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
Drugs, Affairs, Forgiveness TRB #24 Tom Lyman
Tom Lyman's testimony isn't just another recovery story—it's a raw journey through the paradox of growing up in church while harboring secret addictions that nearly destroyed everything he loved.
From his sheltered beginnings in a tiny church school with just one classmate to the depths of cocaine addiction and infidelity while still attending services every Sunday, Tom's story strips away the façade many maintain in religious environments. "I was that guy on the pew," he reveals, describing how for twelve years he maintained a perfect Christian appearance while spiraling through pornography, substance abuse, and multiple affairs.
The most devastating part? His wife Lana stood by him through countless broken promises until that Thanksgiving night in 2021 when she finally said, "I love the real you. This isn't you, and I'm done." That moment—sitting alone outside while hearing his family laughing inside—became the crucible for authentic transformation.
Listen for more of how God has redeemed the broken pieces.
You can find Tom on "The JOY HOUR Show"
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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. I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and a Redeemed Backslider. With me today in the studio is Tom Lyman. He is with me via Zoom from Texas. So good morning, Tom. Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
Speaker 3:Good morning Kathy, Excited to be doing this with you.
Speaker 2:So I was super excited when you reached out after watching Nick Mahaney's podcast Brother Mahaney is actually going to be coming back for a second one and hopefully coming for a conference here in March of next year but I was really excited to hear your story of, or wanting to hear a little bit more of, your story, and I was really glad that you reached out. So where did you grow up? Did you just grow up your whole life in church, or did your family come in when you were a little bit older? What was your early life like?
Speaker 3:Well, I love doing this. It brings up all kinds of good and also sometimes not good, memories. But I am blessed to have been brought into the Apostolic Church in 1983. I was five years old. My mom had been on a journey to find God and actually she found him at her house by herself, long before she found any sort of an apostolic Pentecostal church. She's got an amazing testimony and I'm so thankful for my mom. She's still alive. She just moved actually to Ohio with my sister, but my dad is up in heaven. Seven years ago God took him Ohio with my sister, but my dad is up in heaven. Seven years ago God took him home with colon cancer and my dad was a framer all his life. So he's up there framing mansions for us. But my dad was a wonderful man.
Speaker 3:So, yes, from five years old in 1983, I was raised not only just in church but in a church school on the church property, in a tiny little trailer. We had struggled quite a bit financially in the early years and that's how life would have it. Sometimes my parents had gone through bankruptcy and so very humble beginnings with secondhand clothes and powdered milk from the food bank and all those memories secondhand clothes and powdered milk from the food bank and all those memories. But I have a wonderful brother and sister and did have just so many things. I'm still grateful for Tiny church school, about 30 or 40 students.
Speaker 3:My graduating class was 1995 and it was me and one more person. So graduating class of two, wow, wow, yeah. And so it's kind of funny. A lot of times people are like what school did you go to? Or you know, did you play football or this or that? Or you know what sports were you into? And I'll tell them you know, I had to graduate class of two and they're like what you know? So it's just my story, you know, and um, but yeah, I, uh, I started working real hard as an early teen, every saturday, every summer, and so in 1995 I I jumped in 110 into construction, which I've done for 30 years.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I how did how did growing up in a small school such as that affect you Like when you look back over your story? How did you feel growing up in a small school? Was it? Did you want more? Did you look at other kids and wonder what life was like in their world, or were you pretty content because that was all you knew?
Speaker 3:I would say the latter Definitely content, because that's all I knew. I think in my early to mid-teens other people started making comments about that If we were in a public school we would have sports. I don't know, I never really got hung up on that. Part of it could have been I was chubby and didn't feel athletic anyhow, which is funny, because now people are like do you play football, man, you'd be great. You know, I'm a bigger guy and everything but that comes from carrying lumber for 30 years. But that was my sport and so I made construction that sport. But no, I didn't have a lot of desire to do that, although a lot of my peers did, and they still do. They still make comments about man.
Speaker 3:I was so held back. If only I would have gone to public school. But I still go back to my teachers every time I see them and just tell them thank you so much. I mean they were all volunteer. I mean they would work 50, 60 hours a week and maybe get a couple hundred dollars a month. These ladies poured into us and it was a great school, great pastor, great upbringing. Of course, I was the only family that lived on the church property, so I was there seven days a week. I mean, it was just we played outside basketball on the concrete and good memories, good memories, great schooling, ace curriculum. You know where you set your own goals and you write down what you're going to do the next day and you got to check them off. And so, no, I have nothing but fond memories and didn't have a pull um my life in that.
Speaker 2:In that sense, that's good Cause that's where a lot of stuff starts to go sideways is in our early upbringing. So that's really good that you felt and it probably gave you such a really good foundation, um, in your belief system, being raised in a Christian school.
Speaker 3:That really did. You know my mom and she was always one of the teachers. My dad he never missed church, but other than that he was working a lot and, like I say, it was low finances for most of our upbringing. So there's a lot of good there. So there's a lot of good there. I guess the side that I remember was more so in my mid-teens struggling with being rejected by my first crush, or the first few crushes, and again feeling Was that in the church?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the church school, and then sometimes we'd, you know, uh, do different conferences, camps and things with other schools and other churches, I mean, and um, I don't know, it just didn't seem like the girls I was attracted to were attracted to me and so it hurt and um, I remember, um, falling into pornography at at a young age, that being a go-to because I didn't feel rejected and it's such a trap and I never talked about it until even just a few years ago and we'll talk on that more.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I think, although I had a great life upbringing when I was rejected and whenever I did feel, you know, chubby or unathletic or ignorant when it comes to playing trivia or, you know, being intelligent, in certain areas I felt like I had a lot of weaknesses and, and so that's where I slipped into the wrong music and then the wrong things to look at. And then I started I don't know about 15 years old, probably marijuana, cigarettes and then alcohol, 16. And then I moved out at 17 and graduated and moved out with a friend of mine into a big house and that's where it really started to go good. In some areas, like work and finances, went great and made a lot of money even at a young age. But I had about a five-year problem there, from 17 to 22 years old, with getting into meth, a lot of marijuana, a lot of alcohol, a lot of girls, things like that, but yeah.
Speaker 2:How did you, how were you introduced to pornography? I mean, you were living in such a sheltered environment. How were you introduced to that?
Speaker 3:Well, of all things, because I've done a lot of work and I specifically coach and work in the area of pornography and sex addiction now, along with alcohol and substance abuse. So, because this is what I do full time and I've spent three and a half years really digging in, I started going backwards to say what was it like? What was the first few things? And so I believe it definitely was my heart that was hurt and then got hardened and calloused. And then my curiosity. It met opportunity.
Speaker 3:And it was a simple clothing magazine that had the lingerie section and it seemed like within six months to a year, a buddy of mine had a Playboy. And then I'm like whoa, that's what I wanted to see. And again it was curiosity meets opportunity. But yeah, my choices still my choices to say thanks for the magazine and hide it under my mattress and all that stuff at 11, 12. I can't really remember the exact year, but yeah, then I just felt dirty. I felt like I'm the worst guy. I'm one of the only guys other than my buddy, you know, I didn't think anybody else struggled with those things and so I just never talked about it and nobody ever knew for a long, long time. And then, of course, I moved out you.
Speaker 2:Where do you fall in the sibling section? Middle like are you the oldest middle? Yeah, okay yeah so you had a younger brother younger, younger sister, older brother and you never talked to your brother about it? You never did. You. Did your mom and dad ever notice you were struggling, do you think?
Speaker 3:I know that they picked up that I was struggling with anger. Of course I was angry at myself for living this secret, and so it would come out in all kinds of ways, and they couldn't understand why I was so angry. The smallest thing would set me off. But I think sometimes parents are blind to thinking my kid's looking at porn, my kid's smoking weed, my kid's drinking Right.
Speaker 2:Especially in a church culture.
Speaker 3:Right, right. And I became very creative at when and how I would look at things, when and how I would smoke things. I'm shocked that it didn't come out earlier, but I think a lot of times moms, dads, they don't want to see, they don't want to think my kids into any of those things, and so yeah Well, I think you know there there is such a naivety, especially in our church culture, I think.
Speaker 2:hopefully not so much now, but back in the other years it was so sheltered so it really wasn't something talked about from the pulpit. I don't think particularly pornography. Do you feel like that that's getting broadcasted more these days in churches, or do you feel like it's still not quite talked about so much?
Speaker 3:Interesting. You ask that. Again, this is the area my wife and I both work in very openly. We just went to a conference with 36,000 people in Indiana, wonderful conference last week, and my wife and I stood at the booth that we do at General Conference and NAYC and it's the porn booth, it's Apostolic Moral Purity. And so I stood there, you know, three nights in a row, a couple times during the day, and had some great conversations with people, also got some funny looks from people.
Speaker 3:It's still kind of that taboo thing for a lot of people. You know, I've been at so many tables, so many meetings where we talk about cigarettes and alcohol and people like, yeah, god delivered me and yeah, that's, you know this and that. But you start talking about porn and it just gets real quiet and that's why my wife and I feel so challenged to step it up even more and say, hey, we'll be, we'll be that couple that talks openly about it, because it's not being talked about, and answer your question it's not being talked about nearly enough at all. I mean, it's rampant. And because of these cell phones, that opportunity remember, curiosity is always there. At a young age it's that the enemy has created, from magazines to television and now it's on your phone and people are giving their five-year-old and six-year-olds full access to the internet, and so I meet a lot of people where it started, when they were five, six years old, and it breaks my heart. But this is the enemy, this is the stronghold, this is the thing that people are not talking about nearly enough at all, and I don't agree with it.
Speaker 3:I think that the freedom comes from talking about it. There could be as far as the apostolic moral purity we do. There could be a hundred more groups like that and it wouldn't scratch the surface. You're getting me going on my soapbox here, but this is my opinion is that a lot of people are saying and I meet with men all the time and at first the thought is I'm not looking at porn because I'm not clicking on a porn site until they really dive deep and realize you don't need to anymore. It's on Instagram, tiktok, you know all these other social Facebook. It's on all these platforms and it's just rampant how much that it is out there and they're not addressing the reality that it is still a form of that reality, that it is still a form of that, and I'm so blunt with it, because it is what led me to the full-blown years and years of adultery, and unfaithfulness to my wife is the root of pornography. That was never conquered.
Speaker 2:Right, and I, you know my 84-year-old dad. Both my parents moved in with me a couple of years ago. My dad, who's been a Christian my whole entire life, gets the most random things on his phone and it drives me crazy because people who are not even looking for it, asking for it, they're just inundated with it. My son has completely got off X, something he was on for years and years just because he got off because of the pornography, which I'm super proud of. But more and more it is such an invasive thing. And growing up in church, I remember the days when they would preach against television and I'm like, you know, as a kid, I'm like what's the matter with? You know Charlie's Angels, you know the show that was popular when I was a kid. But now, as an adult, and we see what's coming across the screens, there is such a need to sort of protect that and guard that what is coming across our screens, not just TV but our phones and I.
Speaker 2:So I want to ask a question about your booth. I want to be delicate about it Cause I'm like you, I want to talk about the hard things and let's just be real about it, but the apostolic moral purity seems like a very contrasting name for what you're trying to address and I understand the reason for it, but can you talk about that? A little bit Like when people first walk up to your booth, are they able to understand what it is you're talking about? Because I think just at first mention it would be like okay, I'm going to stay pure until I'm married, from a Christian, godly perspective, which, of course, is what we want to do. But do you think it's actually addressing hey, you're a kid, you're a teenager, we know you're living in this world. That's just getting worse by the day. If you struggle with porn, come talk to us and come talk to us. Is there any kind of message around what the booth is actually for in terms of marketing or imaging? You know what I'm trying to ask.
Speaker 3:I believe I do. So I sit in a lot of different rooms, a lot of different 12-step programs from NA meetings, aa meetings, celebrate, recovery, genesis Process, navigate there's so many good programs out there. You know, when I sit in an AA meeting, you know I started doing those when I was in rehab three and a half years ago. It's specifically for alcohol. That's why, years later, na was started and it's for narcotics and alcohol. So I think, with the Apostolic Moral Purity it's specifically the mission is to help apostolics that are struggling. Now, sooner than later, I'll be also hosting and starting another group that's open to any Christian, regardless of their depth of understanding of any of it, just people that are faith-based Christian men striving to be better husbands, fathers and leaders, and so that'll be a different sort of a room where we're not there to talk about certain things. There could be, like I say, a hundred of these with a hundred different names, but deep down I think we're working for the same goal. It's just who is in each room so we don't get sidetracked.
Speaker 3:I started a group recently um Facebook group. There's about 4,000 members already and it's just called Christian addiction recovery support. Well, I get to approve or decline what people want to post, and so if they start posting anything political or even things about prophecy or, in time, this or that, I just decline that because that's not what that room is for. I believe some of them are great posts, but they're just not applicable to that room, and so I think that's where Apostolic Moral Purity's mission is. I didn't start that. Actually, dr Daniel Surstad started that years ago and that's been. His goal is to specifically reach apostolics. On my end, I also will be starting one soon that is, to reach any Christian men that want to get in the room and talk. Does that kind of answer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I guess I'm just saying that it seems like a given that if you're a Christian you would try to uphold moral purity, even though many do not. So it you know, I don't know how inviting. I'm not actually being critical at all, I'm just. I was just curious what kind of response you have, because I think anybody walking by they would know. Yeah, that's part of the program if I'm going to be a Christian.
Speaker 2:You would think the reality is they're struggling and people are having sex and having affairs and dealing with pornography.
Speaker 3:And until they shine a light on it and they get an accountability partner, that they can finally get to the point at some point in their life where they say here's my phone. I tell you, the most freeing day of my life was a few years ago, whenever I told my whole family my password and my phone's on the counter. And then one day I'm driving down the road and my daughter's in the back Dad, can I use your phone real quick to look something up, cause they don't have access to any, any internet or anything. And I handed the phone back and I didn't hesitate. I had no fear of anything she would find on the social medias, on the internet, on in my photos and for years, having lived a double life, believe me, that is one of the most freeing things that I have found.
Speaker 3:So I asked men, do you want to get to the point where you easily, if asked, could hand your phone to your daughter, your wife, your pastor, a friend? If you don't want that, then you're not serious and you're toying around with an enemy that's seeking. He's, he's not going to quit and he's going to seek and kill and destroy. So it's, it's warfare and spiritual warfare. Right and um right, you know a lot of men. I'm too much for him right now. I love them, I pray for them, but I also tell them when you're ready to man up.
Speaker 2:There's a roadmap that works Good. That's great Because they do. It does have to be a choice. You have to want it, Just like living for God. You can't come to church just because you're supposed to go to church. You've got to come and have a real relationship with the Lord.
Speaker 3:Well, and I go back to something as simple as Christian. To be a Christian means Christ-like. What did Christ do? He came humbly, he loved, he served, he forgave. He didn't watch a bunch of TV with a whole bunch of half-dressed people, he didn't listen to music. He went out and ministered to people.
Speaker 3:And so, if you really break it down to simplicity, what does the definition Christian really mean? Does it mean I go to church, I pay my tithes and offering? Does it mean I clap and I sing and I run and I jump? Does it mean I can preach, I can teach? Does it mean any of that? Or does it really mean that I'm living a lifestyle that Jesus showed us when he was here? And I got a long ways to go? Still, I'm not saying I've arrived, but we really got to dial in the details of if I can't report to another brother what I'm eating every day, then I'm going to keep eating ice cream and French fries until my back pain kicks in again. And so same thing in our physical as our spiritual, but even more our spiritual is until I can say hey, bro, here's my phone Password 0000. Go ahead, use it. That is the moment when we know we've truly got to the point of saying, huh, this is what WWJD means. You know what would Jesus?
Speaker 2:do Right right.
Speaker 3:You know, and I tell guys all the time, if you can't control the smartphone, if you just can't, then take a time of your life, whether it's a year or whatever, and get a flip phone, because it would be better to make it with a flip phone than to not make it. Because you had to have a smartphone, because you know you had to have it for work, you had to have it for all this. And I call nonsense. And if it's going to destroy your relationships, if it's going to destroy your soul, if it's going to take all your purpose away and just just bring all the shame that it does, then take extreme measures before the enemy takes extreme measures and you're in prison or you lose your life or you lose your marriage, because that's the end game, that's the end goal of the enemy. And I know from personal experience, you know Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, transparency is so important, but people have to really be okay with themselves to be okay with others, and that is such a process, as I'm sure you will know. So walk me through. So you started with pornography. You moved out when you were 17. What caused you? I would guess, as you said, it was just rejection, wanting more of what you didn't have, wanting something you didn't have. So how did you fall into marijuana and drugs and did you stop going to church after you began to do those things and move out?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think the marijuana and everything really started, yes, out of curiosity, but really out of numbing the noise in my mind, in my head, in my conscience, in my heart. You know I knew.
Speaker 2:So were you having intrusive thoughts? Or was it just conviction? Or was it condemnation? What was the noise?
Speaker 3:It was just felt dirty. You know I'm masturbating and looking at pornography and nobody knows. And yet I'm at church the next day lifting up hands, worshiping my Lord, going oh, these two don't go together, tom, you've got to stop, you've got to break this habit. And obviously, what I've learned in life twice now I've really fallen away from God two major times, which I'll touch on, but I always found that it was either confess or do it again. And so I continued to. That's the truth. Yeah, I continued to think I'm going to confess to my parents or somebody that I could trust and I wouldn't, for fear of they're not going to love me because I'm so dirty, I'm horrible. And so I went through this for years, moved out when I was 17, right away, had a live in relationship for five years with a girl there which then I thought, well, I won't need pornography, right. Well, that wasn't true. I continued both.
Speaker 3:So, at 22 years old, I remember writing down all the things I needed to do in my life and just stressed and pressure and all that. And all of a sudden the pen jumped up to the top of the paper. It seemed my hand did and I wrote I need God in my life, just really big, bold letters. I was just crying. I called my dad and mom. I'm like can I move home? And they're like absolutely, you ain't got a small spot in the garage, move home. And they're like absolutely, you ain't got a small spot in the garage. You'll have to build out a couple of walls and you can put a heater in there and stay in the garage. But we'd like you to go back to church because I hadn't gone in like five years. And I said, well, that's the biggest reason I want to. I need some change to shake up my life, to get out of these habits and these ruts. I came back to God when I was 22, still smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes a day, still dealing with the other things, and it took a few months or so of really surrender from different things. Some fell off easy and God delivered me instantly. Some are very difficult Cigarettes is probably the hardest and so I felt like at 22, um, 23, everything was taken away from me and those I just felt so free and just victorious Backing up.
Speaker 3:So I don't forget the other reason, besides a hard heart, that I got into these things was lack of purpose, and I want to emphasize that to anybody that watches this. When a man lacks purpose, he seeks to and he will fill his day with pleasure and comfort. And there is so many thousands of options everywhere around us to find pleasure and to find comfort. So if you're filling your day with that, like I did for many years, it's because lack of purpose. Now that I've got purpose, I know who I am, I know why I'm here. Those things are not a temptation and so I might touch on that later again. But lack of purpose had a hard heart, got into those things. God delivered me when I was 22 and I was on fire for God, you know, for a couple of years there it was just me living in a trailer at my parents' property. I'm pretty proud of that fifth wheel trailer I bought for $8,000. And I was working a lot again, framing construction houses, apartments.
Speaker 3:And then one of the other highlights in my life besides God is I told God in January 1st, wrote down my New Year's resolutions, that if I took a trip at all vacation that year, it would be to go to a church conference. A couple months later two of my buddies are like hey, you ever heard of? Because of the Times. So we went down to that and had a couple more days to go by and see my sister in Texas at a conference her and her husband were hosting. And I was at the conference just feeling a huge burden for souls. My purpose was clarified because of the times that I was called to be a youth leader. I was called to impact others. I had a huge burden for prodigals. I remember being at the altar just having names of people just float through my head, just a burden like crying out for them. And then altar calls, getting over there and looked up and I catch eyes with this piano player and I'm like whoa, that's awesome. Like she's way out of my league, but that was cool, it kind of caught eyes, you know.
Speaker 3:And so a couple of nights later I finally got the courage, ran out to the parking lot. I saw her about to get back on the bus to go back to Bible college and said hi, my name's Tom, if I don't meet you I'll kick myself the rest of my life. And we talked for five minutes. We got dated for five months, got engaged and got married a year later. So brief introduction there to my wife Lana. She is a woman of God. She's from Mississippi originally, and so 2003,. We got married.
Speaker 3:And what a special time in my life. I have audio recordings, I have journals of all my thoughts with not just her and I's relationship, but with me and God. Me and God were at a good spot. There was intimacy there. I just thought this is it. Like I have met the woman of my dreams. I've been called to be a youth pastor, and a couple months after we get married, I get asked to be the youth pastor. I didn't ask, I didn't bring it up, but I got asked to.
Speaker 3:And so, through all this, kathy, what I'm also getting to again is in my mind.
Speaker 3:I also thought I'm never going to fall again. I'm never going to struggle with cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or pornography, and so she has always been a music director. I went to Bible college for three years for that, and so she's jumping right into music. I'm jumping right in with her on youth pastoring and it's work and ministry, and work and ministry, and it's going great. I can't remember exactly when, but I wasn't long into our marriage that I open up and I find a way to access it on my laptop and I'm back into this habit, addiction, and this time I know how important it is definitely not to let anybody know, because it would break my wife's heart and again, she's just a wonderful lady. There's never a time I want her to know, however, I think just a year, year and a half into our marriage. Um, the laptop doesn't work, and so we took it in to get it fixed, and she finds out that that's why it doesn't work is because I'd been looking at websites and I break my wife's heart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did she know about your history?
Speaker 3:She knew that I had done drugs, absolutely. She knew that I had lived with a girl for five years. Yeah, we had poured out, I'd poured out, everything except the depth or the details of the pornography. Looking back on it, I don't think I really got into that, probably protecting this possibility that I would want to dabble with it.
Speaker 2:I'll come back to your wife in a minute. What was the source of anger that you had as a kid?
Speaker 3:That I was not living the life that I knew I should, which I do a lot on anger management now, and I'm sure people can speak on this better than I can. But, in brief, my values are here, my behaviors are here. I value honesty, I value loyalty, but I'm not being honest with everybody and not even being honest with myself. Well, that line is slanted and that's my attitude, right? So when I value honesty and I'm honest and I'm good, attitude's chill. You know I don't have road rage, I'm good, no big deal. I don't lash out at people because my behaviors match my values. But for a lot of times, most of my life, it was slanted. I was not living up to what I was holding others accountable for and saying you have to be honest with me. But I wasn't being honest with others and so I wasn't being honest with myself by admitting that I had a struggle I couldn't beat.
Speaker 2:So I was still trying to understand the anger. I would think that that would create condemnation. So do you think that the anger was just I'm trying to think of the right word, Because I would think that you would have a lot of condemnation by living a double life, by living something that was not authentic to you. But the anger was manifested to others outside of you. Or do you think it was towards yourself? Were you angry at yourself or angry at others? How did that express itself?
Speaker 3:So what I've found is when I'm angry at myself and don't want to admit it. That's a big part of why I'm angry at others. So let's just talk fitness again.
Speaker 2:Almost like a bullying tactic kind of I don't want you to see, I'm going to push you away. Bullies act like that quite a bit Right.
Speaker 3:So when I've been 300 pounds and none of my clothes fit and my back hurts all the time, I have a couple choices. I can really man up and say, tom, you're eating ice cream, french fries, potato chips and pizza, and this is the cause. Or I can say, well, it's because I have to work so much and I have to, my life is so busy and my wife doesn't pack me a lunch, right? I can point out. Or I can own up and say and say I chose to put that in my mouth. I chose to look at that screen through my eyes and see pornography. I chose the music.
Speaker 3:So until we actually say everything is about choices, the average man makes 35,000 choices a day. So if all 35,000 of those choices honor God and honor my values, I'm solid, I sleep like a baby. But if I don't, then I lay my head down at night, going you double-minded man, what are you doing? You say one thing, you live another. Because your flesh is strong and it was comfort food or it was comfort. You wanted pleasure. Because I wasn't locked into knowing that this life is so temporary. I'm made from dirt, I'm going to dirt, but I'm chosen. I'm chosen to be a soul winner, disciple maker. I'm chosen to be God's hands and his feet. I have a calling on my life to minister and to reach somebody every single day, and when I'm locked into that I eat better, I listen to the right things, I eat the right things.
Speaker 3:But so much of that comes into that internal anger, and I find it to be typically with men physical, financial. You know we don't have any money in our bank account. Well, have you ever sat down and kept all your receipts for a couple months and looked at where you spend your money? Is it really your employer's fault you don't make enough money? Or do you have a spending problem Because the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life has allowed you to choose to spend money on so many things you really don't need. And now you're angry at everybody else. Oh, too much taxes. Well, yeah, that's part of it, but that's not the source. The source is you can't budget your time, you can't budget your finances, and you sure don't want people to look at your phone, because you know what you're really buying, you know what you're really looking at. And so it comes down to time and finances and what we do for those 35,000 choices each and every day. We have that saying, of course, in rehab centers and AA. And all that one day at a time. That was too much for Tom.
Speaker 3:I had to break it down to one minute at a time, one choice at a time. Right now, I choose to do a podcast so I can reach others and hopefully bless and encourage them and normalize conversations about hard to bring up topics. And then I'm going to choose to run upstairs and invest my time in the work that I need to to pay the bills. And I'm going to go to run upstairs and invest my time in the work that I need to to pay the bills, and I'm going to go straight home. And so, when all those choices add up to being something, I can look in the mirror at night and say, tom, I'm proud of you, do it again tomorrow.
Speaker 3:And then that day where I go man, tom, you fell off. Man, you haven't been to the gym in a month and you're eating again horribly. Or, tom, you started listening to music that was on the edge. Or, tom, you started slowing down when you were looking at that page, that reel. We know ourselves when we really look in the mirror and channel in and say how did I do today? We all know how we did, and if we're proud of it, then we're proud of it. If we're not, then we're not. But the only way that I could ever get myself off of that was to run so fast, work so much, go so fast in everything I did and then to put alcohol and drugs in my body to numb the noise. So mine, I don't think it was as much condemnation as just internal anger and shame. Shame, yeah, shame.
Speaker 2:Shame. Yeah, you know they say that sin meets sin is an illegitimate. How do I get this right? Sin meets a legitimate need in an illegitimate way, and so I don't think people at least if you grow up in church, I don't know that everyone just sets out to sin. I just am going to set out to look at porn or set out to go get drunk. Usually there is an undergirding need, like for you. It was probably to be wanted to feel loved to be seen.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's easy, once you get through that and you can face yourself and where your pain is, to then make the better choices. But a lot of times people don't know how to even start making a good choice because there's so much brokenness there and they really are in deep need, know, deep longing in the soul. Where do you think, where do you think the enemy shows up? Besides temptation in kind of um, preventing people from getting into the work, like, like with you, what part of all of this was spiritual warfare? Um, in your continuing to fall and then trying to come out of it to where you're eventually at today. Because otherwise, if, if it was just easy or we could just change our choices, everyone would be doing that Right.
Speaker 3:Maybe Well and sin, it's fun at first, right? I mean I'll go back and think of some times where I'd be out with the guys. We'd go camping and we'd have a bunch of alcohol and man, we'd laugh and we wouldn't think about bills or work and we'd be out there for a couple days and it was just fun guy time. And it's always fun in the beginning for most people and then it gets really, really ugly in the end because that's his goal is to seek and try and destroy us. So it's, it's both. I mean, it's life, it's flesh. There's a lot of things that offer that feeling of comfort. But again, every time I've slipped away, it's been also because I haven't had a heavenly, eternal purpose on my mind. It's been a calling from a young age. I remember a minister came through. He gave these white stickers with red writing and said put it on your mirror. His name was Denver Stanford. I think he's passed on now, but I'll never forget that sticker. He just said I am a soul winner. At the end of the day, like Paul talks about, I'm a servant of Jesus. I'm a servant, I serve others. That's what I'm here for Love, serve, forgive, stay humble. The rest of it's just whatever. You got a good job, you make great money, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you don't detour and start to think about oh, this is so important. This life on earth is what it's all about, you know, and that's what the world programs us to do. Even in finances, as a provider for my family, there's a brainwashing that happens like 401K what are you going to do? And you got to have this and you need this. And it's like do I really? Because the disciples? They didn't have any of that, they just followed God. And that's like next level Christianity. And when they say, all right, I've got sandals, or maybe I don't even have sandals, I'm following God, let's go. And then we look at the rich young ruler which he was asked one thing to do and he couldn't do it. And so I think it's this struggle of like are we trying to build life and heaven here on earth? Because there is a lot of things that feel like heaven and have fun for a season, but what happens is we start to isolate ourselves mentally, emotionally, spiritually and then physically, to the point where skipping ahead. Just to finish through the story here I'm married, I'm youth leader. I start looking at porn again. I feel hypocritical. I can married. I'm youth leader. I start looking at porn again. I feel hypocritical. I can't do both.
Speaker 3:I quit the youth leader role under the guise or the excuse that I need more time at my job to build my career. Our first kid was on the way, so I felt overloaded. There was some truth to that, but ultimately I couldn't quit this dirty, dark habit and I couldn't keep looking at this stuff Saturday night and then teaching the youth group on Sunday, because it was just tearing me up. So nobody told me to, nobody found out, nobody made me quit, but I chose to.
Speaker 3:And so a few years later, after quitting the youth leader service, work, ministry, volunteer opportunities, I became very internal in what does Tom want? I bought cars and made a lot of money and all this stuff, but then I got a Mike's Heart lemonade at the gas station one day, thinking, ah, it's not beer, it's not alcohol, let's see what this is like. I think I was about 33, 34 years old. And then it's IPA, and then it's whiskey, and then it's not just porn, it's adultery, and I get into a relationship with a lady, and then I know it's over.
Speaker 3:My wife finds out on this, it's over Her, my three kids, it's done. It's over Tom. You've done the ultimate and if anybody ever finds out, you're done. And so then the torment is just daily. I can't sleep without eating a dozen melatonin. I mean, it's just bad. I'm drinking 36 or 37 now. Multiple other affairs. I start steroids. I start working out a lot. Goal is to bench 400 when I hit 40 years old, midlife crisis. All the way. Finances are great, work's going great and I am drugging and drinking every day, still going to work, still going to church this whole time.
Speaker 2:And does your wife know you're drinking? Does your wife know you're drugging?
Speaker 3:The first couple of years she didn't know. I mean, I'd have like a pina colada on a vacation. She's like, why are you doing that? But she didn't know. I mean, I'd have like a pina colada on a vacation. She's like, why are you doing that? But she didn't know the depth. She never knew the depth throughout the first three, four or five years. And she's better with timelines, which, by the way, she's just about done with her book. She's a full-time counselor now. She speaks openly, she's been on our podcast, so she's real good with the dates and the details.
Speaker 3:I'm kind of broad stroke, but I hit it, for I'm just in a snapshot there of one Mike's heart lemonade all the way through multiple affairs. Um, cocaine comes into the picture when I'm 38, 39 years old, and so I'm a what I call kind of a microdose. During the day you know small quantities. So wake up in the morning, shot a whiskey, bump, a cocaine every hour and a half or two all day long, and then at night it's it's more quantities, and a half or two all day long, and then at night it's more quantities, and weekends it's definitely a lot. So she saw the worst of me. A lot of people still didn't know. They just thought, well, tom's had a bunch of Red Bull or Tom's had a lot of coffee. And I mean, I'm even sober, I'm a high speed guy, you know, framer, construction guy, demolition. So anyhow, I hid it from a lot of people, manipulated it. I'm working late, I got a side job, I could tell people whatever, and they for the most part, would believe me. My dad passed when I was 39, 40 years old, and so then I also had that excuse that I'm grieving and so leave me alone, I need time, and so I'm at the cemetery and drinking and drugging, I'm out and about. So then another affair for about a year and a half happens, when I was, I think, 40-ish, and she doesn't know about any of those. She keeps asking me and I keep saying no. And I think it was I was probably 41, I think is.
Speaker 3:When I told her everything and I thought for sure she was going to leave, we immediately. Her first answer was when I told her was call Pastor, and I'm so thankful she did, even though at the moment I was like no way. But we went straight to their house and I told them what was going on for a couple hours, um, and then they immediately put us in touch with the counselor, which, if I got into all the details, we'd be here a couple hours, but it was. It was not easy. It was not good. Um, there was lots of moments I thought there's no way she's staying. There's no way she's going to stay now that she knows these things about me, and we continued to go through that.
Speaker 3:I went to rehab for 30 days and she was hopeful that the real Tom was going to come back into the picture, the Tom she met. I remember when she met me, none of that was going on and I came back and relapsed again and the turning point in my life was Thanksgiving of 2021. Got home, started walking towards the house, heard a lot of laughter inside, there was family over there playing games Thanksgiving afternoon evening, and so I sat in the backyard at first, thinking I'll sober up in a couple hour or an hour or so and I'll go in, but then I just kept doing more drugs and drinking while I sat there in the dark outside, kind of under this tree, hearing them the whole time and, uh, I remember the spiritual warfare at that moment was was extremely loud, like I felt like I was going to die that week somehow, drunk driving, overdose, my own choice. I just I didn't want. I just I didn't see any hope.
Speaker 3:Um, and I knew if she found out again the depth of it, she's not going to stay this time. You know, the year or two prior we'd made it through it all and I did the rehab and thought for sure, but there's a point where she's going to leave and if she leaves I really don't want to live. So that happens. I'm up for two or three nights in a row, just tormented, and I'll never forget the moment. I'm outside, she walks up to me right by the garage door and she says we need to talk. And this is 20 years into our marriage, or 19 years into our marriage. And she says, tom, I tried, but we're leaving and I wish it wasn't this way. I love the real you. This isn't you, and I'm done and I'm done.
Speaker 3:And for the first time in 19 years of marriage, I knew like it's over, she's not joking, she's not messing around, and so, uh, basically, she wouldn't let me in the house, she wouldn't let me see my kids, and, um, I went over my mom's house and just wept. I went over to my mom's house and just wept, stayed there for like a week, just empty, miserable. It's Christmas season. My kids are playing their instruments at the Christmas church event. I'm not allowed to go. And so I go and check myself in again to an outpatient program. I had to pay out of pocket and that was a big dollar amount and I'm in rehab, thinking no matter what. She's still not going to stay, you know, but for the first time in my life I'm doing it for me. The first rehab I did it for her and the rest of the family that told me I had to.
Speaker 3:But this last time, 12-12-21 is my sober date and I started doing it for Tom and I started digging deep. I started writing notes. I started going to everything I could, from AA to Celebrate Recovery to counseling, to all of this was so that I would get to the point where God healed that hurt heart that I had throughout my life, to the point where I really met God. I've known of God all my life but you see, all those years I never made it personal. He was never God my father, he was never God my father, he was just God the father. He wasn't God my comforter, he was the comforter.
Speaker 3:And so through all this rehab and all these classes, I just continued to go. What's this all about? What's going on? And I've got stacks of notes and hundreds of books now, but I have finally found my purpose and that's what's really given me the victory. God's given me some revelations throughout the journey here on the broken pieces. You know, all those choices I made caused a lot of broken pieces, but now that I've allowed him to truly have the only thing he ever wanted my heart right. We've all seen that, that meme probably, where god's standing there and the other figure, stick figure, is holding the heart, saying it's all I have.
Speaker 3:And I was so broken that I remember times just sitting there in the bushes, just sitting there outside, just just weeping, and I'd picture this was before I got clean. But I'd picture the Bible, a bottle of whiskey and a gun and think which one am I going to grab? Which one am I going to grab? And I know the one that's going to help, I know the one that's going to fix it, but for 12 years of my life I grabbed the bottle. Thank God I didn't grab the gun, but there was a lot of internal anger because of those choices. I had the American dream. You know, owned a lot of things, a lot of stuff. Business was great, but I was miserable and empty at the same time. And so that's bringing us up to speed here. Almost getting close to four years, my wife's now, like I said, a counselor. We do full-time ministry for sex addiction, pornography. We're about to launch our first marriage intensive.
Speaker 3:I moved across the country to get full-time into doing this and reaching others and sharing things about what I found in the Word of God. As you know, we all talk about it a lot Revelation 12, 11,. How they overcome, how do they overcome? By the blood of the lamb, the word of their testimony, and they love, not their life unto the death. For me, that means God died. For me, I'm supposed to share my story. I'm not supposed to care about this temporary life more than I do the eternal life, and so I try and reach people by being authentic, sharing enough details that lets them know that I was that guy on the pew, because I went to church this last time, that 12-year time. 90% of the times the door was open, I was still there with my family and most people didn't know. So there's a lot of functional addicts. Again, I'm shocked. Actually, I did better in business back then than I am now, which is very sad, but financially I was doing great then. Now I'm struggling.
Speaker 3:But ultimately, what do we want? We want peace, we want joy, we want purpose. We want to sleep at night with a clear conscience and each man, when you look in the mirror, you will always know how you're really doing if you want to. But if you want to numb that and if you want to run from it, there's lots of options to numb the calling, the deep down calling that God says I made you for more. There is a huge calling for your life and most of the people I'm around now and we do this often is we recognize that our purpose actually came from the most painful, embarrassing mess. Right, I could sit here and only talk about cigarettes and alcohol if I wanted to. Or I could do like I did and start deep with music, pornography, sex addiction, right. And so each person, I encourage them to find the healing they need. I call that recovery, of course, but there's a program I teach it's recovery, discovery, action and purpose. And in brief, and I'll pass it back to you, there's a period of time we need to put our own oxygen mask on and we really need to do some deep dive in either rehab, 12-step counseling, coaching, all of it.
Speaker 3:But usually, when we desire that more than anything, god will give us these unique thoughts. Write that psalm, keep a journal because you're going to write a book. Talk about it. Tell somebody right, he'll tell us what to do.
Speaker 3:The hardest part is acting, because at first, when we start acting and we do get bold, there are people in our circle it's sad, but a lot of times in our own community that we grew up with sometimes our own family that will try to tone us down and say, hey, don't talk about that. For sake of reputation or family name or other things. People are sometimes wanting to tame down our testimony and I speak against that in Jesus' name. I would say ramp it up folks, don't tame it down. Share your story from the rooftops. Life is short. You don't like me, that's fine, it's not about me anyhow, but I do know it's working and I'm able to reach and touch a lot of men because I care more about finding the Tom I used to be than what anybody else thinks about me. I know what God thinks about me and he tells me to ramp it up. So with that, it's just yeah, recovery, discovery, action equals purpose.
Speaker 3:You know everybody that starts a nonprofit. They do it because they had some pain, whether it was cancer, leukemia, addiction. Anybody that's own, founded and runs a nonprofit is because pain happened in their life and they decided, instead of sweeping it under the rug or putting it in the closet, that that's actually what they're going to do full time. So the calling is great, yeah, the harvest is ripe, the labors are few. But what's your story, sir, what's your story, ma'am? And I would ask you to dive deep and realize that God actually wants you to, to be very bold with talk. It's embarrassing Sometimes.
Speaker 2:You know being that guy standing at that booth and people are walking by like, hey, but it's worth it. It's worth it. A lot of people who grow up in church are told that they have a calling. I mean, you get called out from an evangelist, from a prophet that comes through, from somebody that tells you hey, you're meant to be a preacher, hey, you're meant to do this. But walking into that is a very different thing.
Speaker 2:So at what point did those words become revelatory? Because I think one thing about all of us growing up in church we know how to Christian. Well, I know how to clean up the outside. I know how to do church. I know how to clean up the outside. I know how to do church. I know how to go to the altar. I know how to raise my hands in worship. I know how to say all the right things. I know what scriptures I need to quote. I know how to do it. I know how to play the game. But at what point does that authenticity show up? To? Where you know, with purpose, without purpose. God, I love you because of what you've done for me and in me and through me. Like, when did that change for you?
Speaker 3:Whenever I started seeking God's confirmation. Instead of people you know I don't get very many and I don't want any, by the way attaboys from humans on this temporary earth what I want is when I look in the mirror at night to say, tom, that guy you met at Home Depot good job. That waiter at the restaurant that you gave your phone number to and you asked about his life and there was a connection there and you're going to meet again, good job. So I deal a lot with people in public. I do it mostly when I'm by myself, like I say, home Depot, target, restaurants, I mean I'll do it when my family's with me, or anybody else too.
Speaker 3:But closed mouths don't get fed. That's the thing, folks, closed mouths don't get fed. So what's your story and how are you sharing it? And if you go a week or two or three and all you do is certain ministries on a Sunday or a Wednesday, but all week long you're not reaching or talking to anybody, then are we just getting our reward here on heaven, like, oh, they're a great preacher, they're a great singer, they're so great at what they do on a Sunday or a Wednesday night? Again, we need everybody in all different ways, but most ministry is not done on a Wednesday and a Sunday.
Speaker 2:Facts. What did you discover about yourself in the last four years, about your relapse, about the 12 years of sitting on the pew? What did you discover that you didn't know before?
Speaker 3:That I was searching for validation and identity from others on this earth Dad, mom, brother, sister, wife, pastor. I wanted to have those words of affirmation, I wanted to hear them and I wasn't having quiet time outside. So now what I do a lot is I grab this, I put it right here and I bawl my eyes out and I take a nap and I read it and I journal all of my confirmation, all of my calling Now the word of God preached amen. Let me say we are saved by the preaching of the word. That is a large part of it, yes, but the revelations that I remember more than any are the ones that I've had on a park bench at a cemetery, by myself with nobody else around, or sitting by the river with a journal and a Bible and nobody else around. Those are customized, detailed ones that nobody can take away from me. I'll tell you the one at the cemetery real quick. My dad, like I say, lost him seven years ago. So I've been there a couple hundred times and I was there about two years ago with my Bible, cup of coffee and a journal and I said, god, I'm ready for you to tell me who my new dad is. I need a mentor, I need a man in my life and I'm thinking everybody. I I need a man in my life and I'm thinking everybody. I'm thinking Nick Mahaney, which, by the way, I love you, brother. He is a huge voice in my life, a huge part of my freedom and victory. Dr Daniel Surstad, pastor Andrew Seagraves all these men, thank you so much. You've been a huge part of this. Now I'm naming names, I'll forget a bunch, but anyhow. So I'm racking my brain on who it's going to be and I'm like God's going to tell me today who my new dad is to speak into my life, um, monthly or weekly, you know.
Speaker 3:And Kathy, after about 45 minutes of sincerity, asking God, I'm like, okay, you're not telling me who it is. I'm leaving and I stand up and all I think or hear or feel is sit back down. All I think or hear or feel is sit back down. You see that that little boy that's now 43, 44 years old at this time is still in there. There's still a little heart of a child, a little tender heart. Tom and I sit down and that's the moment that everything really changed. God says I'm right here, tom, and I hear your exact request and I will honor your request, but not until you let me be your father first. Not until you let me have an intimate relationship with you, son. And I bawled like I've never cried before. I just let it out. I'm like I get it, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 3:A few minutes had 20 minutes go by and I feel great, I get it. And God says one more thing go to your pastor's house, pray for him and tell him from now on, whatever he asks, the answer is yes. So I'd never done it before. But I call my pastor and say can I bring you a cup of coffee? I go to his house we talked for a few. I have him stand up, lift his hands in the air, I hold them and I pray and I say God, thank you for my pastor, and from now on, if there's anything you ever need, ride to the airport, sweep the floor, anything. I'm just going to say yes, I won't stop, I won't hesitate. The answer is yes, that was it.
Speaker 3:A couple weeks later, we're at church and he says hey, before service, just go up and lead the pre-service prayer. I'm like Hold on, I don't want microphones. No, that's not what I do. But I couldn't say no because I'd just done this a couple weeks. So know, because I'd just done this a couple weeks, so I did it. It's so uncomfortable, the microphone's shaking in my hand, and not what I wanted to do. So life keeps going like that over the last couple of years.
Speaker 3:And then God calls us to move here to Texas, which I'd never planned on moving in my life, and I moved down here just eight months ago. Well, guess what? The pastor down here is actually the one that fits that request in a number of areas. Not only is he a great pastor, but he does construction and all this. And so I love my pastors. Andrew Seagraves has been a huge part of my journey in Washington State, love him. And now I'm down here in Texas with Pastor Hargrove and a few other awesome ministers here that the answer is yes.
Speaker 3:If I'm asked to do something, yes, I always joke. If you ask me to sing, the answer is yes, nobody's going to like it, but I will get up there and I will do my best to sing. But whatever it is, it's important, I think, as a man, to have a mentor, leader, pastor that we respect and we honor, and what I mean by that is, if God tells me something, I go chat with my pastor and if it's confirmed, cool, there's the answer. Or if my pastor tells me something, god will always tell me. At the same time they will line up.
Speaker 3:And I know this because when I came to visit Texas for a day and God called my wife and I and my family to move here, I told God. I said you saved my life, you saved my marriage. I've been telling you, whatever you want, I'll do it. If this means my company goes under, if this means I lose it all, but this is your call, this is the will of God, this is my Nineveh, this is what you want, then I will do it, but I wrote my journal. You will need to tell my pastor and my kids. I mean, I'll mention the idea that I feel called, but I'm never going to move if my pastor in Washington state says anything other than do it. So we tell our pastor. He's like whoa, I never knew that. And I'm like we didn't either. And we meet with them a few weeks later and he says guess what? God told me loud and clear. And so, whatever you need, you have my blessing, my support. You're supposed to do this and I'm like no, I wanted to stay in Washington. And so we tell our kids, we bring them down here, and they say the same thing.
Speaker 3:So it's beautiful now that I'm not the one controlling everything and as a man I did for most of my life. I controlled the narrative I want more money, I make more money, I know how to do it, I want to do this, I want to do that, whatever I do, and I'm holding that steering wheel, and so now it's beautiful to know that I don't have to stress and think about those things. But a lot of times it's what I ask men is do you have a pastor? Do you have a mentor? Do you have somebody that you would talk to before you make major decisions in life? Or you your own voice? And that's dangerous. What voices are we listening to? But I encourage people to ask God those questions who's my father, who's my mentor, who's my pastor and really lock in and commit to that, because it's opened up so many doors. It's completely turned our life upside down. Don't know how much more time we have, but I could bring you up to speed on what we're currently doing or tell you a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go right ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I wanted to get into more nitty gritty about your story, but that's okay, we'll finish up with this and I don't know your time restraints on this.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm good, I got plenty of time, but yeah, no, go ahead.
Speaker 2:You can tell us what you're doing now.
Speaker 3:So with this, you know, the hardest thing too was telling my kids right, other than telling my wife right. So I told you about that, confessing my faults to God, to myself and to someone I trust. And so I did that with my wife. But you see, shortly after that, god started telling my wife and I that we were supposed to be very vocal with this story, and we didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what a podcast really was at that point.
Speaker 3:Or writing a book Me write a book? No way Me preach, I'm not a preacher. Those type of thoughts went through my head. But God just said this is the point where you need to sit your three kids down and tell them. And I tell you, that moment sitting at the table was very I had a lot of fear.
Speaker 3:Will my kids ever look at me the same if they know I was unfaithful to their mom? Will they ever? Will my daughter ever let me hold their hand again? Will my sons ever? What's that going to look like if they know I was a drug addict, an alcoholic, an adulterer? I mean, what are they going to think of their dad?
Speaker 3:I'd got to the point where I didn't really care what anybody else thought about me besides God and my wife and my mom and a few others. But I was really concerned on what that would mean for my kids. But I'll tell you, kathy, whenever God says something and we do it you know this he does the miraculous. And it was hard at first. There was a few months or so where we could definitely see how it impacted the kids. But here we are, three years down the road from that moment we told them and they know what we do. We're on phone calls and doing this podcast now, the Joy Hour Show, which is definitely broadcast everywhere. We're speaking at marriage conferences and we're about to host this marriage intensive here.
Speaker 2:Did you say? You just told them three months ago, three years, we're about to host this marriage intensive here. So it's true. Did you say?
Speaker 3:you just told them three months ago, three years, I might have said three months, three years, three years, yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay.
Speaker 3:Three years ago we told them, and there was a few months that they struggled. I won't go into all the details there, but in their attitudes, their behaviors you could tell it was a good six months to a year of healing there before they really could trust their dad. But this time they and my wife and everyone could trust their dad. Not because of what I said oh, I'm sorry, I'm going to do better. No, this time the difference is I just did it and I wrote down my non-negotiables. I don't miss church, I don't miss Celebrate Recovery. I don't watch television or screens or Netflix or anything. I only listen to Christian music.
Speaker 3:I do my men's breakfast, I do my 12-step program on Zoom meetings one or two times a week, and so I've got about seven to ten items that I voiced and I shared with people close to me saying this is where you'll find me, this is where I'll be on a Sunday, this is where I'll be on a Tuesday, wednesday, and I haven't let up. Those are the things I do. I have slacked off in fitness, I have slacked off in other areas, but I have not let up on these spiritual non-negotiables. And whenever the behavior of a person starts to prove that they are a different person, then the family members. With time, it'll take a while, but then the family members will go. That's a different Tom. It's not what he's saying, it's what he's doing. And so I just encourage men non-negotiables, accountability, journal it down, write it down. You know the reason I know my calling so crystal clear is after years of multiple journals, I found a theme, I found a common thread Tom talks a lot, tom's a golden retriever, tom loves meeting people and Tom's got a testimony and Tom's a soul winner. It's pretty simple, like that's what I'm supposed to do. If there's a microphone, great. If there's not and I'm at a gas station, it's the same thing.
Speaker 3:A message was preached recently I'll never forget, and he talked about uncommon pulpits and I think too many times people think a calling is just a pulpit, a microphone, and they miss so many opportunities throughout their day-to-day life where there's people bleeding and hurting all around us. The man in the ditch is right next to us at the job site, the grocery store, but we miss those because we're staring at our phones or we're caught up in our own life and we wait for a Sunday ministry, we wait for a calling to do a certain thing with a certain job description and a title, and there are people every day that we're losing. So I challenge myself and others just ramp it up, find those unique opportunities to say hi, how are you? My name's Tom, what are you doing today? What are your hobbies? Where are you from?
Speaker 3:As soon as that conversation starts a little bit, then open up with your story. I always say I was in rehab three years ago, but man, god stepped into my life and these people that I met 30 seconds ago are saying why is he telling me he just got out of rehab, right? So what's your story, ma'am, what's your story, sir? And whether it's these podcasts, whether it's one-on-one with people, just start to say it more often. One thing I miss is testimony services, but we do those at Celebrate Recovery.
Speaker 3:Often we get up and we're like man, I'm one month free of anger. I'm one month free of overeating. I'm one month free of gossiping about other people. God is good. God saved me from a barstool. Whatever it is, it all should be normalized. To say this as long as there's breath, there's hope. Hope for a better spiritual man, hope for a better physical, all of it.
Speaker 3:But if we just are passive and complacent and apathetic and we're like oh yeah, I don't. Don't know, man, I spend eight hours a day on my phone, but I don't know why I don't have a purpose in this world. Well, maybe shut the phone off, grab the bible, grab a journal, grab some good books and really dive deep on god. Why am I here? You made me. Why am I here? And just get real, real intimate with God, because he's always speaking. The issue is I just wasn't listening. But when I started really listening and tuning into his voice but the louder his voice got, the further I got from pornography and the music and we get to a be still and know that I'm god he will be the one that says here's what I want you to do. And now the next step is just act on it by faith. Say god told me let's go, and you know, have have people in your life that are in that.
Speaker 3:Um, you know, same way of thinking okay, well, very good, your natural, your natural speaker well, god's given me a lot to uh reach and is still helping me every day, right, that's one thing too is when we are a sponsor or a mentor, guess what? We're also supposed to be a sponsee or a mentee to other people, or an assignment. There's different words, but I've got a lot of good mentors speaking into my life and it's really just a repeat. Don't wait 10 years until you got it all figured out. You can perfectly do something. Folks like progress, progress, just jump in and do it. But if we're winding down here, I'll say this again If you want to win the battle, if you want to win the war, look at the amount of minutes per week that you're spending on these two devices and all of your life will change.
Speaker 3:But only you know your screen time. It'll tell you. Hit a button, it'll tell you where you spend your time. Look at your receipts, look at your time stamp and then find out how many of these you actually use. It's the answer. It's everything.
Speaker 2:The Bible is Absolutely Well. Well, it was really nice to meet you, tom.
Speaker 3:thank you for coming on the show and sharing your story, and I wish you the best of luck thank you and I'll send you some things if you want to choose to put it in the description, but if we can be of any help to anybody's life, tom and lman Again, my wife's a full-time counselor and I do coaching. You can reach me, tom, at Tom-Lymancom. I'd be happy to talk and share and suggest different things that might better this temporary life for you and also make it for a beautiful eternal life. So just trying to repeat what people are pouring into us and help others. But thank you for the time to share. I know I might have poured out too much too fast, but an hour can go by quick.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I sometimes I mean I've done two and a half hour shows because I don't like to rush the details. Oh well, it was, it was, it was what it needed to be. So I really appreciate the time and and I just pray God continues to bless your ministry and keep you and your family so good job.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, kathy. And the just the title of your show podcast there, the Redeemed Backslider folks. It's happening a lot and so I encourage you know that there are a lot of great recovery-minded churches, groups, recovery programs, but we are finally coming around to getting more bold with just talking about it. It really does help, so thank you for having me on today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does, talking about it, it really does help. So, thank you for having me on today. Yeah, all right, have a great day.
Speaker 1:God bless. 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 theredeemedbacksliderorg. We hope you will tune in for our next episode.
