. But Jesus was like okay, I'm going to leave it to the man to take the mask off and go.
Speaker 3:Okay, here's the part of me that is not okay.
Speaker 2:So with that example of that story, that's, I love that. So where does shame show up, like cause? The man literally had a choice right, right. This is where free will comes in. The man had a choice to show what was. Everything is good on the outside, right, right, to offer his left versus a shame response. We'd want to hide it. We'd want to hide our um, our vulnerability, our our um, the parts of us. That's not perfect, right, but the man was willing to trust God and show his right hand. Kelly, that's so good I've never thought about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think the shame. I think the shame come in when you're asking that. I think the shame comes in, like you were saying in that decision process.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Because it's kind of like okay, I kind of look at shame as something that someone else gave to that person. Somewhere along the line, somebody told that man it's shameful, or something happened where he took on shame and I think that in that moment, when he made that decision to show his right hand, he kind of made that decision on some level right to go okay, this shame that I've been carrying doesn't belong to me.
Speaker 3:right, I'm gonna remove it here and I'm gonna stretch forth my right hand right right, uh, and I think that that's kind of um where it came in and the laws of that time.
Speaker 2:They were very specific he wasn't supposed to be there right, right, so there was already this societal caste system that, um, he was unclean and couldn't be there, right, okay, we're getting ahead of ourselves. So, um, I want to go back to how we are made as a whole person, in our innocence. When god sends us from heaven into this world, he makes us with a purpose and for a purpose. One of my mentors has always said that you are born with a purpose, for a purpose. So we're made up of the flesh, which God designed as the temple that he indwells. Our emotions, the seed of our feelings joy, grief, fear, anger and emotions are designed to signal what's good, what's bad, and they are meant to be acknowledged and regulated. And in that I think that's a huge place. Where people go awry, they'll come back to the Lord, or even for Christians that are currently living in church and pursuing the Lord, it is typically the emotions and the dysregulation of that fear, shame, all of those things that inhibit a person's ability to be victorious in the Lord.
Speaker 3:Right, right, absolutely, absolutely. I think that when we bring that, it's, it's all like, like you were saying, it's all of those things that pull us back and constantly pull us in and and get us back not get us, but pull us back to where we were before. And it's that constant push and pull, uh, that we find ourselves in, and but it's, it's, it's it's when we constantly show up Right and go OK, I'm struggling here, it's kind of going back and forth, but I'm going to show up again. I'm going to show up in front of his presence again. I'm going to go to church again, I'm going to go to counseling again.
Speaker 3:I'm going to go to church again. I'm going to go to counseling again. I'm going to go, and that's kind of where we kind of go. Okay, in spite of kind of all this struggle that's happening here, I'm still going to show up and I'm still going to move forward.
Speaker 2:Right, and we'll find that that's not always easy for a person to do right Because of whatever wounds, wounds that have been afflicted on them as a kid. And so the mind is the realm of our thoughts, beliefs, reasoning and identity. So this is probably the primary place that the enemy shows up. So, in a therapeutic sense, we have intrusive thoughts and automatic thoughts. So you want to talk about intrusive thoughts and automatic thoughts.
Speaker 3:Sure, automatic thoughts are kind of those thoughts that we find ourselves kind of going back to in certain situations, you know, in a variety of different situations, right, but it's always that same thought, so a friend's Probably not even conscious, right. And it's happened so much since we were little humans, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's happened so much and so often. There's kind of that pathway that's automatic, right, and you know, sometimes it feels like I didn't even think about it, but that thought just came to my head. Well, there's been that pathway for so long, that's why it felt like I didn't even think about it or I didn't even realize it. But it's that one thought that keeps coming up. So, for example, I'm unlovable. That can lead us to think, well, if I'm perfect, then I'll be lovable. So it can lead us in certain situations where it's like, okay, our friend stood us up for dinner. Well, it could be, a friend got stuck in traffic, the friend got sick. We don't get a text or whatever.
Speaker 3:And our first thought could automatically be well, I'm cutting them off, I'm not going to text them back, I'm going to you know the mafia, they're dead to me. But what's pushing that is, first of all, you're going to find yourself without any friends. Secondly, what's pushing that is that thought of I am unlovable. Well, that means, you know, if I'm unlovable, the reason they stood me up for dinner is because they don't love me, right, right, uh, so we automatically go to that. So there's those automatic, automatic thoughts that keep coming up so intrusive thoughts have always kind of intrigued me. What, what, what do you about those?
Speaker 2:I think they come straight from hell, definitely, but intrusive thoughts are the and I've had these, you know so.
Speaker 1:I think everyone does right. We just don't.
Speaker 2:The problem with intrusive thoughts is, most people, if you do not understand spiritual warfare, you will see them as your own thoughts. And so I've had little five-year-old kids tell me their brain just tells them things. But an intrusive thought is you know you're driving down the road and oh you should just drive. You know, drive your car over this overpass, or drive your car into this tree right here, you know. Or drive your car into this tree right here, you know. Or I've shared this experience. Well, this was a different experience I'll share. But I've had intrusive thoughts where, you know, I didn't really even trust myself to drive. I wasn't living for God and I was in the mountains, in Reno, going back to Reading mountains. Uh, right, in reno, going back to reading, and um, I just had this overwhelming sense and thought about driving my car off the cliff which I was raised in church.
Speaker 1:I am not suicidal I don't know, what that means you know, but it was such an overwhelming thing.
Speaker 2:I, you know, had to call my dad and and, uh, he prayed for me. I just waited it out. But intrusive thoughts first show up as a seed. It's just a little thought you know, drive your car off of this overpass, or, um, why don't you make a phone call? And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right, it's. Basically it can be anything from a critical thought you're just so ugly, or you're just too fat, no one's going to love you. Or it could come in as a temptation. You know Well, nobody will know this, why don't you go do this, or whatever, right?
Speaker 2:Intrusive thoughts can come in all shapes and sizes, but the original goal, I believe, is the enemy is testing to see what we respond to. Some things are so obvious we just will reject it outright. Like you know, I knew I'm not going to get in my car and drive when I did not feel safe, you know, and I was away from the Lord. Other things become so intertwined with our own identity, especially if there is shame involved, like oh, you're ugly and you know that person's looking at you funny. See, they're judging you Right.
Speaker 2:And especially in a church culture, that is very easy to happen. You know, pastor walks by, doesn't shake your hand. An intrusive thought can easily come in and say see, he knows he doesn't like you, he's judging you, you know, and we have to be careful. That is actually the accuser of the brethren, which the Bible identifies as Satan. And so intrusive thoughts. If we could ever really learn to recognize them for what they are, we would live a much more victorious life. But people that don't have a framework of biblical understanding or don't have a relationship with God, they often believe whatever comes into their brain, because, after all, the brain exists within our flesh, and so, um, they believe that something's wrong with them. You know, obsessive compulsive disorder for example is intrusive thoughts.
Speaker 2:That has grown into a behavioral pattern. Right and so so intrusive thoughts are huge, I think, from a context of just how it affects our emotions, how it affects our behaviors and, a lot of times, how it affects our relationships with ourself, the ability to have confidence in ourself and confidence towards God, but in our relationship with others.
Speaker 3:So that was a very long explanation and I think one of the things too when you mentioned identity and talking about that's kind of where the realm of the mind right, and my mind again harkens back to the very first kind of confrontation that Jesus has with the enemy. Right is in the wilderness, right when he's fasting and praying, and every attack that the enemy brings to him is not anything fabulous, right, anything big, epic.
Speaker 2:Every attack starts off with if you are the son of God Right, every single one of those.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think that that is so important to realize that that is where the enemy comes. If you really are this person, then they would love you. If you really are this person, then they would like you. If you really are this person, then you would be a good Christian, and I think that I'm getting ahead of ourselves.
Speaker 2:That's okay. We'll probably will a million times.
Speaker 3:But I think that's probably part of when we grow up, when we realize, you know, hey, if I have had to earn love, if I've had to earn respect or not respect, but I've had to earn, you know, affection or value in my, in my home, you know, that starts to develop kind of a little mental checklist in our mind that says, if I'm this, then I'm okay, right. And it's hard for us sometimes to go okay, I need to kind of rewire that and go. Nothing I can do will be able to earn God's love.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And you know I'm really careful in I think let's see how do I say this? It's very easy to apply scripture to situations without finding the correlation, but I think, in talking about God's love, it is all-encompassing, it heals every aspect of our mind, our flesh, our emotions and our spirit. But without a relationship with him, without really having an experience with him, it just sounds like hyperbole, right? Is that the right word? And I think that's possibly where there is a disconnect between unbelievers and church, right, or between people who have walked away from God, is maybe they never really had that experience to understand. God is so much more than just what the pastor got up and said on Sunday, right, and I think those people who actually have been in the trenches with the Lord and has had to really kind of walk this out through much suffering, because the suffering is not that God is going to say, hey Kathy, hey Kelly, do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's not what it's about. It's about us coming face to face within ourself and being able to confront our own brokenness in order to receive and apply what God actually has for us, which, ironically, is where identity is found, right, right, it's everything in.
Speaker 2:You know Brother Clark used to say which, ironically, is where identity is found, right, it's everything in. You know, brother Clark used to explain this that the spirit world is exactly parallel and opposite to the natural world. And that seems like a contradiction, right? But it's not. It's just so fascinating, I think everything when it comes to the Lord is so fascinating. So the Spirit is the eternal part that communes with God. Our Spirit carries identity, purpose and a capacity for worship and discernment, and so when it comes to, like we said, the part that is saved, it's our spirit. But when we have a direct connection in our spirit to the Lord, he then imparts into us or reveals to us what he's already imparted into us.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, no. And I think that when that happens too, he begins to rebuild and repair also Right right Things that are in us, that he begins to speak to our spirit, and I think that is why there is this and Nate Wilson, bishop Nate Wilson, I have to get the title right or he'll call me no, he won't. Bishop Nate Wilson always used to say when you are saved, and that infusing of spirit, of our spirit and God's spirit, he said it's like, of course this has a different correlation in the therapy world, but there's an enmeshment, right. Of course in the therapy world, you know, that means something totally different, but in this world it's kind of like his spirit and our spirit are so intertwined and so we abide in him and he in us.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, there's such that close relationship that we cannot help. But sometimes his spirit start to reveal things and to speak to us, and do things for us that on our own we could not do.
Speaker 2:Right, but I love that what you're saying, because let's take that and apply it to enmeshment in a psychological world right, enmeshment is a codependency to another person, it is an intertwining to another person. So if I'm enmeshed with somebody that doesn't love me, that is self-serving, that is super self-centered and selfish or abusive or addictive, my identity is going to be coming from that person, which will be so much less than what God ever has for us, and so that might be a great segue into attachment. Segue into attachment.
Speaker 1:Um, so just to recap, I mean do you think that that it's something is taking the?
Speaker 3:place of god basically right.
Speaker 2:Some person is taking the place of god. We should be enmeshed with him, right um and wholeness, because he's the only pure form of love. Right um, but through brokenness and through you know, when. When you know, the original design of god's plan for us is wholeness, right right, body, mind, soul, spirit. That we would function in unity vertically with him. Right right and so, and then what happens? I mean, I think there's very few people that, that I think there's very few people who have not been affected by a loss of innocence.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm sure, yeah, and and every time that I not every time, but a lot of times when I talk to individuals and and you know, and talking with them in my office and you could probably a thousand times more than me speak to this, Right but, um, I think that even in couples counseling, sometimes you'll, you'll talk about some things and then kind of somebody will say something and you kind of zero in on, kind of like, oh you know, let's talk a little bit more about that, or let's have a one-on-one session and maybe talk about that a little bit more.
Speaker 3:Um, but yeah, I I think that you know, everyone is susceptible and everyone has had something happen to them, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Uh.
Speaker 3:I think, I don't think that there's anyone that is uh uh immune to that yeah.
Speaker 2:so why do you think childhood abuse and trauma occur? Who do you think is responsible for that? From a spiritual lens?
Speaker 3:From a spiritual lens, I think it is fallen nature that gives itself over to lust, temptations, all these things you know, perversions, all these things that attack and when you don't have, when someone does not have that ability to withstand and ability to fight things off right, I think it is a result of someone has have given themselves over and then they unfortunately act on it, you know and hurt someone else, um, and it's.
Speaker 3:that's the worst possible thing. I think one of the worst possible things that could ever happen to someone is that, when that occurs, to realize that this, this comes from yes, a person made this decision, right? You know, a person made this choice to to do this to someone else. I can't fathom how that would be so like traumatic right to someone and affect someone in that way.
Speaker 2:Well, I always think the devil comes to steal, kill and to destroy, and the thing that he loves the most is to steal the innocence from the innocent, because if we are sent from heaven with a purpose or a purpose into this earth, then the enemy is always trying to abort that before we ever discover who God created us to be. And so you know I can't remember where it says it might be in Corinthians, where it says, or Romans, that we either live to the lord, we, we, we only serve one or two masters we either serve the lord or we serve the enemy right, you cannot serve two.
Speaker 2:You would either cleave to one, hate the other right right, right, and so you know the fallen world is a product of of the fallen nature that that came when sin entered because of the fall of Adam, right, right, and so everything is a byproduct of that. And so in some ways, you know, I worked with the offender population for quite some time and I've I've had a huge um and I've had a huge, I had a burden for them, because it never felt I would meet a felony parolee or whatever, and I could see the innocence in them, a lot of the men that are very hardened on the outside. When you sat and talked to them, you can see the little boy in them or the little girl in them. You can see the little boy in them or the little girl in them. You can see the innocence in them. But then the the product of the mask. They were on the outside to hide. That you know um, but you, but they always kind of revert back to who they were before abuse took place, which I've always found so fascinating.
Speaker 2:And so in that sense, it's easy to love people when you know that people are just reacting out of their absence of God. You know what I'm saying. Like we really need to be blaming the enemy for what he does to people and how he manipulates them, and then, obviously, people have free will. I just recently experienced that with something. But, um, yeah, it's easier to see and even maybe separate the person, because they will always be a soul first, right between the person who is a soul and the behavior that they're acting out of, because the enemy has predominance in their life and that is that is difficult, I think, to do, um, for, for, for anyone that is.
Speaker 3:So I mean, that's, that's the to me. We're, you know we're talking about, you know, god, uh, and filling our spirit and our mind and all the four aspects.
Speaker 3:And I think that is probably one of the toughest lessons not lessons, but one of the toughest things that people have to kind of come to terms with is making that separation out Right, especially if you've been offended, right. I mean, that has to be something that is almost kind of like that's the standard, right, that's the perfection. I'm never going to probably quite get there, you know, but you know I'll. If someone is, is, is fortunate enough and and and is able to get to that place where they show forgiveness, it's still okay to go. Oh, but I can't let that person back into my life right, of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's boundaries right right, there's always another podcast, it is another podcast yes, yes um, so so, for the people out there listening, when you came into this world, god created you perfect, and whatever home that you were born into formed you right To become and your free will choices to become whoever you are at this moment in time, for good and for bad. And so that leads us into attachment. There are four kinds of attachment, and the way we attach to somebody, or our ability to attach to the Lord, is rooted in our home that we're born into. Like I said a minute ago, yeah, attachment is probably at the root of of everything, of every you know of everything and I think about, um, my friend kim phillips.
Speaker 2:Um, I don't know if yeah, if yeah, they were at church with us growing up.
Speaker 2:Um, but I think kim phillips is such a great example of secure attachment absolutely and one day I wanted to have her on here because she's my friend from childhood and she, you know, I don't want to say she's never made a mistake in her life. But you know, from the outside looking in, kim has really done it right. She's lived for God her whole life. I don't think she ever got wrapped up or entangled with the kind of temptations that we did as kids, you know, in youth group. She got married at an early age. She is a pastor's wife and Kim, to me, is the epitome of love and gentleness. You know me of love and gentleness, she's just so loving. Anytime you meet her, any place you see her around town, she's just so loving. And that is a byproduct of her secure attachment, because she was raised in a home with two parents that loved her and spent time with her and gave her attention.
Speaker 2:And so attachment is about when your caregiver, in all of our cases as a parent, shows up for you when you need them. When you're a little baby, if you cry, they're right there to comfort you. They're right there to feed you. If you're a toddler and you need help, they pick you up and they do all the things you need right. It's a sense of safety and security, you know. Hence secure attachment, and so everything after that can create chaos in our life, which I'll. I'll let you talk about those types of attachment. But secure attachment is very hard to come by, and, yeah, it's just very hard to come by, and I would, I would think that in today's culture it is definitely the minority, it's a rarity. Yeah, it's definitely a minority, and everything else is. You know, the other kinds of attachments.
Speaker 3:So right, uh, so the um. Sorry, what's the actual name of?
Speaker 2:it avoidant anxious avoidant and anxious.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:And disorganized.
Speaker 3:Okay, all right. Yeah, so you know there's avoidant attachment when you know caregivers are distant. You see the effect that that kind of an attachment has on youth at that age, because as a child they learn to sort of suppress emotion, to kind of avoid any kind of closeness, to kind of put people at an arm's distance, and you can really kind of see how that leads to sort of a emotional detachment from everyone else. It definitely shows up, like when I would talk to student ministries. It definitely shows up at that stage, you stage, you know talking, you know 15, 16, 17, 18, right in that age it's kind of like now it's kind of like I don't want to say in full blossom, but kind of like in full effect now where you can completely see where okay now.
Speaker 3:and and I think sometimes when a young person as is that stage too and they've learned that at a very, very super young age, they've learned that type of attachment, I think that the challenge is to plug them into a body of believers right.
Speaker 3:Because it's kind of like well, the person that was supposed to care for me uh did not, you know, or they were unavailable, or they kind of you know, pushed me away, right, and I think that, um, when you start talking about the church is your body, it can, or the your body, but the church is the body of christ. Right, it can go one of two ways. Right, it can go like oh yeah, I've never had this before, great this feels great and this is automatic connection right, or obviously the other side, where it's like I don't know yeah, I don't fit
Speaker 2:right didn't fit at home, don't fit here, right? Yeah, so avoidant attachment occurs when the caregiver is distant or unresponsive, the child learns to suppress emotions and avoid closeness, which leads to emotional detachment. So, yeah, definitely shows up in early adolescence and teenage years and then, for sure, in marriage and relationships. Right, oh, absolutely. When someone is unable to emotionally connect, there's like this veil that's present that prevents them from being able to connect. Right, and most people are unaware, right, they just grow up and think that who they are is normal. They're not always even aware of themselves. They have no self-introspection, which can lead to lots of personality disorders.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and when I talk to people also, sometimes it's kind of like okay, guys, as far as couples go, hey, we're designed to connect on a lot of different levels and if we're only connecting on one, then that's going to build resentment in a relationship, right, and so if you're not connecting emotionally as well as physically and spiritually and socially and all these other kinds of things, that's going to harbor feelings toward the other person in your relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we're a whole body creature, right? So important to note that attachment bonds get broken when a child is zero to five years old. Now there's some research that says it's zero to seven years old, but I believe it's zero to five because I've had five-year-olds, I've actually had four-year-old kiddos. You know, and you can already see and they're already behaving. So I think by the time a kiddo is five, six and seven years old, there's already some patterns developed. And I think the research is, by the time a child is eight years old, 80% of their emotional regulation or dysregulation is already established. That's a very scary thing at eight years old. And so for anybody that are youth pastors, sunday school teachers, teacher teachers, this window that we have with kids in elementary school and, you know, up to eight years old, is where we really have the ability to influence children for good.
Speaker 3:So crucial.
Speaker 2:It's so, so crucial. And I've become such a believer in Sunday school ministry because that's our formative years and it's really hard to unlearn what we have learned if we didn't learn something great. You know about the Lord, right? So anxious attachment results in inconsistent caregiving. So if a parent, if you got a little baby, and the parent is inconsistent, right, sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not I'm guilty of this. As a parent, I've mourned and grieved and asked God to remove it from my son. But I got divorced when my son was like nine months old, and so we that's a whole different story but we shared custody and so the way the courts were set up is I would have him a few days, his dad would have him a few days, and he's nine months old, he's still very close to nursing and very attached to his mama, and then I have to let him go and then he's with his dad and his dad was a great dad. So no complaints there.
Speaker 2:But my child grew up very anxious and I distinctly remember one night and I wish the Lord would remove this memory from me, but I remember one night because I was really crazy back then, really wounded actually, and I just didn't know how to deal with it except through alcohol. And my little toddler child was probably two and a half or three years old and I had lived with some friends in a condo and I'd put him to bed. It was probably 10 o'clock at night by this time He'd already been put to bed, you know, laid with them. While he fell asleep, thought he was all tucked away. I was getting ready to go out for the night with my girlfriends and his babysitter was going to take care of him, and as I was getting ready to walk out the door, my little baby was standing at the top of the stairs, crying, you know.
Speaker 2:And I think about how he grew up feeling so anxious. And, you know, as he grew I'd always told him, but I could remember seeing him and his feeling was always that I was going to leave, always, always, always. And I think that's the effect of a broken home on kids, and a lot of kids grow up very anxiously attached when divorce occurs, because what was normal for them in their early childhood became disrupted and they no longer knew what was going to be safe and secure, because everything that they knew and had been taught got totally blown out of the water and I never really understood how severe severe divorce is for children at early ages, because we and I was guilty of this. I thought that my son just wouldn't remember. In it he talks about how our body, even in utero, when a mom is pregnant, retains memory and retains the effects of trauma, whether mental, emotional, physical.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:It's quite fascinating. So divorce plays a huge, huge role in anxious attachment. But anxious attachment is really where codependency kind of sets in. And you teach the Christian codependency book. What have you learned through that process?
Speaker 3:Well, what I've learned is kind of being able to look at and realize that people who end up with, or end not end up with, but end up in a codependent relationship sometimes we focus a lot on the behavior of the other person, right that they're enmeshed with right, right, right.
Speaker 2:And so we're responding only to their behavior. If they're nice to me, I'll be nice to them, Right? If they're mean to me, I'll be mean to them. Or if they're moving away from me, I'm going to try to. I'll be really anxious to get them back to me.
Speaker 3:But then my thing has been kind of looking at okay, so you have the codependent person that's enmeshed with this other person. How did that codependent person end up there? And then we go back to things like attachment.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:What happened in childhood.
Speaker 3:Right, and one of the courses that we talk about is we talk about the framing and the structure of home Right, and that's one of the first chapters that we talk about, because we model, we live out what we see at home. So if this is how it happened at home when we're zero to five, or zero to seven, if this was how it was carried or presented to us when we're very young, this is how we're going to do it in another relationship. I once had a therapist tell me one time we were talking and he said you know what he said. Sometimes people buy a new car hoping that it's going to change their driving behavior. This new car is going to be great.
Speaker 2:It's going to fix it all.
Speaker 3:Right, right, but he said you realize, though. He said you can buy a new car, but you have to fix the driver. Right right, and so we talk about. You know, in that course we talk about so much about how what we see at home and what we've developed is what we're going to carry over into our next relationship.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And if we don't realize that and be able to identify that, then we're still going to keep not only carrying that over into the next relationship, but also that's what we're going to model to our kids, right, and it kind of perpetuates that codependent behavior down the road, not only for our own relationships, right, but for our children's and grandchildren's relationships too.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:So important. The last attachment style is a disorganized attachment, which is developed when caregivers are a source of both comfort, um, and fear. So typically that's with abuse, right, um, we see this in a domestic violence cycle. But a child lacks a real, clear understanding of what their household will look like. So let's say you have a little kiddo who grows up with an alcoholic parent. Alcohol is so unpredictable this kid doesn't know. Okay, how's mom coming home tonight? Is mom going to be loving and have dinner made, or is mom going to be asleep on the couch or screaming at us for no reason, right? Or dad, is dad going to even come home after work and is mom going to be all crazy and worried because he's at the bar, or you know, on and on? Or is dad going to be angry and start beating up mom or start beating up us, right? Or you have a parent that sexually abuses their child, right, you never know. You never going to know what role you play as the child if you have to protect yourself. At night, is your parent gonna come in and abuse you? Or during the day, you know they're on the pta board like, right you know?
Speaker 2:Disorganized attachment is when both are present at the same time and a kid has no sense of safety, um, or really sense of real love, right, absolutely so. That that's a huge um, it's a huge issue and it's so very common, especially with childhood trauma, which is neglect, and that's more when a parent is avoidant a lot of times. So neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and then psychological abuse, which is a lot of verbal abuse and and manipulation and control. Like, we don't always talk about manipulation and control of a parent when it comes to psychological abuse, but when you have a parent who is narcissistic or borderline or any of these other personality disorders which, by the way, are rooted in childhood trauma, a kiddo can grow up with all that kind of stuff, right? So, kelly, I'm going to break these back down specifically. So, a person that has avoidant attachment, the inability to connect emotionally, how is that going to affect their ability to connect? Talk to God, pray to God, connect with God, connect with a pastor, connect with a church you know what would you say?
Speaker 3:That's going to affect them, I mean on a trust level. So it it boils down to trust. Can I trust this person, you know, because, um, I, I haven't got, I haven't received that level of care, and so it's developed these kind of thoughts and behaviors in me and so I don't know not necessarily behavior, these ways of communicating with the world, and I lack trust.
Speaker 2:Do you think they're aware of that?
Speaker 3:I think sometimes they are at a superficial level. I think that there is that awareness, but I think that a lot of what they're experiencing is being driven by that breakdown of trust on a very deep level. And so I think that when you start talking about God as your father, right, that's a difficult bridge sometimes for people to cross, right. Right, yeah, because of their past experience. But then when they get to the point where they realize god is love, but like you were talking about pure love, right, um, that's when the bridge starts to get crossed, right, um, and I think that it's difficult when there's not that trust there. I think that it's difficult for people to establish relationships in church, right, and when there's that vulnerability issue, because, basically, trust is built right on a series of people being vulnerable with each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're gonna get to that in the next episode, I think. Because, trust and fear is a huge factor.
Speaker 3:Right, because when people have that trust issue, it's kind of like I can't connect to the church because it's not that I don't trust the people, right, it's that there's something in me that automatically questions all of these things.
Speaker 2:And avoidant, particularly avoidant attachment. They really lack emotion in general. They really lack capacity sometimes for the emotion itself because they didn't receive it. Right, you know, probably the biggest form of of neglect. And so, um, for applicable purposes, if you are a person who recognizes me, you know I'm not really attached to people very much. I can take them, relieve them.
Speaker 2:Someone breaks up with me, it never really quite breaks my heart. Yeah, I'll miss them, but I wasn't really attached. If you're a person that finds yourself with that, I would really, from a sincere and earnest place, ask you to say a little prayer for God to reveal to you where that got broken, because God wants to heal that you know. And so as God begins to do the work of restoration on our hearts, he will expose parts of us that are wounded. And so, if you know because you won't feel it probably, but if you know and I don't quite get attached to things that might be a clue that you need some healing in that area and ask God, god, just give me the emotions that you created me to have, because they seem to be missing. They're not missing, they're just buried under trauma, right? So anxious attachment. That's where codependency comes in. So what does that person look like in the Christian faith?
Speaker 3:Sometimes an anxious someone has that anxious attachment. Anxious someone has that anxious attachment that's going to look like someone that does. I'm trying to say this delicately. In the church world always says yes to everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people pleasing.
Speaker 3:Yes, I see that a lot. And there was a book I cannot remember the title of it, anyway, it was basically a boundary book. It might have been Cloud in Townsend, I can't remember, but it was talking. Remember the title of it. Anyway, it was basically a boundary book, it might've been cloud in towns and I can't remember, but it was talking about the power of saying no, that it's okay. Don't tell people, it's okay to say no.
Speaker 2:And you can't say no, though, until you know who you are, because codependency is about getting my value from you, right, right, if. If you're the person that gives me my value, I need that.
Speaker 3:Right, right. So someone in church that is facing that kind of, or that has had that kind of, attachment in the past is usually someone that will always be the one that will take on other tasks. Even though it's driving them crazy, you know, and it's stressing them out, and they've got so many things on their plate, they will always take that on. That's really what it looks like a lot of, and it can also look like being a little needy, needing a lot from leadership, a lot of reassurance, yeah, reassurance, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I've seen that a lot. Yeah, I've experienced that sometimes too. No, no, I have too. I've seen that a lot. Yeah, I've experienced that sometimes too. No, no, I have too. I mean.
Speaker 2:I tell my pastor all the time. I sometimes just call his family so I can say this, but I'll call him and just say I kind of miss you. I need to talk, basically because that's appropriate. There's times we do need to do that, and I think there's times we do need to do that and I think there's times we do need encouragement. You know from our leaders and pastors. But when there is an attachment wound and it comes out through anxious attachment people, I'm going to just relay this back to God. This is the person who prays, prays, prays, and when God doesn't answer right away, they become very anxious about whether they did something wrong, whether God is listening to them, whether God is going to answer their prayer, and so they really struggle with patience to wait on God's timing or struggle with just leaving their cares at the feet of the Lord and getting up and going about their day, because they need God to respond. And often the Christian journey is God is showing us who he is, sometimes when he doesn't respond.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And that's very hard for someone who has anxious attachment. And I think this is where people come into the church and you know that parable of the seed that falls into the ground.
Speaker 3:Different kinds of ground.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I think, as leaders and pastors, and even Christians who go to church, it's helpful to understand the behavior patterns of people with their attachment issues, because it's all just really a byproduct of what happened to them in childhood, you know, and how they can struggle in their relationship with the Lord, you know. So, last one, disorganized attachment. This is the person that comes from an abusive home, an alcoholic home kind of. You know the good and the bad.
Speaker 3:Right, right, I would you know if you've seen the good and the bad. Right right, I would you know if you've seen the good and the bad. I think, though, sometimes, that when you've experienced both of those things and had that kind of attachment, I think that, as far as the church goes, I think it's the person that is. You know, again, I'm I'm speaking slowly and thinking slowly here because I don't want to offend anybody or anything like that but I think it's kind of one of those types that are on the mountaintop on Sunday and Monday morning they're crashing in the valley.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. And and I think the challenge for when, if someone says, yeah, I recognize myself, as you know, as having this kind of attachment, I think that the challenge is to go okay, let's find a consistency in God, and I think one of the challenges of that is going okay.
Speaker 2:They don't know how.
Speaker 3:And they don't know how. And one of the best ways, I think, to kind of work that out is to go all right, I am going to pray for 15 minutes a day, 10 minutes a day, whatever your schedule allows, an hour, whatever your schedule allows. Right, I am going to do this for this period of time to establish sort of a consistent thing that I do every day, so that I can not only experience through prayer but I can go oh look, I'm doing something consistently on a daily basis in my spiritual walk with God. That's helping me to sort of counteract all of the other things that I suffer from, from that attachment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think that I totally just lost my train of thought. But those become the behavior patterns that form right. And so there's a fun little quote that says you do good, you feel good, you do bad, you feel bad. And so it's not about how much time you spend in prayer 15 minutes or whatever. God's there, he's there with us, no matter what. But it's about what you're doing to yourself when you tell yourself I am dedicating this time to spend in prayer.
Speaker 2:Or reading Right or reading your Bible. You then know hey, I've done something good, check that off my list. I can now pat myself on the back knowing I'm on the right track. I am spending time with the Lord, I am spending time in my word. It makes it much more difficult for the enemy to come in and condemn you because he does right. Oh, you didn't pray today and you didn't do this today. So when we develop these patterns, I really sort of feel like god is so perfect in the way he does everything because he understands this right. The bible says as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. That's really the foundation of cognitive behavioral therapy right, yeah so.
Speaker 2:So all of those things are so interconnected in our ability to become whole in him, but also in the way we perceive ourselves. Right, because at the root of attachment is a wound. You didn't get what you need. You know wounds are basically not getting your needs met, or being abused and told a lot of horrible things about yourself to where you don't know yourself, you don't know your value, you don't know your worth, um, and that becomes a seedbed for all sorts of lies from the enemy and so um. So you know that that can come, like I said earlier, from divorce, from sexual abuse, from physical abuse, from verbal abuse, from poverty, even accidents um yes, from or or uh.
Speaker 2:Criminal activity yeah, accidents, car accident, brain injury, traumatic birth experience there's so much that contribute to a person's ability to form secure attachment. But the good news is that God has given us a way to heal, and I believe that he reveals himself to us as the provider, the protector, our refuge, our counselor, the mighty God, our prince of peace. He reveals himself to us in all those ways as we begin to heal through all of these things that happen because we live in a fallen world.
Speaker 3:Right, and I mean, one of the major reasons why God revealed himself in so many names is because he realized humanity is facing so many different things, right, that I have to not have to, but I want to reveal myself to each and every one of these situations, but it's the same, god, right. Yes, he's the great I am so he's going to be, and he works all that out in us and develops those patterns that counteract everything that we've learned in the past.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. You know, and that is something that to me is kind of I don't know I'll say fabulous, because what it does is that mind that was in Christ, that sacrificial, that you know, the joy that was set before him, all of those things, if it is in us, it can equip us and arm us, so to speak, to address all of that that has happened to us in the past, right, right, but be also be able to not just address it, but to bring us out and uh along the way and help us move forward and establish healthy patterns, establish things in our lives that are, you know, whatsoever. Whatsoever things, whatsoever, things are pure, whatsoever, things are just right.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 3:Think on these things right. I think that's so important?
Speaker 2:because I tell people all the time in therapy. The Bible tells us what to do Think on these things, because when we have negative thought patterns and we have intrusive thoughts and we constantly only see the bad, he instructs us. Now you have to, on purpose, with your free will, choose to think what's good, Choose to think what's lovely, choose to think what's just, and that takes effort. I have to sit down and make a mental list. You know, and I do this often. I have a note on my phone right now. What do I know for sure? I come back to that question all the time, no matter where we're at in our journey, like none of us have ever arrived, we don't ever have all the answers.
Speaker 2:I have to constantly come back to what do I know for sure about God and about myself and who I am in him, who he says that I am, and constantly remind myself, as David, predisposed to think the worst. We are predisposed to see the worst. We have to work at looking at what's good and what's true and what's lovely and what's honest and what's of a good report. But you know, I used to tell people in nutrition it only takes a few weeks to learn how to eat right, and then it's just what you do. It just becomes who you are, and so we have to learn new things.
Speaker 2:But I guess the takeaway I want to leave with people and I'll let you give a takeaway too is we are not our behaviors. We do have free will, um, but I think God you know. No, but we do have free will and I'm grateful every day that I did not die in my sin, um. But what I do want to say to people is a lot of our behaviors that take us away from God and cause us to fall into temptation and cause us to see the world through a lens of rejection or a lens of abandonment is usually a product of the devil's working in early childhood, and that is not who God says that you are, and so you know.
Speaker 2:I would encourage you, if any of this resonates with anybody listening, I would really encourage you to get curious, really, about who does God say that you are right, because he made you on purpose, with a purpose, and it's not too late I'm a super late bloomer, so you know. Be curious about who God is if it's been a long time since you've looked at him as a possibility and who he says that you are. What do you want to say to?
Speaker 3:people. No, I'm going to go back to the scripture that I talked about. You know, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Right, it is no matter where we're at or what we're facing. Allowing his mind to be in us.
Speaker 2:How does someone do that?
Speaker 3:To allow ourselves to go okay, there is something bigger, there is something better for me down the road, to allow God to show us what he has in store for us.
Speaker 2:And so what would the first step be for someone who wants to do that but doesn't know how to do that?
Speaker 3:The first step, I would say, is to open your Bible, and today we can look on our phones, right now, and you can do a search and say you know, do a search about you know, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, and then begin to take those scriptures that you find about you know all of these different things, and begin to wherever you're at Right. I need scriptures on you know, the battle of the mind. I need scripture on whatever you know sin, temptation, whatever the thing might be and put those things in a list and begin to not only read those on a daily basis, but begin to pray those on a daily basis, but begin to pray those on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:Ask God for those.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and what I've done is is is I've been in times in my life where I have gotten, I have finished praying Right and I have you know God's listened to me. Carry on for an hour or whatever.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And then I finally said okay, god, I want you to show me. I'm not trying to super spiritualize anything, but I just say God, I want you to show me how you see me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, and all I've done is I don't recommend people just open up the Bible and start reading. I find the scripture that pertains to you Right, but I've done that before and I have just said God, show me how you see me. And I was flipping through an old Bible the other day and I found a mark that I had put in one of my old preaching Bibles and I opened it up and it was right in a spot and I was like, oh, I wonder what you know. And I began to read it and I was like, oh, this is the answer that I just asked God for. I was like you know what? There's a reason why I just randomly stuck a bookmark in there, however many years ago.
Speaker 3:But to begin to not only pray those scriptures and ask God what are those scriptures? Or to begin to search for them on your phone, but then at the end of your prayer time, go now, god, show me. And God may not open up the Bible and show you the exact scripture, right, but throughout the day, there's going to be things happen to you. Be attuned to those things. Things are going to happen to you. Things are going to come your way, opportunities are going to come your way. There's going to be a song that you're going to be streaming that's going to speak to you. There's going to be a message, a podcast, that is going to speak to you. Hopefully, that is going to be attuned to those things throughout your day, because they're not just circumstantial, they're intentional and by God, to get your attention.
Speaker 3:It's a temptation for us to go. Oh, this is circumstantial, this just happened to be on here, and I think that kind of comes back to kind of how we are wired as people. We are really good as human beings. We are really good at collecting evidence against us, right. Why we're no good, why we can't do this, why God doesn't love us it's called confirmation bias. Right.
Speaker 2:Where I believe that I'm not good, and then everything that happens to me begins to confirm that belief. Right and then. But what I me?
Speaker 3:begins to confirm that belief. Right, and then, but what I tell folks is like we're really good at that. I said but what I want you to challenge you is to go okay, I've got 10 things on that list. Find 10 things on the other side of the ledger, right, 10 things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's the opposite.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what else? What you've said before, right, what else is true?
Speaker 2:Right, right.
Speaker 3:So this might be true in my life. But what else is true? You know, finding 10 other things that I'm happy about, 10 other things that I'm good at, 10 other things that God has spoken to me, 10 other things to balance that out, and then begin to go oh, there are a lot of things that you know.
Speaker 2:Are also true Right.
Speaker 3:Exactly that Right. Exactly that's good about you. Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I think that that's a good place to leave off. You know, at the end of the day, as a backslider, I thought a lot of things that I realized were not true, and I remember the day I prayed back through and the day I committed my life back to God, how faulty my thinking was, and it really scared me because what I had realized is all these, I had put so much confidence in what I thought I knew was true and what I believe to be true, and the way I you know for my life cause I was 28 at that time and, um, and to come face to face with the fact that I had gotten it wrong caused me to not trust myself and it really left me with no choice but to trust God. And over time, god has, you know, god has reestablished the confidence I have in myself, but now it's grounded on the word and not in my own, you know, in my own, you know my my own thinking, um, and so I think you know what I'm trying to say is, for those of you guys who are estranged from the Lord or grew up in church and haven't come back because of whatever, for whatever reason, um, I would just ask you to maybe give God another chance and try it again.
Speaker 2:What I said is, lord, you know, last time I knew how to do this was when I was a kid and I didn't do it very well. So I'm going to try you now as an adult, with my adult mind and my adult experiences, and try to get to know you again from a different perspective. And you know, god has blown my mind um and taught me so much Um, but mostly I really think that the only true healing that can come from childhood wounds is through the love of God. It is the most perfect love pure love.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so, um, anyways, I hope this was helpful. I'm still looking for those of you out there who have a testimony to share about your return to the Lord and, in the meantime, if you have any questions about this episode, you can feel free to email me or email Kelly, or email Kelly. We'll attach his information in the link and hope you'll join us next week for part two, which is going to be all about fear and distrust, how that gets embedded in our hearts and our minds, and also how that affects us as a whole person and further kind of creates a barrier between us and God. So until next time, kelly, thanks for being with me.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Bye.
Speaker 1: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.
