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
Headed To Hell TRB #28 Terry Boucher
What makes a child who loves church, Bible quizzing, and picking out ties for Sunday service turn to witchcraft, drugs, and crime? Terry Boucher's testimony is a harrowing journey through the darkest valleys of human experience and a powerful reminder that no one is beyond redemption.
Terry's descent began with seemingly innocent choices at age 12—smoking cigarettes with a neighborhood friend and listening to heavy metal music. Like a slow-moving current pulling a swimmer away from shore, these small decisions gradually altered his heart and mind. Soon he found himself disrupting Sunday school classes, creating voodoo dolls, and eventually praying directly to Satan in a backyard ritual inspired by the movie "The Craft." The spiritual doors he opened led to increasingly destructive behaviors and supernatural experiences that science might label as hallucinations but Terry recognized as encounters with darkness.
His criminal record grew to include over 70 voluntary surrenders to authorities, not counting involuntary arrests. Terry survived being stabbed 14 times by his own brother during a drug-fueled fight and a car accident that claimed his friend's life. Even these brushes with death didn't deter him.
Listen to the full episode to hear how God has delivered him and called him take the gospel into the prison system.
Visit Amazon to pick up a copy of Terry's book, "From Darkness to Light" or click on the link https://a.co/d/6jsRXun
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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. I'm your host, kathy Chastain. I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and a Redeemed Backslider With me today, from the state of North Dakota, is Terry Boucher, but if you're phonetically sounding out his name, it's Terry Boucher. The R is silent. So I'm super excited about having him today and hearing his story and I hope it will bless and minister to you as he shares his history. So welcome to the podcast, terry.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you for having me, Kathy. It's an honor to be on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Terry has a book out, which I'll talk about at the end of the podcast too, but it's called From Darkness to Light. But he sent me this book and it's really gripping. I haven't had a chance to read all of it, but I'm going to let you just jump right in and start. You were raised in church by a single mom. I know that your dad passed away from leukemia when you were three months old, so shortly after that you guys moved to Missouri. Take me through your early days of being raised in church with your mom and your brother.
Speaker 3:And well, yeah, so, like you said, after my dad passed away, I think we moved from Julia, illinois to Missouri when I was maybe two years old, grew up in church as a kid. I mean I love church. I was involved in Bible quizzing. I was a little kid who always couldn't wait to go pick out a new tie, you know a little clip-on tie to wear to church. I just loved it and as the years progressed, you know I started hanging out with. Well, let me back up Basically. I mean I had a good life. I was in all kinds of sports. My mom took us on vacations every summer. I was in all kinds of sports. My mom took us on vacations every summer.
Speaker 3:There's really no, I can't think of anything traumatic why my life would have went astray. I know they say then there probably is something to it about having a father figure in the home, although I never really knew my dad. So it wasn't something that I thought about or longed for. But I'm sure there is something there, considering that's, you know, a male and female to have a family. But I just started hanging out with the wrong people and I started smoking cigarettes when I was like around 12 years old and then I started listening to different music and it started off with just like normal, just normal music other than church or Christian music. And then eventually I started listening with just like normal, just normal music other than church or christian music.
Speaker 3:And then eventually I started listening to things like metallica, um, and it just and you don't realize it at the time, but there is a spiritual aspect to that and it starts changing your heart. You have to start having different thoughts and everything, and and gradually and I'm sure this is from the enemy, but gradually I started like having thoughts of just like not liking it. I didn't want to be at church, I didn't want to be there and people would come up and want to pray for me and I'd tell them to get their hands off me. It was just little thing, very, as I look back, not real out outlandish or crazy, but there's a gradual progressing to it and yeah, can I interrupt really quick?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I don't want to go too fast over all these details, because I think that the details matter and I know we always talk about the sensational piece of where a person has been, which we will definitely get to, sensational piece of where a person has been, which we will definitely get to. But as I was reading your book, I was very intrigued by something, because I'm always looking for the place where it begins. What is the moment where something shifts? And often it is trauma. Something shifts and often it is trauma, but, like in your case, it wasn't trauma.
Speaker 2:And you describe a story in your book about a friend that you were hanging around with that smoked cigarettes and he would get them from his parents sneak them, probably. So I want to ask you from this little boy who's in Bible quizzing, who loves church how did it come to be that you had a friend that was smoking cigarettes? Clearly he probably didn't go to church. How was it? Were you in a school where you didn't have church kids with you? How did you meet this kiddo? I'm not blaming the kiddo, but I'm speaking of the influence and availability that opened the door for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he was just some kid from the neighborhood. We just rode bikes. I don't know. I know we were always hanging out, we'd climb through these big pine trees, trees, and we'd climb the pine trees. Um, it was just one of these like bad kids in the neighborhood. What, what eventually would turn into me. I would be the kid that you know parents didn't want their kids hanging around with and I guess my mom didn't know.
Speaker 3:You know she's a single mom, yeah, you don't know she don't know what's going on and we're running around and um, and I just remember like he always smoked and I never really I don't know, I never smoked a cigarette before and I remember him telling I remember a pack of marble reds and a box sitting there. He said don't touch these and he went to climb I think he's climbing up the tree and him telling me don't touch them. And I did and did.
Speaker 2:And that's what I want to ask, because the way you wrote it in the book I thought was awesome, because in psychology there's two things here we always want to do the thing we're told not to do. And there's probably a part of you that said don't tell me what to do, I'm going to do it all very subconscious, um, but also intrusive thoughts, because I know further in your story you had a lot of thoughts but, um, I wonder if there was an intrusive thought that just said, hey, why don't you? What would it be like to smoke this cigarette? Cause you, you said you, what would it be like to smoke this cigarette? Because you, you said I just looked at them, I didn't really want to smoke cigarettes, but there they were and I, next thing, you knew, you just picked it up and lit it yeah, yeah, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3:Um, it's been so many years I can't remember. I know. Now I recognize thoughts you know that are from the enemy. I can. I can see them a little clear when I have something I realize is not just my, it's not just your mind saying, hey, this or that you realize. No, it's very subtle and you can tell the difference between the voice of God and what's not of God. Back then I honestly don't remember. I'm sure. I'm sure it was just an enticing voice of the enemy trying to get me hung up. And I think many times the enemy sees things in people that we wouldn't normally see and they try to get them very young and get them caught up in a lifestyle so they can't become what they see potential.
Speaker 2:Right, they see, they see yeah, potential, right I? Um, I do believe that the enemy targets kids because, a he knows what god's going to do with them in the future and, b he tries to avert their potential and and never allow them to see their own identity. You know, if he, if he can get in at an early age and cause you to identify with something other than yourself, who God made you to be, a lot of people apart from God believe that identity and then they begin to own that, and we see that in the world today. But I think it's also significant that you were 12 years old.
Speaker 2:I have noticed in working with children that eight years old and 12 years old seems to be a very significant age in the lives of boys, particularly and I asked someone about this in Jewish culture, because I could be mistaken, but I think the bar mitzvah is the age of 12. And I think maybe for girls it's 13. But I'm pretty sure it is the age of 12 in Jewish culture. And someone explained it to me like this it's not that you're becoming a man at 12, but you are leaving childhood. And when I read that about you that you were 12 years old when all of this began I thought, gosh, that is just such the work of the enemy, um, as you're moving away from childhood to really try to set your course in life. So anyways, that's just. I'm very fascinated by all of those little details because I I'm looking always like. But where does this start? Where does you know? Cause? You said in the book it's it was like a slow drift. When you're looking on the shores you can see but I'll let you finish your story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that, yeah, that is true, it is. Uh, it is a slow drift, you don't? You don't realize that I'll actually mention it. Like it's like how people drift away, like they're the ocean.
Speaker 3:When I was a little kid, I'd go to the ocean and I'd go ride the little boogie boards and I'd, and every time I'd come in from a, from a wave, you'd be a few feet down the shore, a few feet, and if you didn't constantly keep yourself in check and go back up the shore and go back where your stuff was set up, you'd find yourself drifted. Everything looks the same, all the umbrellas and the people, everything seems the same. But that whole time you've been drifting and then you realize you're not in the same place. You've been drifting and you've been, and then you realize you're not in the same place. Um, but man, I just uh, all those little things, music, and it just started like just changing, changing my heart. And then I remember we started my brother, me both, we just started disrupting uh, sunday school class. We, you know, um, the devil would just started putting telling us that there's discrepancies, there's false things in the Bible, and we started questioning that. Then we started like bringing it up and disrupting Sunday school class we would.
Speaker 2:How quick was that from from starting smoking? How quick did that start to happen?
Speaker 3:I would say, within the whole thing, to getting to getting really vulgar about it just a couple of years, to getting to getting really vulgar about it just a couple of years, um, not so like, if you want to look at the broad sense of like how, how, because we it got to where we would print out like raylon manson lyrics and pantera lyrics, like really vulgar songs. I mean stick it in science school teachers mailbox at church they all had oh wow no we would.
Speaker 3:Just, we were just turned into evil little kids and uh, so it was a quickly for a few years, compared to being a Bible quizzer and loving to go to church. And then I don't know if you're familiar with it, but the movie I remember watching. Well, at first I listened to a Marilyn Manson music video on the MTV Music Awards and I'll tell you there's spiritual stuff, I guess, attached to it, because it just took me Like there's something about the anger and something about it that I just I liked, I just played it. It just pulled me in. I played it over and over. I mean I must have listened to it 40 or 50 times. I had it on the VHS, I recorded it and I played it over and over. I mean I must have listened to it 40, 50 times I had on the vhs I recorded, just play over and over, and it drew me in.
Speaker 3:And then I began watching different movies and one was the craft with others like the. I don't know if you've heard of that I've heard of it. I never watched it there's a bunch of um girl high school girls that already started getting into witchcraft and they literally started praying praying to the devil and different spirits and invoking them.
Speaker 2:And in the movie it shows.
Speaker 3:in the movie Yep, and I took everything that they did in that movie, the craft and I. I went out to my little clubhouse in the backyard I painted up a pentagram, the candles, and I prayed to the devil. Well, I mean, I literally prayed to the devil and, just like you'd ask god to come into your heart, um, I invited the devil to come into my life and do with me as he will, you know, and I wanted power, like I. I knew god was real and I knew the devil was real and I, I think at that time I was just beginning to get a lot of hate towards some people at school and I just wanted I mean, I was naive to think I'd just get power and do whatever I wanted, but I wanted this power and to do stuff. And then that led into we started messing around with the Ouija board and then we started messing around with voodoo dolls and, like I wanted it, I turned very evil. You know I was making voodoo dolls and trying to harm people, like seriously harm people.
Speaker 2:Where do you think, have you given much thought to where all of that anger was coming from with you? Because I mean, I understand the influence of music and all of that, but I think something had to already exist in you, some sort of pain that that music just could trigger. And I could be wrong about that. But, do you know what it was bringing out in you, where that anger was coming from?
Speaker 3:no, originally I remember listening to metallica and it would just make me just start imagining like fighting, like it would just. I remember just listening to these songs so high it was something I never listened to so high, fast paced, that I just started imagining like beating people up. You know when I was listening to it. But I know with the Marilyn Manson around that time I had been running track in grade school and in junior high and I had beaten the junior varsity record in pole vault and I'd beaten the senior record as a ninth grader and I just had to go to a senior meet and I would break the record there and they pulled me off the school bus. I remember they said I had to take a drug test and they caused me not to be able to break that record and then they kicked me out off the track thing and from there I started getting really angry with the school because they took the one thing I was good at. There I started getting really angry with the school because they took the one thing I was good at, um, and then I think that that's along somewhere along there. I mean, I'm sure that maybe there's some underlying stuff I didn't notice, but I know some of that stuff.
Speaker 3:I began being mad at the school, you know, like, yeah, and I the way I dress, so I was dressing different, you know. So then you have people, um, you're dressing like a freak they want to call or a gothic or something People were. You know, I was constantly back then you really couldn't wear stuff. But now you can wear whatever you want. But back then in those days they would want you to turn your shirt inside out, kick you out of school. It was very serious. So I was always under scrutiny from the types of shirts I would wear, because I had some, you know, some of these Marilyn Manson shirts weren't very nice, so I guess, and then all that stuff, when they tell me not to do something, the devil would just take that and twist it and just, I guess whisper lies in my mind to where I just developed hate. But that hate was so, so so far, you know, like the thoughts I had.
Speaker 3:I mean, I began to have thoughts of like, uh, killing people um, you know, like I'm not exaggerating, and um, oh and uh, around that time I had uh, went to um, so combine, combine, just shooting had just happened literally that this week, and I went to go get some marijuana from somebody at the movie theater and I didn't look at it because there's people all around. So I bought it and come to find out it was oregano. And then I confronted the person the next Monday up against a locker and there's people everywhere and I told him I said you're dead. I lost it on him, which I meant I was just going to really severely beat him, but combine, shooting just happened and um, I was going to run track that day out of town.
Speaker 3:I had a big duffel bag with me. Next, you know these people are making all kinds of lies and rumors up that I was going to shoot everybody in school right and everyone's so sensitive to it.
Speaker 3:After, after what had happened, yeah, yeah, yeah parents won't let their kids go to school um yeah plus I was kicked out and then it just all I, just I. There were so many different things. I guess the way things I did, the way I dressed and what I listened to, that it, um, it just fueled my anger towards everybody. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:And yeah, you know, I know that intrusive thoughts have a lot of power and the seed gets planted by the enemy, you know. So that's definitely one way that could incite all of that. Loneliness is another, you know. But I have had kids and mostly they're boys, and what I see is that all of that turns to either self-harm and suicidal ideology or homicidal ideology. And so you can see, like, usually if a kiddo is depressed, it's going to be suicidal ideology. If a kiddo is angry and looking for a way to feel better, it's homicidal. And it's a bit scary how common that that really is. And so, if I'm hearing you right, you're saying I didn't really identify any of the emotions that I was feeling. I just, I just knew that I was angry and aggressive and wanting more of all of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed. It's the craziest thing Like I enjoyed that feeling.
Speaker 2:Well, power is exhilarating and intoxicating, yeah. What how did you from listening to metallica marilyn manson. So so the craft is? Is the thing that kind of planted that seed? About witchcraft? Had you heard about it before? Do you know about it before? Was it simply just watching the movie? I'm sure I'd heard about witchcraft had you heard about it before. Do you know about it before? Was it simply just watching the movie?
Speaker 3:I'm sure I'd heard about witchcraft before in church and different stuff like that, but I never really like knew that much about until I watch this movie, the crap that like glamorize. They glamorize these girls who are who, who are being picked on or harassed at school for the way they dress, the way they the stuff they dress, the way they the stuff they listen to and they they sit here and they invoke demons and spirits and then they have powers and they start causing harm to all these people who have caused.
Speaker 3:You know, give them grief picked on them or whatever Right, and I, literally, I took everything that they said to heart and I, I was just going to try that, try that, you know, and I, literally, I, I prayed to the, invited him in, like even though I didn't see no difference right that moment. Now I look back and see things starting, starting to change. That you know, it's not nothing to mess around with right, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So what happens after that?
Speaker 3:no-transcript graduated. I didn't even need to pass a single class my senior year. But, um, I just started doing drugs really heavily, hanging out with much older people, very like in their 30s and 40s, doing very hard drugs, smoking, crack, drinking. Partying on the weekend during school too, um, going out. We robbed places, bash people's mailboxes. There's times we actually went to the principal's house in the middle and the night, pounded on his door and just cussed him out right to his face and um, just devious things that eventually it just led to more things.
Speaker 3:The first time on my senior year, um, the very first day of my senior year, I was arrested. We had stolen a dirt bike and I had in pieces at my mom's house and got told on for the reward money. They came and I was arrested at the lunch table my first day of senior year and that's what started. Um started my extensive incarceration and from there I mean my whole high school like it was just filled with. I mean it's just a blur filled with hard drugs, alcohol stealing, meth labs, crazy stuff. I was locked up in juvenile. I went off with my mom, ripped the phone out of the wall and they took me to juvenile, then to a psych ward as a teenager.
Speaker 2:Did they diagnose you then at the psych ward?
Speaker 3:I don't think so. I think they. I was there for about a week and they eventually they. Just let me go back to my mom. And when I was in school I got kicked out for all the other stuff. They sent me to a place and they gave me all these inkblot tests, you know, and I had to pass all this stuff. And they asked me what I see and I'm like you don't really see anything and I'm going to pass all this stuff. And they ask me what I see, and I'm like you don't really see anything.
Speaker 3:I see little pictures inside of them, but you don't really see like any real pictures in these inkblots. But I guess they didn't diagnose me. I'm sure, like nowadays, I would have been diagnosed with something but I was never diagnosed with anything. And then I did graduate, but that last year I was never at school. They wanted me not to walk because I just didn't come to school. I continued getting in trouble, continued breaking my probation and having violations. Then I became very addicted right out of high school, very addicted to crack. I was about 18 years old.
Speaker 2:And crack is meth.
Speaker 3:But it's cocaine. Cocaine mixed with baking, baking soda oh, that's crack okay yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, because I always get the two confused methamphetamines and crack because sometimes people interchange them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just cocaine mixed with baking soda. You heat it up and cool it down, and then it turns into a crack rock. Okay.
Speaker 3:And I got my girlfriend at the time my high school girlfriend. We'd been together for like three, three and a half years got her addicted to crack and then, next thing, you know, you know, um, she's just. I eventually wanted to get out of it. I eventually wanted to stop smoking crack and then she didn't and I gave her the ultimatum and she chose, chose the crack, um chose us to shack up with the 44 year old crack dealer. She's like 18 19. So that was the end of our relationship. I got sent to rehab. I was lying to my PO coming in there telling her I had bugs and out of my mind, I don't have all these bugs. So she would just tell me to get out of there now. And it worked for the time being.
Speaker 3:And I never did follow up with any medical exams, and then somebody told on me for that too. So I was shipped up to rehab and then I got out of there and then I was arrested it was this long years of uh me trying to play the system that you can't play. You know, I think you can pass drug tests and do all this while you can, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned some of the hallucinations that you had. So you're listening to this music, you start witchcraft, you get into drug addiction a little bit heavier. You mentioned doing LSD. Was that mixed in the drugs you were doing or did you purposely choose to do LSD? Because I know sometimes things are laced.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I chose. I chose to do LSD and I actually, as you as well, Were you looking for the trip of it or were you?
Speaker 2:were you doing it in conjunction with the witchcraft? Were you like, like, do you know? Any of you may not have even thought about those things.
Speaker 3:I'm just curious no, no, I just did it. Just I want to get high. I enjoyed. I enjoyed the hallucinogens, um like the meth, where I'd stay up for days and then sometimes weeks, and the hallucinations that you'd have I enjoyed. We'd go out wander the woods, which I would. I don't know why you'd want to do that, because sometimes you're so paranoid. My brother and me would be high on meth and we'd want to go smoke a cigarette outside, but you're so paranoid somebody's going gonna run up from the side of the house that we both sit facing the other way, but there's nothing there. You know, you hear people whisper terry, terry, like whispering your name, um to come out into the dark, um, but I enjoyed that go ahead oh
Speaker 3:I just said I enjoyed that and as as my drug. Later, years later I began staying up for weeks on in on meth and then taking LSD. So I would just be that much, that much more out of my mind.
Speaker 2:Now that you, now that you're living for God and fully delivered, when you look back at hearing your voice, hearing your name be whispered, what do you think that was? What do you think about that?
Speaker 3:I think it was the enemy trying to get you to just lose your mind, because I know like one of the times I was out in my clubhouse just getting high. But another time I remember hearing my name whispered and I could have swore it was a long hallway and I was in the living room. I could have swore I saw somebody like a shadow, like walk past and then go into the, into, uh, the bathroom, and I grabbed a knife and I began walking through the house, even though I didn't see it going in any rooms before that. I began checking room by room with a knife and I was ready to just start stabbing somebody and there was nothing there. You know, just completely out of my mind and you know they could. That could happen. You could be out in public and attack somebody. I mean, I've seen people just be talking to him. They just disintegrate into nothing. All blow dust, blow off in the wind, just completely.
Speaker 2:So you were talking to when that experience happened? Were you having a conversation? So that would have been an imaginary, an imaginary person, right? But it was someone that you knew at the time because you called him by by his name dusty.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, in the book I don't know what I call them, but we were sitting there smoking meth in some shady dope house in the middle of this trailer park and it was really good, really, really, really good meth, and it wasn't enough for days. We'd just been smoking it for a few hours and I was sitting there talking to him and he just like just sitting there, and then I began like asking him you know, hey, where'd you go? Man, like not, like I should be thinking that's not real, but I'm so high I'm thinking, well, where'd you just go in? All right, you know, I just saw him just saying right, I'm still trying to figure out where he's at Just completely.
Speaker 3:Do you look back at, think any of that was demonic or do you think it was just hallucination? I think a mixture of both. Um, something I think is just hallucination, but I do believe it opens you up to spirits, because a lot of things I would see people call shadow people. You see, I believe you're seeing, um, you're able to see things that other people can't see. And I've even had and I don't know if I wrote about it or not, but I've had it where I could feel, especially after I went to church, but I could feel these spirits on me. I was high on meth and then my ex-girlfriend's dog. It would just keep growling and barking at me, acting completely out of character, and it would be looking up at me, but it wasn't looking at me. It'd be looking over my shoulder against the wall, and there's nothing there. I'd be at the top of the steps. It wouldn't let me come down the steps that it's seeing something that it can see that I can't see.
Speaker 3:Right right, right, right. So yeah, a mixture of both. I think a mixture of both mixture of both.
Speaker 2:I think a mixture, mixture of both. And so where does the voodoo and the witchcraft come into play in conjunction with your drug use? How deep did you get in? I mean, it sounds like you got into it deep. Um, where did that lead you like, did you?
Speaker 3:hurt. Thankfully, I don't think anybody was ever actually harmed. I think it was just, you know, a kid trying to get involved. I think we invited stuff into our lives doing that. As far as I know, nobody was actually harmed by sticking pants in an adult, you know Right. We sure did try. Yeah, sticking pants and adult, you know Right.
Speaker 3:We sure did, we sure did try, yeah, but yeah, I don't know. You know it's interesting. I don't know if you ever seen some of the book. Like, there's a book about what people that are, um, diagnosed as um schizophrenic and stuff, and it shows all these crazy drawings of these shadow looking things. Right, you ever? Well, the funny thing is like a lot of those things are what you see on math too, yeah, and and it's almost like it's spiritual when you're tapping into a realm and these people, they say they're actually seeing something that's there that most people don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe a lot of what we call mental health disorders is spiritual. I'm trying to do research in this area. I have a questionnaire that I give people because I think that there is so much of it that is spiritual, because the Bible says we're either going to live for God or we're going to live for the devil. There is really no in between. So anything that is not of God is going to be that, and yet we try to put language around it because science now, finally, the dsm has a section in the book where they will deal with paranormal. But because paranormal stuff is not always provable, you know, other than people's lived experience, um, science does not recognize it, but so much of of what people go through, I believe, is spiritual in nature and, um, and I think, intrusive thoughts, which is definitely a clinical term. Um, and I saw it.
Speaker 2:I read the, I read the diary, parts of the diary that was posted online of the school shooter that just happened this week and it's very obvious, it's very clear he was fighting himself and fighting his thoughts and in one hand, saying this isn't what I want to do. I don't want to do this. I love my family. I don't, you know. But those seeds grow if we don't address them. But those seeds grow if we don't address them.
Speaker 2:And as Christians, if we don't know how to even recognize an intrusive thought, we can't fight it. And for you, I just think about the story of picking up the cigarettes. It was such an impulsive act. But we know in the therapeutic world. But we know in the therapeutic world that behavior is always a function out of impulses, a function out of believed thought processes or belief system. Sometimes it can be instinctive, like rebellion. So I'm always very intrigued with all of that stuff because I feel like the more we know as Christians, the better we're able to help others fight against stuff, and especially as innocent kids in our youth departments across America that have little kiddos growing up in homes where I cannot tell you the number of parents who watch scary movies and watch them with their children. I cannot tell you the number of parents who watch scary movies and watch them with their children Like it's devastating because they don't think there's anything wrong, but I a thousand percent believe it's opening doors into the demonic realm.
Speaker 3:Well, now that you mention that, I completely I don't know how I forgot about it, but my cousin used to come down from Virginia every Christmas and my grandpa's house right across the road, and we were like five years old and he'd bring movies over like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and on Christmas, me and my cousin, little kids, we were watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre, freddy Kruger, all these things. And I look back and I remember I would have dreams, these dreams, dreams, and I would be walking down the hallway to go to the bathroom and I feel like I'm getting pulled under down below the floor and they were repetitive, the same dream over and over. But, um, I forgot about that. Like those movies, like what you said, I believe they do, they do open a door and I believe that they open a door into your house.
Speaker 3:and then if people knew what they were doing like, if they knew what they watched, if that a demon could be walking up and down their hallway, would they still watch it because I had some insurance agents and I never went out on halloween or anything, but I was really close with my insurance agent, so when she'd bring her daughter over on halloween and I would give her candy, I didn't go out trick-or-treating or anything. Anyways, one day her and her sister came over and they all had witch outfits on and I let them in the house and I gave them some candy and after that, for about a month long, I began being woken up, being choked. I woke up, being able to breathe, feeling like I'm getting choked. I'd jump out of bed, I'm going to panic, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I literally couldn't breathe. And then one day God revealed it to me what it was. That was like, as when people put on Christ and put on stuff like that, you allow them, you put that on, and whenever I invited, them to the house.
Speaker 3:They were in my house, Like the spirit of what they had was in my house and it was choking me every night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I followed a guy named John Ramirez for a while who was a high priest in the satanic world and got radically delivered and saved and now he preaches the gospel. But he has a lot to say about costumes and what we wear at Halloween, because you do really take on an identity, whether people intend to or not. Some people can dress up. I dressed up as a kid for Halloween because we weren't raised that there was anything wrong with that, but we were never also allowed to do anything evil. It was a Pentecostal girl opportunity to wear makeup Because we couldn't wear any of that at church. So I got to be a cheerleader because I was never allowed to be that in real life, allowed to be that in real life, you know. But I really believe that and people that are sensitive in their nature, in their personality, when they're sensitive or if they're sensitive to the Spirit of God because God has a calling on them, are going to feel that way more than a person who's not really wired that way or God had not instilled certain gifts in them. So it sounds like from an early age you were already very spiritually inclined and discerning, even if you didn't know how to understand it or identify it.
Speaker 2:But you know what you described, being choked. I have those situations often. Psychology would call it sleep paralysis. You know that, yeah, that's the clinical name when you have a sleep paralysis event or but people report being attacked in their sleep. I've had people have scratches or bruises, I've you know, crazy stuff, which is why I came up with questionnaire. I came up with because people because the spirit realm is very, very real and people that aren't even acquainted with church culture are having demonic attacks.
Speaker 2:But you know, we're labeling a lot of things as a psychological issue and I think it's helpful to have language for both, because not everybody's going to want to address the spiritual piece. It doesn't mean someone's bad. I always, usually think the devil's working that hard against somebody. It's generally because god has a plan for them, which god has a plan for everybody. But I tend to look at things from that lens of you know, what is god really wanting to do in a life of a person? Yeah, so you've had a ton, a ton of experiences spiritual, you know, aside from just criminal and other experiences. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So continue. Sorry, I just oh no, that was good I interrupt a lot because I just have so many questions about all of those details. I think they matter.
Speaker 3:They do. I'm glad you brought it up because I wouldn't even thought about that, but they do. I completely forgot about what I was watching as my mom didn't know it that, um, and I still continue to go to bible quizzing years later like it, but it's somewhere. I'm sure it did plan, because I was always having crazy dreams and and sleepwalking, trying to get out of the house, and these dreams of witches and just crazy stuff.
Speaker 2:Before you got into drugs.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I think because of the movies I was watching. That's his way entertainment. He's going to put stuff on movies so he can get people. I've had God show me in dreams different things like it's. That's a way they uh, he gets, he gets people yeah, yeah I don't know.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, so my, my life was just very, very bad and I um continued the heavy drug use. Uh, I was in fights all the time, and my brother and me we were in fights, like one time we kicked in a house to get back at some people. Um, uh, one had his face severely beat in one one of them, he was stabbed multiple times in the face. My brother was stabbed in. His chest was long, was punctured. I had cuts all over me. Um, it was just like where we literally kick in a door, kick somebody's door in to try to kill them.
Speaker 2:And Terry, was any of that gang related? Were there gangs in the area?
Speaker 3:Because here there's so many gangs there's gangs and one of the people we stole meth lab from we sold all the stuff to Somebody was in the Crips gang. This was like my sophomore year of high school. We sold it to him. So the gangs we weren't involved in any of that, but we were a lot of violence, fights with bats, hockey sticks, knives, like you name it.
Speaker 3:My life was just out of control. There was one time I mean, there was a car accident. We had what I should have been dead in. One of of my friends died multiple different car accidents. We were in um, but it was just life, life of crime, in and out, in and out of um, in and out of jail, um. There was a time where I was walking out. I went in there to get pseudophagin pills to make meth and I walked out of lawgreens and, just like out of a movie, all of a sudden SWAT team rifles surrounded me and put me on the hood of a car. Like I had no idea. No idea all that was coming, um. So then they charged me with possession of precursor drug with intent to manufacture meth, and none of this stuff, like it, didn't stop me. I thought I was going to stop.
Speaker 3:I took probation eventually. And then I was on probation doing all kinds of designer drugs. At one point I was out in a tent. My po came to my house looking to do a home visit. I was out sleeping in the front yard in a tent. This designer drug called bliss all over mirrors, lines spread out, be like if she would have came in there I I would have been hit. No slowing down. I remember searching for somebody who was cooking meth at my cousin's house. I was searching for him. I was walking through the drinking tequila and walking through the weeds, trying to track him so I could stab him while I'm on probation. Just out of control I began shooting. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, go ahead.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say. I began shooting up dope. In between all that time, too, I began sticking a needle in my arm too Not too long after that, and that just became a whole other habit. You could buy needles. My friend was a diabetic, so then I began shooting meth up.
Speaker 2:So it sounds to me like once you discover drugs, you kind of stayed loaded perpetually.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I was never sober Like. I remember one lady down the road when she finally, when I finally got back into church, like she was like I haven't seen you since I've known you over 10 never sober. I remember one lady down the road when I finally got back into church. She was like I haven't seen you since I've known you over 10 years. Sober I was never. I was always under the influence of something, at least something that's not exaggeration. I literally was always at least drinking or weeding, but usually I was on a mixture of all kinds, all kinds of different things did you ever have moments during that time of realization or moments?
Speaker 2:did you ever feel the Lord convicting you, or the or dealing with you? Or were there ever times that you thought to yourself man, what am I doing? Or wow, look at all the crazy. Like any of those moments?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, originally I had the thoughts like I knew I was going to go to hell, like I was like, well, I'm going to go to hell, and I knew it, but it didn't bother me, I didn't think about it. I mean, I have pictures where I drew signs. I'm just drinking out of my mind, flipping the camera off and I got a sign with the upset on cross that says I'm already dead. Just, I'm already dead.
Speaker 2:There's no hope, did you? Because I've asked other people this question Because you thought you were going to hell. Do you think that gave you a license to just do whatever you wanted, like there was no? There's no deterrent after that. If that's the worst, that's going to happen, right?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, I think it didn't matter. Like there's no conviction to think, gosh, that'd be horrible. Like there's none of those thoughts, like that'd be horrible to burn forever.
Speaker 3:None of that, just like you accept, I'm going to go hell, whatever, and that's sad. It wasn't until, like, we got in this rat bad car wreck, um, and my friend he was driving, he died. I should have been dead. For some weird reason, I never wore my seat belt, especially having been on the influence, but that day I had it on. We went off the road, hit like a concrete tunnel that goes onto the road, like a wall just smashed. It flipped over, um, he died. He died there on the scene. And, uh, we actually hit so hard the seatbelt I was wearing a seatbelt but it snapped, but it held me long enough to keep me from going through the windshield. It snapped, uh, broke a bunch of my ribs, punching my lungs and I would eventually just stop breathing. I collapsed on the side of the highway and the helicopters came and they, they revived me. Um, but remember, after that time, that was the first time I thought man, I have to be alive for some reason. How?
Speaker 2:old were you.
Speaker 3:I would have been probably about 2003. So I was just out of high school, it was 2002, so probably like 19. And I had those thoughts but it still didn't Like. I thought, man, I must be like there's a change in my thought pattern, a little bit thinking I, I was saved, spared, but it didn't stop me because I would still go on to, to shooting up meth and continuing the same, the same lifestyle. All this other stuff that I just described to you happened after that.
Speaker 3:You know the the meth, the meth lab stuff, the shooting up all kinds of fights, kicking people's doors in. I was running around St Louis smoking crack Parts of St Louis I shouldn't be at being white, they told me.
Speaker 3:One of them thought I was a cop one time because they said there's no way you'd be out here in the middle of the night if you weren't a police officer and there's times when I thought they were going to kill one of my friends, take him behind the aisle. They wouldn't let me go to go get the dope, and just so many different things. I should have been. People get killed in St Louis all the time over Just crazy. And I went to my PO. I'd known my PO one time. After I had to see my PO the next morning I stayed up all night drinking, smoking crack in St Louis and went to my PO or went to rehab to do an outpatient class which they I reeked of booze, and they wouldn't let me even leave until I could blow under a 0.08.
Speaker 3:So, just like a fast track, I still never you know. And and throughout all that, those I never you know, and throughout all those years, when I got back in church to speak about a testimony, I started going to my police paperwork and I counted up all the times I turned myself in willfully to do time, not against my own will, getting arrested, but I turned myself in to do time close to 70 times, like just to turn myself in to do different amounts of time.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing because I'm thinking okay, if you're turning yourself in, that is a whole lot of arrests.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is because that's just me turning myself in. Right, right, right yeah that's when I have the paperwork, like the dates he turned himself at 9 am or this time or whatever.
Speaker 2:What a miraculous God, because I don't even know the end of your story, but 70 times is a lot. And I know that because I helped somebody write a letter to get some of their stuff expunged and that person had 35 arrests and many were for failure to appears and stuff. And I thought at that time boy, that is a lot, that's a lot of arrests. So yours was double and that's just crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Considering people can go their whole life and never be arrested. You know so not to. I hope that doesn't make you feel bad, I know you're on the other side of that, you know. So when did you, what made you finally go to prison, how old were you and what was the catalyst that sent you to prison?
Speaker 3:Well, well, I actually never made it to prison in my own sick way. I was like I couldn't wait to get there. It was like almost like an achievement. Um, I should have been in prison multiple times.
Speaker 3:This last time I was facing um life in prison, um, I was with my girlfriend and I took some of her her xanax pills and I wouldn't give them back to her anyways, I can't went to get her weed and I came back and she flipped out on me. This is one of those situations where there wasn't a mark on her. Literally, it's in the report. I had a marker scratched on her. I came back and she split my head open with a plate because I wouldn't give her her pills. Then she proceeded to take a bat to me and I just wanted to get my stuff, so I walked out of there anyway, she, she called the police on me and, um, I remember popping a bunch of xanax as I was walking down the road and I remember the last thing I was remember, uh, they arrested me and I got real mad because I hadn't done anything. And then I remember spitting at the cop through the thing, cussing a sergeant out in the celly part of jail and then I and I packed and I blacked out then. And then I woke up to them reading me my charges and I. They had charged me with felonious restraint, um, unlawful use of a weapon, first degree assault and armed criminal action, and uh, the armed criminal action alone was three years to life. The other ones, like 10 to 15, uh, 7 to 15, like all, like if I were to get convicted I'd be facing life.
Speaker 3:And then it was that time, like man, I'm not getting out. You know, they asked me who I wanted to. I said I wanted to sign my property over to my mom. They said, no, you'll get when you get out. And I said I'm not getting out. So this is my like, this is my life, the rest of my life, you know, I'm not ever getting out. And um, I was going through horrible withdrawals. It took me back to population for a couple weeks. I was shaking, like alcohol withdrawals, drug withdrawals. I couldn't even eat, like I was trying to eat my food and I was just shaked where it'd fall off the before I get it to my mouth.
Speaker 2:They didn't give you a doctor for detox medical detox no, they don't care wow no.
Speaker 3:No nothing, nothing. I felt like death. I felt miserable. I'm like I'm literally I'm never going to see the light of day again. And then that's whenever I every other time I went to jail, I never wasn't a Bible thumper. I didn't pick the Bible because I knew I'd be back, it was just wind. But this time I was like I'm sick of it, god you know. But this time I was like I'm sick of a, god you know. I was like I just can't, um, I can't do it no more, you know, uh so you believed he still loved you.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, somewhere, yeah yeah, and I wanted, um, I, I wanted him to uh take the pain. I said I don't care, I want to be changed. I said I don't care if I never get out of prison. I, uh, I just wanted to change man. I don't want to live like this, no more. And then the next morning I woke up and I just had peace. Um, I just had peace like I can't even explain it and, uh, I, I was there for about four months and I, they finally got my um ex-girlfriend on the stand and I had a $50,000 cash bond and it went from 50,000 cash to $500 after she got up on the stand. And they found out all these, but they still didn't want to. They didn't want to just, they didn't want to just drop the charges.
Speaker 3:They knew like they didn't want to just drop the charges. They knew that, but I they didn't just drop the charge, but they knew that. So I got out on bond and I actually forgot something. Well, I want to backtrack real quick because it is important. We were on drugs Come back to that before that and my brother and me were smoking crack cocaine and we got into it. He come walking across the floor in the living room and the lights were kind of dim. My mom was asleep on the couch for some reason, and in the living room the lights were kind of dim. My mom was asleep on the couch for some reason. My friend was over there and I was laying on the floor. He was all belligerent and he stepped on me and finally I got sick of it the way he was walking around and I got up and I just punched him.
Speaker 2:Your brother.
Speaker 3:Yeah, punched him and knocked him into the kitchen and then right around the corner is one of those blocks with knives and he just pulled out an 8 1⁄2-inch butcher knife and then come at me and just started stabbing me. About 14 times. He stabbed me. I got about six or seven of my arm, a lot of defensive wounds all up and down, probably by my heart here, by my lungs, my back, my head. He just started stabbing me like he was throwing punches and then somehow I was able to get him down on the ground, get on top of him to get the knife. And then it was dim in there.
Speaker 3:My mom thought it was him on top of me and then she picked up a fireplace poker and then started beating me in the head with the fireplace poker and, uh, eventually I was able to get the knife and get out of there. And then she I said we got to get to the hospital and she grabbed a bunch of towels. But when she got out there to the car, like I couldn't tell where I was stabbed. I mean it just looked like the movie Carrie, just covered in blood and I was getting weak, starting to slide down, starting to slide down her car, you know.
Speaker 3:So we ended up making it to the hospital in town, about six miles away, and they airlifted me to St Louis University SLU Hospital and that night I never went to bed. I'd been smoking crack and drinking. They took care of me, what they were supposed to do surgery. I have nerve damage in my left arm because my whole muscle was cut in half. Uh, they sent me out the next morning. The next morning I left had huge bottles of prescription pills. I started snorting them, eating them, got more beer and I was just walking around the neighborhood partying like I never went to bed.
Speaker 3:it never slowed me down and I just about died being stabbed, and and anyways, that was his, do you?
Speaker 2:think you had a death wish, Terry. I didn't care.
Speaker 3:There were some times I just didn't care. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It didn't matter, but luckily God's merciful God did yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he cared Because I think when you already believe you're going to go to hell, I mean, what is there to care about? And I think we've talked about it on the podcast before people that are raised in church, when they backslide, and especially if you get into any kind of devil worship stuff, you believe I've already done the worst that I can do and there's not going to be any hope. So there's a tendency to just do as much as you can. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it is so wonderful to look back on a life and see that God did care in all the places that we did not, and he never does really leave us ever, and I think your story is such a wonderful example of that. So you're looking at four months and you just told the Lord you were tired of it. Well, I was not. I mean you're looking at a year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was there total before I got out on bond four months. But like a couple weeks into it I told God I was tired of it and he gave me that piece like the passive understanding. I remember going to the rec I mean it's not outside, it's in another little concrete room but running in circles, little circles. I could, and I was just happy. I was like man. I wish she could see me now. I Like man. I wish she could see me now Like I don't even care, Like I'm at peace. And he changed me.
Speaker 3:Then I got out on bond. I was out for like two or three hours I ate breakfast with my mom and they issued a probation and parole hall on me and I went to my PO. They locked me right back up. I was in the same cell by noon. But then a few weeks later I did get back out for good and I started going to church with my mom and it was interesting. I got put on house arrest, but it was interesting. They let me go to church. But they said I need to go to anger management and substance abuse classes and they gave me a phone number of who I needed to call. Well, come to find out this person. They were doing these classes at the church I had started going to and the person I needed to call was my old sunday school teacher. Wow, that I used to. You know, harass.
Speaker 3:Yes, it was the craziest thing like full circle right back to where I started as a kid and, um, like the way god orchestrated. And then he started, he, um, he, he had I changeds. And then come to find out the PO who, or the PO that I had now was roommates with a prosecutor in high school, prosecuting attorney in high school.
Speaker 3:So she started telling this prosecutor like he's not like what you think. I mean what it says. You know, even though they want to drop the charges that god was placing people I'm giving me favor. And uh, on 2011, yeah, june 12, 2011, I was baptized. I got baptized, had my ankle.
Speaker 3:I didn't stay in there too long, I was worried I was going to get messed up, but I had my ankle bracelet on, got baptized and I got the holy ghost that night. And then, um, I was just at peace facing life in prison. But I was at peace and uh, but then I ended up there's some lady or girl started going these classes too, at church. So I I liked her. We started dating and then we wanted to get married. My pastor said I should wait and thought I knew everything. I didn't listen to counsel. So, long story short, we got married, but she hadn't. I'd given my cigarettes up the day I got baptized. I said I'm not going to need these, no more. I threw them out the window on the way to church, stopped smoking, didn't have no problem, like it was just gone.
Speaker 3:And she still had a problem with smoking and we just didn't get along. We should have never gotten married. And then I ended up smoking because she had them and then eventually she would take off and go out of state and just leave for months at a time. I had no idea where she's at. I'm still waiting to go to court. I remember she was supposed to be my wife in a Christmas play and I had no idea where she's at. I had somebody else play my wife in the Christmas play at church while I had no idea where she's at, so that really hurt.
Speaker 3:And eventually she filed for a divorce and she left church, filed for a divorce. Everybody in church is crazy. I started falling back into drugs.
Speaker 3:I went into the carpenter's union and my partner who helped me do roofs there, he was smoking meth. I started smoking meth and then that led to shooting up all the time, which eventually led to us getting pills and cooking meth. And I remember I left the union after about three, three and a half years. I was helping an old, another friend with this house. He had left the st louis area and I was supposed to be remodeling this house and I was just going there, spun out on math. I was, meth was cooked there. I covered all the windows up with black, black felt paper. I'd go there to do work and I would just shoot up, hear voices just sitting in this, turn on my techno music, do a shot of dope and just lose my mind. And it got to where I was up for days on end. And then I remember I wasn't at church because this was like an off and on, missing church thing. And then I remember I kept saying I'll be at church next week, I'll be at church next week and next week would come.
Speaker 3:I was getting high again on Sunday morning and the last time I'd been up for like 10, 9, 10 days and I was on the porch, spun on my mind and there's a picture of me in the book with it and I felt God, tell me to go, go, let me dead or in prison, just go. And uh, I was like, okay, god, I'll go, I'll go in my time. And then I was like I gotta. I was getting ready to take a business over. I was gonna sign paperwork to take over my friend's business, which I never would have been able to handle. I would have lost everything on the meth man. But uh, I was like, okay, I'll do it my time and I guess god didn't mean my time, he meant now.
Speaker 3:And then that night, uh, I was like, well, I'll try to not do any mess. I wasn't doing any meth, I was just smoking weed. I was gonna go to bed and then I just started hearing it was almost like a psychosis, what people describe it as psychosis, but I know it was god driving me out of there. And I just started hearing pounding on the walls next to me in the living room, so hard and violent, like I could feel it shaking my body Pounding. Then I started hearing screaming and there's no way to describe it. It's like how Paul says words don't describe this. It's like otherworldly, but it sounded like the best way I can say it when it says there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and it was like I could hear hell, like these people, horrible, horrible screaming and I'd go out in the living room and nothing lights out, perfectly calm, all the noise just stopped all the screaming stopped.
Speaker 3:I go back in my room. That happened several times. I was like I'm ready to lose my mind, I'm going to run out of this house, you know.
Speaker 3:And then it wouldn't go away. I messaged my Sunday school teacher and it still kept going. I started praying and the more I prayed, the louder it got. The more I prayed, the louder it got. So I opened my Bible and I was like man, I'm going to learn to pray tonight.
Speaker 3:Because I was terrified, like I've seen a lot of crazy stuff and I was terrified and the noises were so loud I was like there's no way I'm going to go to sleep and I had all these fears, like my Sunday school teacher told me I could go live up there with him, because before all this week, the week before that, I went to go visit him and I was clean and I got off the plane within an hour, hour and a half. I was sticking a needle in my arm after landing in St Louis and I had all these fears like what am I going to do for money? How am I going to survive? What am I going to do? And I got this printed out but I wrote.
Speaker 3:So I opened my Bible randomly to Deuteronomy and this chapter. I didn't write the chapter I'm pretty sure it was Deuteronomy 30, but I got to the verses 29 through 33, so I had all these fears. And he's talking like to the Israelites, about like what he did when he brought them out of bondage, you out of egypt. And he says then I said unto you, dread not, excuse me, neither be afraid of them. The lord, your god, which goes before you, he shall fight for you according to all that he did for you in egypt.
Speaker 3:He starts speaking to me about like he took you out of prison, he saved your life from prison. From all this he's reminding me all he did for you in egypt, before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where thou has seen how the lord, thy god, bear thee as a man, doth bear his son, and all the way that he went until you came into this place. Yet in this thing you did not believe the lord, your god, who went before you to search you out of place to pitch your tents, and he's speaking to me about. He's already here in fargo, he's already gonna, he's searching it out, he's gonna take care of, he says.
Speaker 3:I'm fired by night to show you by what way you should go and cloud by day. And that's when I thought to myself like I'm never going to go to sleep, you know. And so there was 13 verses remaining in that chapter and I was like wide awake and before I ever finished the 13 verses in that chapter, I was just put to sleep like I was just out put to sleep. I woke up the next morning. It was surreal. It was like a movie. The lights were still on, sun shining through my window. The only thing missing was like birds chirping you know to be like a movie.
Speaker 3:But I was just sitting there, bible wrapped up in my arms. He just put me asleep yeah and um, and then uh, then I was like, okay, god, I'm out of here. You know, and I, uh, everything, I. I walked away from that business thing. I didn't go get the bank loan at the bank. I packed everything I could that I could fit my truck up in three days.
Speaker 3:I left, I drove here, I left everything, everything behind, just ran, ran yeah, I was like I was scared, like and, and I got here and, um, like I was so terrified, like it was so traumatic, like what I heard, that I literally slept with the, had to sleep with the lights on in the Bible in my arms for a few weeks, like it was that traumatic I don't know how to describe the how traumatic it was but it scared the daylights out of me and I've seen a lot, of, a lot of stuff yeah um, I think that's a gift.
Speaker 2:When the lord opens our eyes and ears to hear the sounds of hell, it, you know, not Not everyone, gets that experience, but everybody, not everybody. But I've heard people say I'm not afraid to go to hell. They have no idea what it's going to be like. They think they're tough enough to handle it, but they really just don't have any idea. So, terry, I think you fell into a trap that I see people fall into rather quickly when they come out of the world and they find the Lord. They want to find a husband or a wife, and you know I have a lot to say about that, but I will reframe. What would you say to the person who is just getting out of jail, coming in to try and to heal from their own wounds and trying to get really grounded in their walk with God? What would you say to them about dating?
Speaker 3:I would say they need to hold off, they need to work on themselves. For my instance which is most people if you're not spiritually healthy or any kind of healthy, as soon as you go through some heartache within a relationship, and especially if you had those tendencies from drinking or drugs or whatever maybe you're going to turn right back to that, like if you're not strong, you're going to go right back to it.
Speaker 3:So many people have a relationship issue and they go right back to that lifestyle they live. But even even if it's besides that point, you're not going through that. Like if you're not for sure you've heard from god. Like you should just wait. Like I learned a very hard lesson. Like I should have listened. Like when it says you should listen to counsel, you should you know God put those people there for a reason and I didn't listen.
Speaker 3:And you should definitely just hold off and wait and work on yourself and make sure you're spiritually strong and really pray about something and not just pray about it for a month or a few months. Spiritually strong and really pray about something and not just pray about it for a month or a few months like wholeheartedly pray and have other people pray.
Speaker 2:Because I think at this point you loved the Lord. Your heart and intention was not to backslide, not to go back into the life you came from. You would have probably never even saw yourself doing that because God had so miraculously already delivered you right. And I think that that's the thing is we can become very confident in our desire to serve the Lord that we very easily miss where our vulnerable parts are. And if we didn't learn new coping mechanisms? Because when you first fall in love with Jesus and you first change your life, like all you see is all the goodness, You're not really walking in the valley where you can be tested again or where you can be vulnerable again.
Speaker 2:And it's so easy for the enemy to bring a love interest before we have had experience stumbling and I think that, from a backslider perspective, that was often a reason I backslid was the desire for love and my heart was to love the Lord and live for God, but I didn't know how to cope with that need of longing that existed, and I think God gives us those things. Everybody has a desire for a mate, but, as I see, we're seeing quite a revival in our church here and a revival with backsliders that have come back after 20 years, 30 years, like major, major life changes and that's what I think all these single men getting out of prison or getting off of drugs and everybody's looking for a girl and the girls are looking for a guy because God put that in us. But I do hear stories like yours and see where it's also a stumbling block if we're not really really careful with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very much so I.
Speaker 3:I even started putting her before before, god you know, like it yeah, unintentionally unintentionally, yeah, but it became to where, like that was always on my mind more than god or I want something was going on. I would worry about that versus like okay, I need to make sure I'm at church or whatever it may her bible reading or praying, whatever it may be and then she began to get lifted up above, like I treated her and did all this other stuff for her, and then I kind of god just saved me from all this and I put god on the back burner not completely, but wait, compared to where where he was. Whenever I first came back into church I mean, that's all I read the Bible for six, seven hours a day until I couldn't. I'd fall asleep and wake up and read again, like I couldn't get enough of it, and he was like everything you know. And then I left him, you know, and God showed me that he led me to the book of Hosea when everything was going on, and he showed me he let me know.
Speaker 2:How long did you live with your Sunday school teacher? Once you left, what did life start to look like for you after you made that decision to do that?
Speaker 3:Okay, so I was there for about four months, three or four months before I had gotten an apartment, and I was doing good. I started roofing for some other people. I was doing pretty good. I got myself an apartment but, like the first year, I had no furniture. I had a bed. That was it. So I had this empty, lonely apartment. I left everything I knew. I didn't know anybody really besides them. There were some people at church, but I left everything that I knew for my entire life. And then some people that I really trusted had hurt me. And I remember I had been in church early to pray on a Wednesday night before church had started and before it started I walked out the church and started searching for a liquor store and I finally, I finally found, when I picked up some liquor, picked up cigarettes again, when I hadn't hadn't touched them since I, since I left, I smoked like chain smoke on the way to North Dakota and then I put them out. That was it.
Speaker 3:Smoked two or three packs, but then that was it dakota, and then I put them out, that was it smoked two, three packs, but then that was it. And then, um, and I picked it up and I just went back to my apartment and sat there and just drank, sat up against the wall, stared at the empty, no living room, and that began a struggle where I uh it wasn't all the time but it was, you know, probably every week or something I was, I was drinking, just sitting in an empty apartment drinking the cigars. It was almost like a curse that after I picked them back up with my ex-wife, like I never could completely, I'd go on little stints but I could never fully. I didn't have that freedom I had from them like God originally gave it to me.
Speaker 3:And then I picked them back up and I couldn't get rid of them, and so that went on for a while. And then, um, the next year I actually made it through um that first year with no other furniture, and then I had started my business and God just began to bless me. And it just started, like every year, my business started doubling and um bless me that way, but I was still struggling with smoking. And then there's people I had hired that did drugs and I just couldn't seem to break that cycle and everybody smoked cigarettes. And one day I had a bad day and I remember he was like into all kinds of drugs, so I bought a couple hits of LSD off of him. It was a bad idea, Because now that I've been back in church I have all these convictions. So I took these two right lsd.
Speaker 3:And then, as it starts intensifying, I started thinking gosh, what are you doing? And those thoughts turned into a horrible panic, bad trip. I've never had a bad trip, but uh, and it was something I couldn't come down from. Everything was turning into a fun house, everything around me, like the way things looked, and I ended up calling some people from church in the middle of the night to come, get, to come over there, because I was having a horrible bad trip. And God, when I try to get my bible out and read, and all the words were just moving like water across.
Speaker 3:I couldn't do that try to listen to the bible, nothing would take it away. And that was the last last time I did drugs like it's, like I didn't ever want to, and god actually gave me a dream about that too. That said, he was taking that from me, but the cigarettes were still, uh, were still the thing, and um, I was at this head, went to a different church and we had a Christmas play and and um, and the Christmas play. I had to hold these, so I held these chains up. It's all black light stuff.
Speaker 3:All these white chains up and broke on these plastic chains in the play, breaking them, and a few weeks later I was like struggling with cigarettes. And I just happened two nights in a row. Every time I'd start having these cravings, I'd always give into it and I was like God, you've got to take it from me, I'm going to smoke, I'm going to smoke, I just know it. And I made it through the first night and then it happened the second night and I made it to the second night and I fell asleep and I had two different dreams that night and the first night, or the first. The first dream, I was in this house and I was chained to all these people and they all represented bondage. They all like different people. One was even, one was even somebody that was in the pornography, like I recognized, like that's what it stood for.
Speaker 3:Right and I was chained to all these people in this house bound by chains. And then then I saw myself in the Christmas play. I was in the audience and I saw myself on the stage and I saw myself reach up and break those chains in the dream.
Speaker 2:Because you had the power. Yeah, well, with God, obviously yeah, but your will to be delivered?
Speaker 3:Delivered, yeah yeah. And the next morning my pastor preached a message talking about giving you power to tread on scorpions and all this stuff. And God told me. He said I'm breaking these chains of addiction in your life and from since then I've never smoked a cigarette. I never had a desire to smoke a cigarette. Just completely gone, completely delivered, wow so was gone, completely delivered.
Speaker 2:Wow, so many steps. I think there's so many lessons here about how God works, how long-suffering he is, how he works in us and with us. To kind of walk it out, you know, sometimes people get delivered really rapidly and they never go back. And other people like me my process, like I don't feel like I ever left God once I gave my life back to him.
Speaker 2:I was 28, but it took me years to really embrace his love for me and, um, my identity in him.
Speaker 2:Because I think we turn back to those things because we don't feel we don't love ourselves, we don't feel worthy, we give up on ourself, we don't have a reason to fight, we have lots of reasons to quit and that's all of our own internal pain of our heart and our emotions that have not been healed. But man, god, is just so loving and long-suffering and it sounds like, even though you did go back to your addiction a couple different times, the Lord was there with you in it and you were able to pray and talk to him through it. And I think that's such an important fact because a lot of people, the minute that they sin, they cut off themselves communication from the Lord. They they feel so separated from him that they can't pray. And I think your story is such a beautiful example of the fact that you were trying, throughout all of it, to talk to him and to read your Bible and, at the very same time, still very much struggling within, within yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah it was. There was times when I didn't want to pray, obviously. I felt unworthy. And then sometimes I didn't, I still went to church because I knew if I didn't go to church it was going to be a lot worse. I just knew better. So there was like probably a year and a half or more that I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday, but I didn't want to be there. I felt dead. I didn't feel a single thing, I was just there, you know. But I continued.
Speaker 2:You were trying With your actions. You were still trying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I felt unworthy. I felt unworthy. I felt like what's wrong with me because I sincerely did. I went on several like Daniel fast, like 21 days I fasted and um, so many times and, uh, I'm like what's wrong with me. Like I told you I can't do it. I know I can't do it.
Speaker 3:There's one time where I got up when I was in the empty apartment and I was like I don't know, you don't have to give like 10% of everything, exactly 10%. But I was like I'm going to give you 10% of my day and it's going to be the first 10%. And I literally would get up at midnight and I'd walk around my from root, like follow the pattern of the whole apartment Empty apartment and pray for two hours and 40 minutes. I would pray and I did this every night, and then I'd go back to sleep. I would pray and I did this every night, and then I'd go back to sleep and I was like why I'm trying? Why won't you take this from me? I tried, sincerely, tried so hard and I don't know why. I don't know if there's something I was missing. I wish it was where, because it can't be by works.
Speaker 2:It can only be by grace and love. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And if he would have answered and I don't know, I'm not God, obviously, and there might be people listening to this that could disagree but if he would have answered you at that time that you were doing that, you would have felt like it was something you could have done, like that would have created a worthiness thing. Like you know, instead of we are undeserving, it's nothing we can do, it's not the amount of fasting, the amount of prayer, it's. It is unmerited grace that god bestows on us because he loves us. I believe works are important, obviously, yeah, but I'm glad to hear the fact that the Lord was teaching you that you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No matter how much you're praying or fasting, that's not what's going to always get His attention.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it does, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, you know God is marvelous in how he does things. Yeah, I mean, I think it does, but you know what I'm saying. It's a yeah, yeah, you know god is marvelous and how he does things. We don't always know how what's going to be the thing. So take me to where you are today. So so you turned your life around after that, and what's life look like for you now?
Speaker 3:well, now I have. I have a house. I just got a place um. It's been, I've been, I'll be here 10 years and in april.
Speaker 3:I've wanted a place for a long time and every time I've been ready to sign those papers too, and god say this is what you want, not what I want. So I stayed living in an apartment, putting up with neighbors. I just can't stay, can't stand, and finally, finally, um, I just can't stand, can't stand, and finally, finally, not last October, october before, god just gave us everything. I wanted, just a beautiful piece of property on the river, private, and he's given me everything as far as that. I wanted, you know, blessing with that. But now I'm praying for to be out of roofing. So it's what pays the bills, but it's just so much I want to do be in ministry, I want to go to prisons, I want to go to different places and do things, and it's so time consuming. I have to do everything myself, you know, from the work to the paper, everything, paperwork, and it's like I don't have time for God. I'm so mentally, physically and spiritually exhausted.
Speaker 3:I know it's not what God wants for me. So, although I have everything I could physically want, I've realized that it isn't. Even that still doesn't bring you peace. You could have whatever you wanted and it's not going to bring that fulfillment or peace. So now I'm at a spot where I'm fasting and praying for God to make a way to leave roofing behind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to go into ministry full-time. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Even if I have some ideas for different things for the help financially, but cause it may not be able to just be full time ministry where it supports everything else. But that's what I would like to be able to do is not be so tired. All I can give God is 2%, you know that's not his will either.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's where I'm at now. I've made it through all, done the business stuff and I don't if I'm praying, for one day he'll give me that that thing where I can walk away from this one, like I walked away from the one he's already yeah, and so your heartbeat is really prison ministry prison, prison ministry, and and and people addicted yeah. There's not enough people either that is involved in it, and they're hungry.
Speaker 2:You mean in our church culture or?
Speaker 3:in general.
Speaker 2:In general, there's not enough.
Speaker 3:In general. Yeah, I guess there's not enough. I mean, anywhere you look, there's not enough people to go into the prisons. There's not enough facilities around at least this city. There's not enough people to go into the prisons. There's not enough facilities around at least this city. There's not enough for people addicted and a lot of them like, they're there for some short little program and they're back on the streets and they're not really being taught Jesus. That's what they really need. That's what's going to change. It isn't just some NA thing and I don't think it's great that people have classes, but I believe that when you you stand up and say hey, I'm, I'm, my name is so-and-so and I'm an addict, you're claiming that power over your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're claiming to be addicted and say, hey, I'm free. No, it's a trick to stay bound for the rest of your life and I just want more. There's not enough people that I know there's not, because I talk to people all over the place and there's one person I've been fighting with for like eight years now to try to get a minister to that prison, and he's been fighting. He has life without and he's been for like 20 years.
Speaker 3:And every time he gets moved, then I have to try to reach out to new pastors, and nobody seems to want to go.
Speaker 2:Have you looked into the prison ministries that exist within our organization, because I know there's a couple people that are doing prison ministries Probably not in your area, but I believe uh upci has a prison ministry. Have you looked into that to see about being able to go where you, where it is you want to go?
Speaker 3:yeah, I'm, I'm part of that. I have a credentials with them for north american missions to do that um. But they won't let me come into the jail here in this area. They say they got enough people and everything um the other prisons. I'm gonna have to try to start getting there, but they're so. They're far enough away, like we're like when I'm working.
Speaker 3:I just don't, I can't, I'm overwhelmed, do it and the winters can get crazy here, like blizzards and shut the highways down like it's hard to drive three hours um, but in time I'd like to get away with from the roofing where I can do that.
Speaker 3:So I do, am involved in that and um that's great yeah, some of the ministers that are involved in the prison ministry are. Well, there's pictures of the head chaplain. He's in my book and then my fiance's book. There's pictures of them at some of the prisons in texas. So I do actually I spoke with one of them this morning I do talk, keep in contact with them and try to um, try to get things done. You know, advocate, advocate for people that's wonderful, terry.
Speaker 2:So what? What has become of your brother and your mom? My mom, I mean you don't have to talk about that, if that's if you don't want to oh, it's fine.
Speaker 3:Um, my mom is in the next room. I'm not sure what she's doing right now but she's so good, yeah, she's up in age.
Speaker 3:So, um, she stays with me and then my brother has his own place. He's up here too. He moved, he got out of prison. He, he had to do. He got sentenced to 15 years, um, because he ended up getting the fight. I got him out on bond and six months later he ended up stabbing somebody else and, um, but he, he ended up getting 15 years. He did a little over 13 years on that 15 and then, um, he got released in august of 2018 and then I met with the parole board and said that he had a job when he came up here. So he got released from prison in Missouri, came straight up here, started living with me at that time and then it's in my book but I actually baptized him. I actually baptized him at the church.
Speaker 3:Oh praise the Lord yeah pictures of that in the book.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, he's doing better. Yeah, yeah, I am going to read your book. Oh, praise the Lord. So what would you say to the backslider that's out there you know that has a similar story or left when they were kids, like you did. What would you say to them today?
Speaker 3:I would say come back. I mean obviously, but it's that you're never too far gone that you can't come back, and he's always waiting, you know, in your life. He can literally give you back all the years, like it talks about giving you back the years of locust eight, like and it says, and he says the which the army which he sent before.
Speaker 3:So it's like god sent the army of locusts to strip you and take everything from you, to get you to a point of desperation and, and you know, they're probably going through a lot of desperation and in different situations, because, being stubborn like we are, it takes us sometimes, it takes a lot of situations to get us to you know, get desperate and come back yeah, yeah they can always yeah, always come back.
Speaker 3:He will restore everything. He actually I didn't write about it, but like I was going to file bankruptcy, I went on a 21-day Daniel fast and on that fast I was reading about the year of Jubilee and everything being restored and everything, and God told me I had an attorney, I was getting ready to finalize it, which would have took I wouldn't even be able to get this house or anything, and it would have took I wouldn't even look at this house or anything and, uh, it would have messed my credit up, I think for like 10 years. And god said don't file bankruptcy, you know so, I didn't. And then I don't remember the exact time but within like a week, like everything was wiped out of my credit, my credit now I have excellent credit. Like he did, everything was wiped away, restored back to me. Um, man, he can just do everything. He literally will give you back everything if you just, yeah, like, start walking back towards them.
Speaker 4:It might be hard for a minute but you know that's worth it anything and it's worth it yeah, yeah
Speaker 2:what would you say to the parent out there who has lived with you know?
Speaker 3:Don't stop praying. But you know, I believe God's God always hears and he's there and I don't know why it took me so long, or, like I know my mom was praying for me a long time ago, but he does hear it and there might be. Maybe he wanted me to. I don't think I want like condone sin, but maybe he saw the bigger picture. I don't, I'm not really sure. I can't think on. His thoughts are higher than ours. But I would say don't stop praying, just keep praying for him. It's possible. You know, sometimes you put them in situations. There's another mom. I'm talking to her son. He just got 30 years, but one of the people in the prison ministry hooked me up with her and so now I'm talking to her son and he's in Texas too, but she's a praying mom and I believe that that he was put in prison to bring him back. You know it's not like that's a life saving, that that's a life-saving thing.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, it can be yeah yeah, yeah, just keep praying yeah, I've heard lots of parents say um, they're always glad when their kiddo gets arrested because they can sleep at night, because they know they're safe.
Speaker 3:That's what my mom said about me.
Speaker 2:She's, yeah, she's always felt safe that at least she knows I'm safe, like that's yeah, mind-boggling yeah yeah, I know so, um, do you have any last minute thoughts, anything you want to say to anyone that's out there listening?
Speaker 3:um, I don't know, just don't give up. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Now I'm on the spot thinking, yeah, just really, god's good, and it doesn't matter where you've been, what you've done. Yeah. Your life can change for the better just like that, as soon as you start walking towards them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and and I'm going to just mention the book again Um, it's called from darkness to light. Uh, terry, uh, boucher, but it's B O U C H E R. Um, terry has pictures in the book. It's very well written. Uh, he is also, um, writes a lot of poetry. Terry has pictures in the book. It's very well written. He also writes a lot of poetry. You've written a lot of poetry in the book as well.
Speaker 2:So this could be a really great resource for anyone out there who shares a similar story to Terry's, because there's tons of scripture in here as well, and the Bible is alive. It's going to do the job that it's sent to do. So I just want to encourage anybody out there who can relate to his story, who might know somebody in prison or addicted, you know, pick up a copy and give it to them, because you never know. You never know what tool God is going to use to reach into the heart of somebody to turn them around. And so, terry, I am very happy to meet you and I am so thankful to God. I mean, when I do these podcasts and I see what God does in a life, it's just, it's miraculous, but it just illustrates so much His love for us that I don't think any of us could really comprehend. We can only know the story that he's delivered us from.
Speaker 2:But I'm so grateful that you're here today and preaching the gospel and can testify of the goodness of God. And that's such a cliche. I think that gets said over and over. But I think it gets said from people who really have lived his goodness, because it's unmerited. We do not deserve it and we are the best ones to judge that, because we know who we've been and we know where we've been. But I'm so glad that you reached out to me and I look forward to digging into your fiance's book. I'll definitely have her on, yeah. So thank you so much for sharing your testimony.
Speaker 3:You're welcome. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, God bless you and and keep moving forward. I know you will.
Speaker 3:You too.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you for everybody for joining us, and if you have a testimony to share, please reach out to us. Our website is theredeemedbacksliderorg.
Speaker 1:We'd 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.
