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
Confessions of A Prodigal TRB #30 Stephenie Haney-Montes
What happens when the daughter of respected Pentecostal leaders finds herself trapped in an abusive marriage and eventually walks away from church altogether? Stephanie Haney Montez shares her raw, unfiltered story of growing up in a "glass house" as the daughter of Joy and Kenneth Haney, and how that experience shaped her expectations, struggles, and eventual journey away from and back to faith.
This powerful conversation pulls no punches as Stephanie reveals the warning signs she missed in her abusive marriage, the isolation and fear that kept her silent, and the difficult process of escaping both physically and emotionally. Her candid sharing about miscarriage, depression, and questioning God creates space for anyone who has wrestled with similar experiences.
You can follow Stephen on her Facebook, Instagram or YouTube pages under @ACupofReal
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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 I'm a Redeemed Backslider, and with me today, from Austin, texas, is an old, old friend from Christian Life Center, stephanie Haney Montez, and so I'm really honored to have her today with me and I'm excited about this conversation. But before we begin, I'm going to read a quick bio of hers.
Speaker 2:Stephanie is first a wife to Asbel and a mom to two fur babies. She was once a prodigal who wanted nothing to do with ministry. In fact, she even told God that she wouldn't do it. But 15 years ago she surrendered her heart and her will to God, and in 2015, she launched a movement called Unveil Ministries for Women. Her mission is to help women overcome past experiences that hold them back from stepping into what God has called them to do. Having been a victim of abuse, stephanie knows what it feels like to battle insecurity, fear, betrayal, rejection, anxiety and feelings of defeat. Her heart is tender towards those who struggle with their own trauma, and she is deeply committed to walking alongside them in their healing journey.
Speaker 2:Stephanie has authored more than five books and loves to research and study the Bible. She is always grateful and if you ever listen to her. She's very authentic, sincere, transparent, just, wonderful and ecstatic when she receives a new revelation, especially during those aha moments when she feels a gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit pouring something fresh into her spirit. Her passion is writing, podcasting, ministry and empowering women to go for it. While she is an extrovert for the most part, she has learned that one of the most underrated weapons is called rest. Therefore, she takes breaks in between and enjoys being home with her doggies in what she calls her happy place. You'll also often find her traveling with her husband, as they do what they call their busy life together, and I know some of that is in Washington DC quite a bit, so you can tell us about that later. But, steph, wow, I have your book Raw, but I didn't know that you have written other books.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it's funny, raw, I've had some interest in that. It's out of print. It's been out of print. That was the very first book I wrote, and so I'm getting ready to revise it and will be reprinting it probably, I would say, in about four to six months. But yeah, I've written several devotionals. I did the biography on my mom that was on the second book.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know that you had done that. Okay, we could talk about that. Yeah, that's wonderful. I'm glad to catch up. Yes, I know it's so good to see you. I feel like you haven't changed a bit. You look beautiful as ever, I feel the same about you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's been a while, for sure.
Speaker 2:I think uh, 24 years, 22 years, it's been a long time, yeah.
Speaker 3:I left Stockton in 2000. I was trying to remember that I think it was 2002 or 2003, actually 2003 maybe two, yeah, and I left in 2001. Okay, so you left in 2004.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so the reason. So this podcast. For anybody that's new to this podcast, we're called the Redeem Backslider and this podcast is specifically to reach the backsliders. And I use that title specifically because it often, at least in my life, had a very negative connotation. And I love the fact that God redeems our stories.
Speaker 2:But I wanted to have you on today because I think so many people who have grown up in church run into things in life that they just don't know how to work through in terms of the way they view God, the way they understood God.
Speaker 2:When I grew up, I was taught that God could do anything, that God would do the impossible, that God heals the sick and raises the dead and does miracle signs and wonders all those things we all, of course, believe. But when we are face to face with disappointment and struggle, it really causes our faith to waver at times. And I think about the people who have left church for whatever reasons. They've left and maybe left their relationship with God. And in thinking about your story the part of it that I know I just thought it would be super helpful to people who might be listening. So, steph, tell us a little bit about your upbringing. I know anybody that's familiar with you knows who your parents were, but some people might not. This new generation of kids growing up, tell us a little bit about your upbringing, what it was like growing up in the home that you grew up in.
Speaker 3:Okay. Also, I was just going to say it seems like everywhere I go, kathy, that I meet people who used to go to church and they've been wounded, hurt, disappointed. Everywhere I go, emphatically, I meet someone. It's just crazy how many provocals are out there. It really is Right, right, right. Propagals are out there. It really right, right, right.
Speaker 3:But, um, okay, so, regarding my upbringing, um, I was born in stockton, california. That's where I grew up. That that's my heritage, and my parents were joy and kenneth haney and they started. I don't know how far you want me to go back, but grew up in a home where there was a lot of faith building, a lot of prayer. I know all about the prayer closet. I mean, really that was embedded into my mind. You got to pray, you have to pray, you have to pray, and I saw it by example. It wasn't just telling you what to do, it was a daily thing with my parents, but wasn't just telling you what to do. It was a daily thing with my parents. So, speaking faith, prayer and just going for it. They were not intimidated easily, neither were my parents, and so I grew up under that umbrella and, as you know, our church grew. We were a really large church, especially at one time, and then my dad started all those what they call campuses nowadays, but it was more like daughter works, he would call them, or Sabbath works, I think there was like up to 12 at one time, maybe even more than that. They just had a lot of vision.
Speaker 3:So I grew up under that, like I said, the umbrella of that, and I was the middle child, and we had the Bible college going on. So you'd have all these kids coming in, adults coming in, we had a school, we had a radio station. There was so much activity, so many things going on. Plus, they were doing a lot of global work overseas. So I grew up with that, like you were saying God can do this, god can do that and we're going to go for it. You know, I grew up with that mentality, that mindset, but I think for me is number one being a middle child. It actually anybody, it really doesn't matter. I think I struggled a lot with I don't know if you want me to go down this lane yet but yeah, whatever you want to say With my identity, not some extra identity, I'm not talking about that.
Speaker 3:My identity and who I was when you fit. I didn't quite feel like I fit in and did. My dad was a who's who, the big cheese in the organization that they were in, and so I sometimes would question people's motives. Sure.
Speaker 2:Hard to trust people, I imagine.
Speaker 3:How do you trust people? All of these different thoughts would go through my mind. And then I think the biggest thing for me was I just felt like sometimes and I hate saying I didn't fit in, because that's such a cliche, but I did struggle there, I really did, and I felt like I had to look a certain way, be a certain way, do things just like this what was expected of me but it wasn't really me. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yes, because you were a pastor's daughter.
Speaker 2:A glass house daughter, you know, and and yeah right, a big glass house, because everybody you know, not not only in the organization, um, but in the city. Your dad, your dad was so well connected and had friends across denominational lines in the city and the county he was building in the city. So everybody knew the name, everybody knew the church and I would imagine that's all of its own pressure. And was it difficult to have friends besides males? But did you find it difficult to trust people as friends? Did you feel lonely?
Speaker 3:No, in school I had a lot of. I had a lot of friends. You know everybody I was, and I always went for the underdog. That's kind of my personality. I see someone alone, I go talk to them. I was very popular, of course that I was always going for the people, you know, if I see them in the corner.
Speaker 3:Or I remember one time there was a guy that had really bad acne and people were calling him pizza face and all of these things and it just made me so mad and so I went over and I befriended him and I and then I went through acne so I understood what it felt like and girls when they grow up die. It hangs out. So I always cared for people. But that was my dad and my mom too that was always caring for the if you want to call it, the underdogs or the less fortunate. Wow. So I had a lot of friends. I had a few close, close friends, I would say during that time I didn't have a ton, but I had a lot of friends. There was a bunch of friends and then you're a real close circle. I didn't have a ton of close-knit circle of friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you had sisters and obviously your brother and it seems like you guys were all close growing up yes, we were all really close.
Speaker 3:Liz and I were really close. Sherry was a little older but we were, we were all close and yeah, in that way as a family. And my brother, he was just kind of a brat growing up great guy, he's phenomenal, but you know he's just the guy right right but we were all close.
Speaker 3:We all stick up for each other. You know, we we had a great home life. We always say that we don't have any. There was. Our upbringing was phenomenal. We had incredible parents. Our home was phenomenal, so we had incredible parents, our home was phenomenal.
Speaker 2:Well, your parents lived what they believed. I've said many times on this show I considered your dad to be my very first pastor because I felt like your dad would make a point to come and shake my hand and ask me how I was doing, and it mattered, because a person needs to be seen and where I was at that time in my life coming back to Pentecost was all brand new for me and I really was a fish out of water, but they were just so very genuine and loving, always, always.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's like I said, that's what we saw daily. They really lived it. I don't have that story where I lived in a fake house. I lived in a class house but it was real behind the scenes. What you see out in front was what we saw behind the wall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe it. Yeah, I believe it. And so you know, fast forward into teenagers I'm not sure what age you were when you met him and the excitement. You used to sit on the front row and a couple of times I sat up there with you. I would have never had you not asked me to, but it was wonderful. But I remember you sitting up on the front row and I remember when he came into church on the front row, and I remember when he came into church and I want to really ask about, I would imagine, at that stage in your life you had been praying for God to send you the right guy.
Speaker 3:Yes, okay. So let me give you a little backstory here. I was always and I don't want to go into this too much, but I was always the they would call me sometimes the black sheep of the family. So I was always pushing the envelope. I just always had a streak in me I don't know where it came from, but I did and so there were times I wasn't really doing like I should, and so finally I got to a place.
Speaker 3:I was like, okay, you got to get settled here, you know, and I did start praying for the right man to come into my life and I was trying to do right by everyone else. You know, I wanted to do right. I wanted to marry the right guy because I had been dating another guy before. That. It was it all spiraled. I always went for the bad boy image type, I don't know why, but that was kind of my personality. So then I started praying for the right guy, like, okay, god, because I know I need to fall in line. Basically, you know all of those things we pray. And, yeah, I prayed. So when this man walked in, came out to college and he started pursuing me and we started talking. I thought well, maybe this is it. Those were my first initial thoughts. Well, maybe this is the one.
Speaker 2:And then walk us through that, walk us through how it evolved.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, you know, looking back I I've learned so much, but if I knew that, then what I know now, I would have walked away when we were dating, because the signs of abuse were there, the signs of regulation were there, the signs of controlissism was there, and I was so dumb and naive in a way and I wanted so bad to marry the right one, to marry a minister. That was what was expected of me marry a minister, and so- Can I pause right there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, steph, when you say expected, was that your perceived expectation because of who your family was, or was it pressure that you felt like from people? The glass house, it was both.
Speaker 3:I think it was well. I think I put more expectations on myself, but I also felt it and people would say little things Like I've heard people say you need to settle down. You were built for ministry. You were built to marry a preacher. You were built. I heard people say you need to settle down. You know you need your. You were for minister. You were built to marry a preacher.
Speaker 3:You were built, I heard that a lot I had properties, I had all kinds of stuff, so and I, and back then I was like, well, I've been running and running, I guess it's time to settle down. You know, um, my friends were getting married and and I just thought okay. And then we started dating and this, like I said, the signs with. I remember one time particular we've been dating. We had a short courtship, I think it was not even a year. Yeah, we got married within a year of knowing each other and he was newer in the church too, so he'd only been to church a, a few years and his pastor kind of cautioned me to go a little slower maybe. And then, of course, but I remember one particular, a really good guy friend of mine that I grew up with, you would know, we were talking in a group and then he and I had like a sidebar conversation. We were talking about it's about it's about God. You know, it was all. He was in youth. He was on fire. We were just having a great conversation.
Speaker 3:Well, a guy in dating comes and interrupts me and says we got to go now and at first I didn't think anything about it. But when we got outside he went off on me and said I am looking at you and I saw you the way your eye like I mean just eyeballing him, and I saw your body language like crazy stuff and I was like what are you talking about? He's my friend. I would never be in a program with him, but that was the first sign that's so vivid in my brain right now still that I should have paused and said you better watch it. This is a sign. And the way he grabbed my arm, it wasn't gentle, it was with a jerk. So that was the first. We'd only been dating maybe four months, five months and that was the first thing I saw when we'd date the signs that okay, something's not right.
Speaker 2:Right, and so you guys get married. The abuse begins. Do you want to talk about any of that, because I know that's a large part of your ministry to women?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't usually-.
Speaker 2:You don't have to.
Speaker 3:If I'm in a small setting and it's private, I'm much more open. But I'll tell you a few things On. Our honeymoon is when it started and I remember thinking I didn't want to tell my family, I didn't want to tell my mom, my dad, I remember thinking, didn't want to tell my family, I didn't want to tell my mom. My dad remember thinking, oh, you know, he's it'll, it'll calm down, that's what you do, right, right, you justify you, you find, you make up excuses, you justify the behavior. And then then it calmed down for like a month and I thought, good, he was just under stress. It picks back up Dishes breaking, walls, being pounded, and then that mood from that type of craziness going on, chaos in the home where I was starting to be scared, touching me, trying to choke me, throwing me against the wall, locking me in the room, you know all this crazy stuff, and I was scared out of my mind. I mean, I remember thinking who can I talk to? And there again, I didn't tell anybody. I was scared to tell anybody. Number one I didn't want to be a failure. I didn't want to have a failure. I kept thinking just pray, just fast, God's going to fix him, god's going to fix him. God's going to do this. You know, that's what I kept thinking was going to happen and I didn't want any of my siblings to know that oh, stephanie's already they're divorcing. You know, I didn't want people to think that and.
Speaker 3:But then it kept getting worse and worse and then he would take off for sometimes three or four days at a time. I didn't know where he was. And keep in mind he's ministering, he's preaching out, we're holding little type services, revivals. I'm playing the piano organ and singing. All of this is going on. And I remember one time he had been gone a while and and I was just scared to death. And when he came home he was more angry and our home became just. This happened, but this was the beginning of a lot. Yeah right, then he would come down, buy me shoes, flowers, nice things. That's what they did.
Speaker 2:The domestic violence cycle.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I lived in this cycle over and over and over again and then it was about five years later, a little bit over five years, um, I actually it was four and a half years that I became pregnant and I was four months and it was. I felt like it was a boy. I had that feeling and he wasn't happy. It caused things to get worse. And then he said we were going to go travel and he had to get me away from my family. He began to despise my father, my family, just literally. My people liked that movie Sleeping with the Enemy Right. It was a crazy movie.
Speaker 3:They were very cynical and very sinister and evil. Yeah, that's that's where it got to. That's the point it got to. And so I was here, I was having a baby. I think I was like almost five months, four and a half months, when he had taken off and I was at this point because he had locked me in the room. We were in a trailer at this point because we were going to go evangelizing. So I was trying to do everything to hold the marriage together. Whatever you want, you want to go travel and preach everywhere. And I had spots. I was actually getting all these places for us to go preach because I thought, well, you know, we're getting us away from here, victim Getting us away from here, everything's going to be fine, we're going to be a happy couple, have a baby, all of this stuff. That's what victims do. Right, fix it Right. You can't fix someone who's got all these problems. You can't. Right.
Speaker 3:And so, long story short, the last time, after I had been locked in overnight in the room in the trailer and I forget it scared me so bad I thought I was going to be killed. It was that bad. There's a movie about something similar and I can't even watch stuff like that because it kind of triggers me, because I know that's a crime of fear, right, and I didn't have my phone. It was horrible. It of fear, right, and I didn't have my phone. It was horrible. It was horrible, right.
Speaker 3:And so after that he finally let me out of there, took off and he was gone. I didn't know how long it was going to be gone, but I called one of my sisters and I said I'm leaving. I keep wanting to say the name I'm leaving and I wanting to say the name I'm leaving and I need help just getting my stuff. I'm not taking anything but my clothes. I don't care about anything else, I just I have to get out of here. They didn't know really what's going on. Now I think they knew People aren't stupid, right, because I'd gotten really thin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my personality had changed. Looking back, my family would say you were changing so drastically your personality. You got quiet. You know, my personality is outgoing and they came and helped me. Her and her husband came and helped me. We just packed with mainly clothes, my shoes, and we took off. And that was the beginning of me leaving and just saying I'm not going back to that. But there was a minister who was friends with him, who knew a lot what was going on by then, and he was trying to help him.
Speaker 3:So I don't know. Do you want me to stop? Do you want to answer some questions?
Speaker 2:Well, yes, because I think, as a therapist, I see Christian women come into my office who are in cycles of abuse. It's not always physical abuse, but it's neglect, it's drug use, it's all kinds of things.
Speaker 3:The emotional abuse.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, and narcissism, the control, the manipulation, the fear. It really does a number and more and more and more people say I just feel like I'm losing my mind, I feel like I'm going crazy and I think that's what the enemy wants. But as a Christian woman, the tendency for them is exactly what you know. I'm going to pray more, I'm going to fast more, I have to hold this together. What are people going to think? The illusion of ministry and preaching.
Speaker 2:I wanted you to speak on the confusion. I wanted you to speak on the confusion. And did you ever like? At what point did you begin to see, okay, this isn't God. Did you always know that wasn't God? Did you ever think, like, at what point did you say to yourself this isn't God's will for me, this isn't something I need to stay in. I mean because because that's so hard to to help Christians, because we're told to submit to your husbands, we're told let them be the leader, and the confusion of him being in ministry, going to a church to preach, would be tremendous. That constant wrestle.
Speaker 3:Well, that's a great question. I will say this let's go back a few steps, because you touched on something that I didn't mention. The verbal abuse is what I had dealt with even more later on, after I was out of it. It affected me greatly because you're told it's all in your head. Right. Your bell opens. You're stupid, right? Why didn't you move that off that desk like that? You're so dumb. When you're listening to that day after day, it eventually affects you. It really affects you, you know. We hear that saying.
Speaker 2:Changes our brain chemistry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, who you hang out with, who you allow that's what I talk about all the time. Who you allow to pour into you is what you're regurgitating. Right, it began to affect me. I mean, it began to up my self-esteem. I had no self-esteem, right, my confidence level went to the bottom. I mean it was. I questioned everything and I was scared. I had so much anxiety. Can I just tell you one quick story before I go into it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:So this is more in the beginning, where I learned about panic attacks. I always thought panic attacks were for crazy people. Just to be honest, I never experienced one. I'll never forget this. I went into the grocery store to get groceries. I have a basket full of food and I begin to feel fleshed. My heart begins to race, I begin to feel anxiety, I begin to feel like I'm about to die and I'm losing control. I run to the freezer and I put my head in there. That doesn't help. I leave the cart there, run out to my car and I begin to just bawl. Oh my god, what's going on? God, I can't live this way. I'll never, ever forget it was at free for less. I'll never, ever forget that. But that was the beginning of all of these emotional issues and mental health even mental health issues starting to happen, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:But I would say you learn to not trust yourself. It creates so much doubt that you don't even trust yourself. And when you don't trust yourself, you don't know. You can't distinguish from God's voice, the devil's voice, your own voice.
Speaker 3:You second guess yourself all the time. And that's where I was. Finally, I got to a place where I would say, the first two years I was just losing it. I was just maybe three years, but I would say, as I got closer to when I left, I began to tell myself you're going to get out of this. This is not. Don't you dare buy into this stuff.
Speaker 3:I began to speak to myself. I know that sounds crazy, but I had to and I said, jesus, I need you to help me. And I would just bawl God, I need you to help me. I know that sounds crazy, but I had to and I'd say, jesus, I need you to help me. I would just bawl God, I need you to help me. I can't do this. This is not normal. I know this isn't what you mean to submit to your husband. This is not normal. God, this goes against who you are. Right Church. They're supposed to love us. You love the church.
Speaker 3:So I was battling all of this but it clicked. Something clicked in me when he had taken off for about three days, because he would do that and I wouldn't hear from him and if I called him and he finally answered, he would usually cuss me out, get me out at me, you know just all this weird stuff. And but finally I started like I don't know. I don't even know how to explain it, kathy. I began to speak almost like life, but I was perfect. I'm getting out of this. I am not living this way for the rest of my life. I can't fix it. And this is before. You know, nowadays everybody talks about mental health. We may have the mask. Peel back the layers, go get help. This is before that was really accepted. Go get help. This is before that was really accepted. You just kind of had to suffer in silence. You know, right, right, but I don't know and it maybe it was my mom and dad that what they put in me as a young girl just you're gonna get through this, you can do this. You know, and I think that kind of something clicked in me.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure exactly when, but something clicked in me. I I'm not sure exactly when, but something clicked in me. I am not going to be a victim like this forever and I'm not going to die like this. And because then it got to a point where I started getting scared, like what, if I get killed, you know your mind starts playing with you because there's this great control, trying to control your mind, trying to change your mindset. And when they start isolating you from your family and friends, that's what was going on. Right for sure I could die. You know your mind just goes. So I think that is when it really started to click. I'm not living this way anymore. I'm leaving. But then I had a baby growing inside me so I wanted so bad to make it work, because I now have a baby. Yeah, you know that. So that was the tormenting, wrestling, tug of war that was going on inside me I like that and.
Speaker 3:but to say all of that, there was still something in me that finally rose up and said I'm not living this way. This is not God's will, this is not God's way. I remember that because no one really needed much of anything during that time. It's just not God.
Speaker 2:And, looking back, it's so obvious, you know, when the Bible says the devil comes to steal, kill and destroy. The devil did want to kill you, of course, no doubt. And they say um, I went through a lot of training to become a court-informed therapist, working with families and dv and stuff, and they this the research says that if a man will strangle you or choke you, that he has propensity to murder you. And so it's. It's one of the signs that they look for is choking that was.
Speaker 3:that was one of the big things I dealt with from the beginning the choking, the stone and thrown against the wall with my throat against the wall, and I was scared, but I didn't start really getting. I mean, I don't even want to, I don't know if I should even put this out there, but there were times that I would be sleeping, that I would have a bottle of hairspray and a knife in my other hand and I'd sleep out in the front room Just because, unlike if something happens, I have a knife and I have a bottle of hairspray.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well to protect yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to protect yourself, yeah. So you know, before we move away from this a little bit, you know, steph, it is such a I feel like there is such a religious piece of it. All you know the confusion that sets in for Christian women. So what do you tell Christian women when they're in cycles? Because it is very hard to see? One thing I know with narcissists and borderline personality types is they use something we call fog, fear, obligation and guilt. Those are always the manipulation tactics that they use to control victims. But what would you say to the woman who is struggling to reconcile that their husband may not be godly and may not be the man of God that God sent to them? Because that's what you thought.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the thing is it's so hard because the scripture says what God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Right your marriage to work. God loves marriages Right, right and work. But, like I said, healthy. He wants them to be healthy and sometimes we end up with the wrong people, if I can say that.
Speaker 3:But I have had women even recently someone who I have two types of what I deal with with women nowadays who go through this, and I always want to try to include the pastor if that's possible. I think that's important. Who you say is your covering. But I also put in there pastors are not counselors in per se. They don't know how to. I always call it bring out the stuff from your brain that you've been packing up. Good, they don't know how to unpack.
Speaker 3:So having a question was really important. But I have had women tell me that their pastor has told them you need to stay with him and we're going to get help. We'll talk to him. No, talking to him isn't going to fix him. He needs help. He needs deliver, deliver, deliver. He's got to do all these unhealthy habits too, which is where counseling comes in. So I've had women deal with that where pastors are not supportive of them and they just want to stay in that place and keep praying and they're going to have a little talk with them. They're going to hit them with the wheel. That's crazy.
Speaker 3:But I've also had other women who I said have you talked to your pastor? Why don't you go talk to your pastor, find out what he believes here? Because I really feel like that's so important. And just recently a lady, her pastor, told her you need to be out of that house, get an apartment. I'm not saying you have to divorce right now, but you need to separate to protect yourself. And I was so happy. I was like thank God for a pastor that wants to protect his saint, the sheep God has given to him, and that is the kind of pastor we need.
Speaker 3:But that's what I always tell women Right off If they're in church. Now I, I talk to women they're not going to church anymore, they're just, they're not. Sometimes they're not even really saved or scared or looking to Jesus, really, but they're not me. But I always tell them go to counseling, but go to Christian counseling, right, there's a difference, there's a big difference, big difference. So that's what I do right off, literally right off. I'm like and you need a support group. If you don't want to go give a counselor per se right now, you need a support group, people that you can trust.
Speaker 3:So think each woman it's. It's an individual basis type thing of what they're dealing with their support group, their family group, their family, because sometimes their family is so dysfunctional too. I mean, they have family, they have their family. And then, like I said, sometimes you have pastors that, no, you stay together and we're going to hit them on the hand and tell them no, no, no. But then you have other pastors who are like oh no, you get out of there now, we got to protect you. That's kind of how I deal with it from the beginning, and then I do more Right right, yeah, and so for anyone watching, one of the things Stephanie said was she didn't tell.
Speaker 2:And I think you have to always tell. You have to tell somebody. You cannot live in silence If someone that you're with is isolating you from your friends and your family, don't let them. That's always, always, always a huge red flag and trying to cause you to keep a secret. Don't do that either. And so at some point, Steph, you didn't care anymore what someone thought of you. You didn't care if your family or anyone thought you're being rebellious again. You were going to just tell and I stopped caring.
Speaker 3:I stopped caring what people thought about me Before. I used to always care what people thought about me because of the glass house I lived in. I didn't want to let anyone down, I didn't care. I was pushed, my back was against the wall, I was dead. I was like I was pushed, my back was against the wall, I was dead. I was like I'm not telling what this anymore. And so I did take off.
Speaker 3:But I had my dad and my brother. They were huge supporters. They were through it all, especially in the beginning. They were like this is unhealthy, this is not God's way, and they wish. Now my brother felt some things. I don't want to speak for him, but there were things I think that my brother saw. I wasn't engaged about it until I came to him I had left, and so then I wanted to take off, you know, and get as far away as I could from that. So he couldn't find me. And sometimes they want to find you and try to control you. You know they're stopped wherever you go you know, oh yeah, and it's.
Speaker 2:it's so hard once you go away. Yeah, you have to. I tell people you have to block and stop all communication, just just for your own sanity sake, until you can get back to a place of thinking straight, thinking clearly, being able to discern your own thoughts and the voice of the Lord. It takes a while once you leave that, kathy.
Speaker 3:The one thing I did wrong was I ended up in DC, as you know Washington DC was. I ended up in DC as you know, washington DC and I just threw myself in a work of God. I kind of started in Asheville, virginia, moving my way up into DC because I wanted to get into politics, and so I landed a phenomenal job on K Street, right by the White House, and I was having a blast Like I was in freedom. No one knew me, I didn't have to tell anybody anything that was going on. I had a new set of friends and, I will be honest, I loved it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anonymity vision, but I suppressed everything I went through, I suppressed it and I would not talk about it, all of the stuff. But eventually it started popping its ugly head up. It started coming up in my relationships with guys I would go out with, even some of my friendships. I became kind of a drama queen, you know, because that's going to happen. Usually, when someone's always drama, always drawn to drama, there's something deeper going on. Sure, sure. Because when you're whole, when you're when you're whole, when you're healed, you have more peace. You want peace, you don't want to always creating drama and you're not drawn to drama. In fact, you're running from it, right, right. And I was creating drama, but that was because I didn't go to a counselor. I didn't face it. It was almost like I was trying to act like I never went through it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you left CLC and then you went with Brother Mitchell with his church and helped build his church with him.
Speaker 3:No, I wasn't Uh-uh. I went to church barely and then I was out. No, I stopped going. Okay, so yeah.
Speaker 2:I, I stopped going, Okay. So, yeah, I didn't know that. Okay, Because I thought when you left yes, and I thought that when you had left you went because he had just left also to start his church I thought you were going to help plant with him, and so that was the last I heard from you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I went In the beginning. I went I had a really good friend there and I stayed with them to get to, you know, get my shit on the ground, get a job, and I moved out, and I was determined, though, to move into the DC area. I wanted to just throw myself into that lifestyle that I went to Mitchell's church briefly, but I didn't stay there. I didn't, okay, okay. So what happened was I was thinking about this recently is I was so broken, I was so wounded, I was a victim. During that time. I hate, oh sure, you know I'm a victim, you know, all the time. I think there's time and place you have to climb out of it, but I was a victim.
Speaker 3:I was so messed up and my friend can tell you that I was a different person during that time Like, I was just insecure, all of this stuff. But I became angry with God, and that's when the spiral began. I wanted nothing to do with church. I saw, then, all the stuff I saw my parents deal with, all the things that I dealt with in the glass house, all of these religion, the fakes, the, the meanness, the, just the judgmentalism, all this stuff. It all came together like a volcano, and everything began to erupt. And then I had what I was suppressing with all of that abuse. So that was all going on and I just left church altogether. I didn't want anything to do with it at all, so I just so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, steph, how did? Can you walk us through that a little bit, steph? Can you walk us through that a little bit? Because that's where my interest is really in what happens in the heart and in the thoughts. Because through the abusive relationship, you were praying, you were trusting God, you were asking God to get you out. You got out. Asking God to get you out, you got out. So your faith was I don't know if strong is the right word but you were still reaching and turning towards the Lord in that whole situation. And so what do you think triggered the spiral? Do you know where? Like how did it go from that to then being angry with the Lord?
Speaker 3:You know I'm not sure of the exact moment that it started, but I think even before I had gotten married I had seen so much and I had questions and I would even ask my mom and dad things, and I saw them get dealt a bad hand. I saw them being treated poorly by some people. I saw a lot of just stuff that is contrary to God's character. So I think I already had a little bit of that in me. I didn't understand it all. I would just kind of ignore it. This is part of the church, it's just what happens. But I think after I left it was like all those things that Bonnie Marshall, who's helped me I was packing up in my mind. They were all packed tightly and there was like a padlock on them. There was a lock there when I moved. It was almost like I felt relieved. I'm out of where everyone knows me. I'm out of that class house. I'm now in a place where it's a big world. No one knows me.
Speaker 2:I love it. You can finally explore who you might be and you let go of all of the things that you were living under.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think sometimes we try to hold things together, we try to look the part, we try to be the part when everyone's eyes are on us, when we're doing what's expected of us, so what we feel like is expected of us.
Speaker 3:So, when I got away from there it changed and I went to their church briefly and I began to make friends. I got a really good job in Tyson's Corner and then I met a bunch of friends. I think I dated a guy for a while, I was just having fun, basically, and then I finally landed that job in DC on K Street, and that's when I got even more friends. I mean, I had tons of friends and I was doing all these um event, political events and I was loving life, literally loving it, and again, no one knew me and I just left that. No one knew me. I know that makes sound funny to you, but I just it was. It was like relief, it was like yeah, yeah for me, but I through all of that, that's when I was like I was just very jaded, jaded with religion and all the things I'd seen, coupled with the abuse. So it's kind of like that volcano, like I said, ready to explode.
Speaker 2:So do you think that you didn't know how to separate God from the religion? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I didn't know with religion.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like you allowed this. You allowed all of this. You allowed me to go through this. You allowed what I saw my parents go through. You allowed this. You allowed that. You know all this stuff.
Speaker 3:I began to just question I I never questioned that there was a god. I knew this god. I never questioned them, but I coupled him with the religion and with the people, the folks. And then it got back to me that people, rumors, had started about me. No one knew what was going on in my life. They didn't know what all had gone through. I didn't put it out there. Hey, I was abused. I did this, right, right. But everyone was surmising and making assumptions. So rumors were flying around about me and I heard about it and that just made me more angry. I was like like I want nothing to do with you.
Speaker 3:Hypocritical christian, you know how you think, right? Yeah, I'm done. You know, see you guys. You know, yeah, through this I will say my mom and dad. They loved me, they, they kept in touch with me often and we had a good relationship. My mom and dad all I mean my mom there were a few times she got a little preachy. I remember one time saying mommy, can you keep preaching at me? It's not gonna work, I can't do this right now. I'm in a stand where I am spiritually. I'm just not there right now. So but my mom and I developed a really deep relationship through that and my dad and I always he'd call me all the time Like he was all yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I know that in my case I never before I prayed back through in 1995, I think but I never, ever wanted to go back to Pentecost because I was like you I just didn't know how to separate God from church. And when I did pray back through, I just heard the Lord say keep your eyes on me. And that's what I learned to do. But it is still, and even today, my church is very different. Today, I think there's such love there and the pastor really just allows God to change the heart because he's the only one that can. But it's still such a wrestle in being around certain environments where you feel like, oh, they're judging me. We've got to look this way, and I think, when I'm thinking about backsliders in this podcast, that is such a big part of why they don't come back to a Pentecostal church is because they acquaint it with what they felt. And I think there's churches out there that are not that, and then there are some that still are that.
Speaker 3:You hit the nail on the head. You are so right about that, and I hate it when I hear people say, yeah, when they saw me, they felt so much conviction. No, they felt your judgmental spirit. They felt your judgmental spirit. They felt your judgmental spirit.
Speaker 3:Now I'm not saying that's for everyone, but someone said that. I've heard a few people say that, and they're very harsh in judgment, right, and just harsh towards people that don't look like them, don't act like them, aren't them, and so they're not feeling conviction because they saw you. They're feeling conviction wanting to run away from you because of your spirit. So when we're people, we understand there's a difference. There are some churches that are full of love, full of love, full of love, and the greatest of these is love. The fruit of the spirit is so important to me nowadays. I'm always checking myself. It's so important. Yes, I'm always checking myself. It's so important. Yes, preaching the gospel, all of that, but are you doing it with love? Are you doing it with compassion? You need to marry those together. It's so important.
Speaker 2:That's what I tell people all the time is, the Bible says you will know them by their fruit, but we often forget to evaluate fruit, to see if there is love, if there is peace. You know, because that does go a long way and people can look the part and have the right credentials. And even in therapy, there's therapists out there that are practicing occultism and witchcraft and crazy stuff, and it's super scary because you really don't know what you're getting. But I think that someone that looks nice and looks the part and has a church or whatever the case may be, can be very misleading and confusing, especially for the backslider who really wants to know God, but maybe again or has kept communication open with God since they've been gone. So when you were out, did you pray, did you talk to him? Did you know that you were angry and you were just not ready, or did you think about any of that?
Speaker 3:The first few years I didn't really pray a lot. I had a lot of anger in me, a lot of anger. I was very angry. Little things would set me off. I was a no-nonsense girl. I became this no-nonsense girl. I'd put you in your place, and that's not really my personality, you know. But I do that season absolutely, but I would say because I was going out with my girlfriends, like we didn't start going out till like 11 am, I mean 11 pm, excuse me, staying out till 2 pm, or am I got my am pms mixed up. Staying out to 2, 3 am, sometimes 4 am, you know. So that was my life for a while. About four days a week, that's what I would do with all my girlfriends, but I would come home.
Speaker 3:I remember, though, about three years later, coming home from that, and I would feel that tug of the Holy Spirit trying to soften my heart. And I remember one particular time I'd been out till 3 in the morning, got home to my condo and I opened the door, shut the door and I just began to cry and I just began to weep and I was like I know, god, I'm so far from you. I know I'm doing things you don't approve of. I know I got hate in my heart. I have unforgiveness in my heart, I'm upset, I'm jaded, I'm angry. I know God, I don't know how to fix myself and I don't want to go back to that. I was so worried about going backwards to that. Does that make sense? It does, yeah. So that was the beginning, though, of God really tugging at me, gently pulling at me, just like I'm calling you Because I believe God. He sometimes doesn't. Just, it's not a bolt of lightning, sometimes it's just mental nudges. And then I remember reading a scripture and that kind of tugging at my heart about peace, and I was like, okay, but yet I was still tying all of that to religion. Right, it took a few years for me to finally surrender, and the surrender came. You're going to this is, I'm not going to go all into it, but the surrender came.
Speaker 3:I was starting to write a lot of songs, because I would you know, I used to sing a lot and I had a keyboard. So I was writing a ton of songs and Bucky and Beth that was a healing part of my journey, and some of it was an anguished song, some of it was Christian, some of it was love songs, but I would record in a studio by Howard University and I was the only Christian there, with a lot of rappers. I would sometimes sing on backup for them. I had the last student too. I had the last year One time writing a song.
Speaker 3:I started writing a song and not to freak you out but a dark spirit came under the door. I saw the shadow of it come and this was in 2008. And it was demonic and I know all about that. Okay, Sure, yeah, we do. Yeah, I could tell you some stories, but this particular is what really like? Call on the name of Jesus. And that's what I.
Speaker 3:It was going on, this, whatever was going on, and I was alone and I began to just sing Jesus in the name of Jesus, and I wasn't even saved. I was not serving God at all, I wanted nothing to do with it, but I began to call on the name of Jesus, not ever forget it. And after a little while it left, it completely left, and I wrote a song called call on that name, jesus. That's where it came from. But that was the beginning of me starting to surrender my heart back to God. I realized there was so much power in the name and that God is going to do healing in you, stephanie, and it's not going to be the way you think it's going to be. We don't want to go back to that, because we have this vision of everything that happened. Well, god doesn't want us to go back to what broke us.
Speaker 2:Right. Thank you, that's powerful Right, because it wasn't him. That's not who he is.
Speaker 3:So yeah, that was the beginning of me surrendering. I mean, I left out a lot of details, a lot of really important points, but I know this is a podcast.
Speaker 2:Well, I think those, steph, those are so important because the demonic realm is very real and I think you know, when we are away from the Lord, we have open doors that give it access and stuff. And I think, being able to recognize it and see it come under the door and recognize it for what it is, god was already with you, showing you, protecting you in all of that. He never left, of course, but I think that aspect of all of it is so important because that is where our battle is and we do tend to minimize the spiritual significance of what happens in the flesh, but I believe it happens in the spirit first, before it ever reaches the flesh.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, it was a battle for my soul. That's what I felt so strong. There's a battle in the spirit realm going on for my soul right now, right now, and that scared me too, but I knew the name of Jesus was so powerful. You don't forget how you're raised, you don't forget your roots, and I just call on Jesus. I couldn't say anything else, I just said Jesus in the name of Jesus, and then I began to get louder and louder and louder, and then I saw it leap. That was in 2008.
Speaker 2:Wow. And so then what happened after that? Because you said in the bio, 2015 is when you surrendered.
Speaker 3:So I got married, okay, the 2000,. That's when I started going back to church, eventually started going back to church, eventually started going back to church. And then I met Asbel in January of 2009. Okay, we got married in July 2009. Okay, and then he brought in all of his baggage. He was a PK, he was jaded. We both said we would never be in ministry ever again. Neither of us wanted anything to do with it at all.
Speaker 2:Did he come from a UPC background. Also, asbel, yeah, oh, he did.
Speaker 3:On the East Coast and he saw a lot more of what we were talking about control that type of environment. He dealt with totally different things than the way my parents did ministry, so he was from a different perspective, was extremely jaded, and that's for his story to tell that he brought our baggage in and it was a ride right.
Speaker 2:we just we're starting to talk about it now but when you guys, when you went back to church in 2008, did you um go to a non-denominational church? Did you go back to a pentecostal?
Speaker 3:I tried a few non-denominational churches, but finally I began to go to um, back to mitchell's, just one day, uh, sundays, and that was the beginning. And you know, as we know, pastor Chester Mitchell is just such a kind son, such a right so, and he didn't pressure me anything like that. And that was the beginning. It was later, in 08 too, I believe it was later, like in fall 08, and then 09 is when I met Alice Ball, and then we get married and we moved to Louisiana. And then we have explosions happening because I hadn't really healed, I hadn't gone to counseling still Still Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, god, you can get back, as we call in the church, surrender your heart back to God. But you have to undo all those unhealthy habits, you have to face the trauma that you went through. It's so what I? I thought I was fine. I thought, oh, I'm over it, I moved out of it, I'm doing great, and now I'm back in church, now I'm serving god, now I'm serving god. But when we got married, all of those things begin to rear its echo. Head almost didn't make it and he was bringing his stuff in. So then we went to counseling together and that was the journey where I began to heal. I wasn't able to really do ministry per se With everything in me until 2015 is when I finally launched it and went full time.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, because I know, like the heart, we can move away from what hurt us. In time we can create distance from the incident or incidents, but the heart is storing all of that and the emotional effects of that. It might be repressed, like you said, but one little thing, and especially when it comes to any sort of sense of control or request or anything I'm sure Asbel was not controlling at all, but just the nature of a relationship and the fear once you've been a victim I was also a victim there's just this fight in you that you don't want to ever be, that no one is ever going to do that to you again. No one is ever going to tell you You're going to think for yourself. You're not, you know. You prove it first and then maybe I'll believe you.
Speaker 2:You know all the things that go on and in some respects that's healthy to a degree. Obviously, everything can switch, but I feel like in all of that, the Lord, in my case, was training me to know myself and to know Him, training me to know myself and to know him. And so and I I don't know what it was like for you, but that was probably the very first stages of you setting boundaries, you know, even though they were extreme probably, but at least you had began to set them for yourself, to keep a healthy perimeter around you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. It was my boundaries were extreme and his were extreme, so and he's got the type A personality, he's a leader, he owns several companies, so he takes charge. He'll bulldoze you over, so I would sometimes confuse that with trying to control. Yes, aggression.
Speaker 3:We had a ton of issues for a while, like it was. It got really bad and I'm like you're not telling me what to do. You know I'm independent, I'm going back to DC, I don't need a man. You know I would have those actions. So that's when we realized, between both of us, we need counseling or we're not going to make it, we're not going to get passed another year. There's just no way. So we started going to counseling, but it took a while, and that's another story for him and me. What we're talking about now is it didn't happen overnight, the counseling, because we would stop, we would start back up. It was like I would say, four years until we got even five, until we got to that healthier place and it it's definitely been a journey, the healing journey it really had steph, what happened to your baby?
Speaker 3:oh, is that? Yeah, um, that okay. So, oh, let's go, let's back, let rewind, okay. So after I had left, before I moved to DC, I had moved to where I hate putting all these. I moved to where my parents were, remember, when he was a superintendent.
Speaker 3:I was there and I knew I wasn't there for long but I didn't know what to do. I was running, I was hiding all of that stuff and I had a miscarriage. Then it was. It was very painful, but I remember praying God. If I have this baby, I'm tied to him forever and it's. I don't know how to handle that because I'm scared. And I remember praying those prayers and other prayers and I was intense in my prayers during that time. But I wanted the baby, you know Right, right, because I had had a little bit of problem having children. So I had the miscarriage. I was about four and a half months, so it was. You know, there was that's big yeah, yeah. And it was when it was going on. I was at the ER and it was all happening. There was a part of me that I was crying, but then there was a part of me and this sounds horrible. I was relieved.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:It was like a bittersweet thing, like, oh, I can move on, I'll never have to talk to him again. You know, that was my mind, and the other was like, but I have this baby. I would have been a great mom, you know. And so there were these feelings going on during that time and then I kind of blotted that out, to be honest, and that's when I moved to DC. I was like, okay, I'm starting fresh, I'm starting new and interesting. You say that About a few years ago there was the Mother's Day going on here in Austin and it hit me so hard, kathy, I like had a meltdown.
Speaker 3:I didn't even want to go to church because I'm like, all talking about kids, it was the weirdest thing. I all my eyes. That was like I'm not a mom. I had infidelity issues, I had a miscarriage. I would have been a phenomenal mother. God, I wish I could have had some kids. You know I went through this. Yeah Right, I hadn't really thought about it until, well, it's grief, yeah. And so it hit me really hard. Now I'm doing great, you know, I'm fine, but it was that Mother's Day about two or three years ago I can't remember the exact year and it hit me, and it was during COVID too. So you know there were a lot of interruptions going on, so maybe that I'd played into it, I I'd played into it. I'm not sure, but that's what happened with my baby. I had a miscarriage, but I believe it was a boy. He's up in heaven, you know. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:That's what I told myself yes, yes, he is absolutely up in heaven, and I know it's a difficult thing, but I do think it's so important, because these are the areas of confusion people wrestle with in their walk with God. You know the dichotomy that exists between feeling peace and then not ever wanting to be tied to that. You know so many dichotomies that exist as we walk through the process of this faith, walk with Jesus and trying to reconcile all of that. We can't always reconcile it.
Speaker 3:No, you can't. And that scripture in Corinthians. It says for we walk by faith, not by sight. Oh, my word, that's become kind of my banner. So many things go on, even aside from what I went through there. But after that, when I was going through the healing journey and then other things I've gone through in the last 10 years, that scripture is like you're walking by faith, you can't fight what you see. You have to walk by faith or you're going to drive yourself crazy.
Speaker 2:And you have to ask why, while you're walking by faith, yeah, and for the backsliders out there or anybody who is, you know, don't want to go to church or religion, and all that we understand, Don't want to go to church or religion, and all that we understand. But Stephanie said and this was my experience too is God met her where she was In that recording studio and the tug that she felt in her heart, she responded to it and the Lord brought you back into himself outside of the walls of a church. I know that you believe and I believe church is needful and very helpful when it's a healthy environment. But God is bigger than all of that and if you would just start, just talk to him.
Speaker 2:I think if you just start the process of saying, okay, god, I know you're there someplace, I'm here, whatever that looks like for you.
Speaker 2:For everyone it's going to be different, but I think if you could just begin a process of talking to him, he will reveal himself to you and he will love you back to himself and gently guide you to where he wants you to be and when you can trust that relationship.
Speaker 2:Because I tell people, you know, going back, the Lord really gave me a lot of signs and a lot of full circle moments, which is why I'm now in a UPC church, but I probably would have never went back had God not very specifically directed me. So my faith is in Him, not in people, not in the organization, not in the religion. It's vertical first, and then, if Him and I are okay, I can go anywhere. I can go to any church I want and we're okay. And so, for anyone that's watching, if you haven't fixed this relationship with the Lord, that's the most important one, is the one that's vertical. You can worry about all of that stuff as God, as you become healed within the Lord. So I just wanted to put that in there because I know that's what happened for you is what you said.
Speaker 3:You're right, kathy. That's what happened for you is what you said. You're right, kathy. Matthew 28, 19 talks about. He tells the disciples to go, make disciples, and they didn't say we're building a church, a building here, and you're all to come to us. He told them to go out. If you look throughout the scripture, most of the time they're going out. Right, that's what Jesus does. He goes out. He finds us in the workplaces, in the clubs.
Speaker 2:Right, because he's looking for the wounded, the brokenhearted.
Speaker 3:And that's what he did, because I wasn't going to go into a building, no way. He leads to me and you're exactly right. So I agree with you on that. Pray what feels comfortable with you. On that, pray what feel comfortable with you right now. Don't feel pressured to do something a certain way. Don't even worry about where you go.
Speaker 2:Perhaps that's so good, kathy yeah, because god, you know he loves us and I think when he redeems our story, I I've said before I never really understood the cross. I knew it, I knew that that was the plan of salvation, I knew it was needful, but I never understood it Grew up not really reading my Bible. But until you love and you lose and you watch someone that you love walk away and leave the Lord and go down this path, I think all the time how much God's love for us really exists and we don't really know it until we experience it. And if people could just leave a little room of questioning, what if God really is good? Because so many people see him as punitive and punishing? But what if he really is good? Because so many people see him as punitive and punishing? But what if he really is good? And what if he really is everything people say he is? That's loving and kind and generous and it's worth exploring. I know that sounds like I'm wrapping up, but I'm not, because I just want to ask a few more questions, Steph. So the other thing I'd like for you to maybe talk about if you are comfortable I listened to one of your messages that you spoke at Promise Land Church.
Speaker 2:Is that where you still attend? Are you at that church?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're actually the bishop passed away, but we're at his sense, currently, right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you talked about in that message, going through a three-year depression when your dad passed away. Yeah, yeah, because we just live life and it keeps moving, with or without us. But could you address that in the context of you're back, you're serving the Lord, you're married, life is going well and your dad, very quickly, who is the rock in your life, and your mom too, but very quickly got sick, and I listened to Brother Haney, your brother, talk about the faith that the family had to heal him, and so there's many components as Christians that we're looking for God's miracle. We're looking for Him to heal, especially someone like your dad, who you know, who built such a beautiful work of the Lord, as you said Christian school, christian college, the radio station, wonderful relationships with the community and the mayor I mean your dad was plugged in and then he went on to become superintendent of United Pentecostal Church International. I would imagine there would be great expectation for a miracle and could you just walk us through, as a Christian, the wrestle that you had through all of that?
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, sometimes it's still fresh to my mind the wrestle that you had through all of that. Yeah Well, sometimes it's still fresh to my mind that part. I was close to my dad. All of his kids looked to my dad as that role model, that rock, and I just he was everything, everything. So when that happened, my faith I never doubted that he wouldn't be healed. I always was believing, always believed that God's going to raise him. This is just a test, this is just a trial. God's going to raise him up. I mean, I would speak it, I believed it with all my heart.
Speaker 2:With good reason, with good reason to believe it.
Speaker 3:Mark 11.23 talks about tell this mountain to be cast into the sea and if you believe it, it will take place. But the one thing that we leave out, that I've learned since then just a little window here is His ways are not our ways. Right Thoughts are not our thoughts. Isaiah says and I've had to learn that through many things that I've gone through, but back then I wouldn't even visit that his ways are not our ways for a while, because the pain, the mourning, the grieving was so, it went so deep and then it moved into a depression, because it's normal to grieve, it's normal to grieve, it's normal to mourn. Then it moved into a major depression. I mean, then I started having these dreams and demonic dreams, and it was bad, it was really bad, and I struggled through all of that and then finally again I began to pull myself out and I began to feel like it's time to get out of this. If you don't, you're going to sink deeper and deeper and deeper, because you're depressed.
Speaker 3:I didn't want to go out, I would stay home. If I wasn't working a job, I would stay home, keep the blinds closed. I wouldn't even sometimes hang out of my pajamas. And then, when Asbel came well home. If he was in town I had to kick dinner. I would throw some on, look like I'd been up and at him. But I started. He didn't even realize to the extent we talked about recently. He did not even realize how dark of a place I really was. It was so bad.
Speaker 3:But that's what I dealt with after my dad died because I believed God was great. And then again I questioned God. And there's nothing wrong with questioning God. There's nothing wrong. It's all in how you're questioning him. But I, even now, today, I'm like God. I've been praying for this. You're not answering. What's going on. Am I not praying in alignment with your will? You know, that's kind of where I am with God now. I just alignment with your will, you know, that's kind of where I am with god now. I just talked to him but and I would? I was upset with god, like why wouldn't you heal him? Why? Kind of martha, you know? Actually I think it was mary if you would have been here.
Speaker 3:God right, that's kind of like that came out doubting thomas and I had. But I learned a lot through those three years two and a half years of depression that I went through, combined with the grief in the morning.
Speaker 2:Can you talk a little bit more in detail about the level of darkness and the depression? Because I think there's Christians sitting in church, I think there's a lot of people on the pews who really struggle with anxiety and depression, and there's so much condemnation that comes along with that from the enemy, and then a lot of self-talk, that that's not okay, that I should be better, I shouldn't be on medication. Is it okay to do all those things? I think I just want you to not normalize it, but the reality of its existence and maybe just talk through what you went through. What were the dreams, what was the demonic piece of it? Because the devil's going to come in to those places that were vulnerable and it's important to be able to A recognize it so that we can know what's really going on, because if we're ignorant to his devices, then he's going to get more of a foothold versus maybe something that you say will bring clarity to where someone's living right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I didn't realize how bad the depression was. For a while I thought I was grieving, but when it moved into that place where I literally didn't want to go anywhere Like going to church I didn't even want to go to church and there were times when Asbel was traveling I wouldn't go to church, I would just stay home. The one sure sign for me was I was tired a lot and I had almost like social anxiety. I didn't want to be around people, I didn't want to be around crowds and with Asbel's job, job and role, that had to happen. So I would sometimes even make up excuses. I didn't want to go, I didn't want to be around people. My anxiety level was so high and I felt so almost powerless and and I I wasn suicidal. I'm not going to say that I'm not going to go that far, but I lost the will to live. Yeah, I lost the will to do anything with my life. I didn't care anymore. I didn't care, I just didn't care. And I remember one particular time being on a flight by myself and I was in the middle of this and it had gotten really dark and we were having a lot of turbulence on the plane and it had gotten really dark and we were having a lot of turbulence on the plane and I remember looking out the window because I like the window seats. I remember thinking I said you know what, if we crash and we die, I don't even care, like maybe we will. That was how bad I was. I was like we're going to be fine. You know, I was like digging a hole, a grave for my life. That are digging a hole, a grave for my life. The other thing that I would say that I dealt with with the depression was and I mentioned this but anxiety became so severe it was almost as if I had depression and just not wanting to be around people. I didn't want to be around people but I had to go. You know, we hear that faith that till you make it, I had to go through interruptions. Hear that faith that till you make it, I had to go to options many times. So no, really knew. Not even aspel knew until later on how dark that.
Speaker 3:But then the dream started. I would say about a year and a half into the depression the dream started and it was um one in particular which it was. It's very evil, but I found out later, it was a spirit of weariness. There was an old woman gliding up our stairs into my room, our room, and Bella, my little, toward palm, was here. I was here and Asba was here and she came and this happened a lot during this time, these type of dreams and she put her hands out and I was trying to say Jesus and I couldn't say it. I was paralyzed, my mouth was paralyzed that's sleep paralysis and I was awake.
Speaker 3:I could see I had now come out of the dream. It was more like a vision. Yeah, I was trying to say Jesus and I see it. I had now come out of the dream. It's more like a vision. Yeah, I was Jesus and I couldn't say it, but eventually, because I kept trying, geez, it came out, but it took everything in. You see, jesus. But this happened like I was drowning one time and the demonic figures were coming towards me and all of this and again I I was trying to say jesus, but I couldn't say it. This happened probably four or five times during that that depression, and it was always. They were coming at me trying to take me. So I knew then that I was in a place of. It was spiritual. Now it wasn't just. Could you get a grief? You're gonna mour to mourn. Depression is one thing, and then it didn't even deeper, darker things. It was almost like there was oppression.
Speaker 2:And oppression. For those that are watching, I always explain it Oppression is an external. The external force pushing in versus depression is usually physiological and internal. Internal sorrow, internal sadness that couples with physical symptoms, but then it can morph into oppression, which is then demonic.
Speaker 3:Yes, and when I would get into my prayer closet, I just cried a lot. I didn't pray as much, I just cried. I wept and wept. I was very sorrowful and had no almost I don't want to say no hope, because I was in church, I was serving Jesus. Yes, I felt helpless. I felt like a weight was on me. I didn't want to go home. I was serving Jesus. I felt helpless. I felt like a weight was on me. I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to get out. I didn't want to get dressed. It took every day to get dressed and to look halfway decent to go out. I had to get dressed and go out to events, political events, church or whatever. I felt that smile. I was dead. I literally was dead, and this went on. This was a few months right.
Speaker 2:So what changed? How did you come through that stuff? I mean, I know that you still live. We will always live with the loss of our loved ones and there will always be days of of that. But how did you get free from the oppression and the darkness that you were in?
Speaker 3:Okay, again, this is. It's something God has put in me. I got sick and tired of living that way. Something, finally excuse me, snapped I call it snapped to me and said no, you've gone on too long living this way. Satan, you are not controlling my life anymore. You're not controlling my emotions. No more, I'm not living this way anymore. I'm tired of living beneath, I'm tired of living in this. I am coming out, I am coming out.
Speaker 3:It's funny as nowadays, when I'm ministering, writing, talking to people, I always say you're coming out of this. But it's just, I've gone through it. But I had to keep the pep talks along the way and I didn't get to read the word and I would sometimes put the Bible over my head and I would just pray over my mind because of the mind, and then I would pray, pray, and then I began to pray and then I would sometimes go into speaking in tongues, because sometimes place you need to be right war and war and war. And eventually I came out of it. Eventually it just I came out of it. But I had to give myself pep talks, had to preach to to myself, had to speak life over myself, and I kind of think it's a little radical, to be honest.
Speaker 2:We have to. Your will has got to show up again, and I think you know when we talk about free will, I talk about that. A lot in cognitive behavioral therapy is we can choose what we're going to believe. It's not that simple, of course, but the act of our will has got to be involved to either remain a victim because victimization is very real, right, and grief is very real, and grief is very real. But settling in a place for too long is what has to change.
Speaker 2:And so, I think, with people, if you don't know yourself, if you don't have a kind of identity or self-narrative, or even sometimes it can just start with a simple desire. What is the desire of your heart? And that is so controversial in religious circles, I think. But God creates that and sometimes the desire is just, for me, pulling out of mine was you do get sick and tired of crying, you get sick and tired of being sad and, like I, made it a point to learn how to laugh. I don't laugh very well, you know, because it has not been my life, but now, by golly, I'm going to learn how to laugh and have fun, and on purpose, because I believe that that's just as much important as all the rest of it is. Sorrow can be good and the Bible says there's wisdom in the house of mourning or sorrow. However that goes, I forget.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a time to laugh, there's a time to cry, right that?
Speaker 3:time to cry shouldn't go on for years and years and years. It's going to be a season of grief and mourning and sorrow. That's normal. But the joy comes in the morning. The Bible says it's not going to be the morning that you think it is most of the time, but it's like. One morning you're going to rise up and that's what happened.
Speaker 3:I rose up. I said I'm done with this. I'm not literally Get your hands off this home, get your hands off my head. You know, all this is mine. I had to get ratted, turn into Joy Haney and get ratted with my faith, and I believe with all my heart that that's what pulled me up. Because, kathy another thing I was thinking about it takes, I think it's, 21 days to break a habit. Yes, right, you have to change your thinking, because you have a habit of thinking death, thinking negative thinking, pessimistics, being cynical. You have to slow it. That's where counseling comes in. Right, what helps you? Jesus helps deliver you and get you out of there, but now you have to change your thinking. Counseling is so important, I mean huge advocate for counseling.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's where I just did an episode on spiritual bypassing, because I think that's the piece that gets missed is often we in Pentecost and in any religious circle I think, just says, okay, once you find Jesus, all this stuff is going to go and you must not be praying enough, you must not be doing enough if you still feel this way. But there is a walking out process, because all of those are deep-seated beliefs, Like when we really don't believe that God can or we would be more able to think that way, and so we have to really get to our thoughts. They're coming from someplace and they're really coming from what we truly believe and we have to examine that belief system. And sometimes that's got to be separate from church, because I think that the Bible confirms science. I think that once we get our foundation out there in every denomination that really wrestle with the.
Speaker 2:Well, if I need counseling, does that mean that something's wrong with me or I'm not spiritual enough or Christian enough? No, that's not what it means. It means that sometimes we have not. Sometimes we always have to know who we are, because who we are inside is who God made us to be. But it can get very buried and confused over the years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and counseling helps guide you. They will ask questions that you would never think of. They have an objective voice. Now they should become a crutch. You know when I'm talking Right. Right, I have a few friends and I talk to my counselor. Everything's about their counselor. I'm like that's not helpful either. Right, right right.
Speaker 3:The help is to help guide you, to help steer you, to help you deal with a situation that you can't talk to your family about because they're biased. Right? No one who's objective, I believe, who's spirit-filled, who has a walk of Jesus, so they can be guided by God's spirit too, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, he's the great counselor. So yeah, we'll kind of wrap up. I know you lost your mom. How many years was that after your dad? Was that five?
Speaker 3:It's been about 14 years. Well, no, no, no, no, no, sorry, 11, 20, 12 years, yeah.
Speaker 2:Since she lost your dad.
Speaker 3:He died in 2011. She died in March of 23. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So it was 12 years in between of 23. Yeah, so it was 12 years in between. Yeah, yeah, and you're doing okay through that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a process. I'm still. I'm so much better, but I still struggle. I still have that struggle. I talk to my mom a lot. She was kind of my writing mentor. She helped me with my physics and I recently I'm getting ready to release a workbook series. It's like a Bible study for women and I wish she was here to help me with that. You know, sometimes I'll just have a crying. I'll have a day where I just I'm being emotional. So it's catch and go with my mom.
Speaker 2:And not that you're ever going to be okay, I didn't mean it like that, but they're your parents, it's never going to be yeah. So, steph, where are you today with your life, with ministry, with? I know you go to church in Austin. Do you ever plan to come back to California?
Speaker 3:Not to live permanently, yeah, unless God has a plan Right as well. The daughter lives in LA, so we go. He goes there a lot. I go with him sometimes, and then I go to see my family every few months. I think the longest I've been gone, since my mom passed away especially, is three months, but I don't think we'll ever live out there. His family is all on the coast. So this is a good middle coast, my mom and I. So this is a good middle for us. Yeah, yeah, I keep pushing him to get a little home out there by the ocean we can rent out. Airbnb is you know? Yeah, I miss California a lot. I miss the people, the weather. I don't care about the weather, that's all I'm going to say. There's no place like California weather and I just miss them. I get nostalgic. So when I go home now sometimes I'll go to those old places, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:So what are you doing in ministry? What is your goals? Where are you going? I know you had unveiled ministries. You said you and Asbel just released a podcast. What's on the horizon for you?
Speaker 3:Well, the podcast is called A Cup of Oil. We have a it's a lifestyle slash ministry type event that we do not event, but a profile type thing that we do, called the Kappa Real, and we just really talk about our story. We're starting and my biggest passion is, of course, anvil Ministries. It's a powerful women's movement and we used to do a lot of workshops but we haven't done it since COVID. Next year I'm going to probably start that back up and I'm doing a lot of workshops, but we haven't done covid. Um. Next year I'm going to probably start that back up and I'm doing a lot of writing. Um. I released a new devotional last um last year and then this workbook series which is like a bible study series for women. It will be released um. We're looking at the start date.
Speaker 3:End of december is when this is right, and that's good sometimes out a little bit, not too much speaking. Is that what you said?
Speaker 2:yeah, sorry I didn't mean yeah no, you didn't. There was a delay in the audio and so it cut off. I couldn't hear what you had said, um okay I, it's weird.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you like, I enjoy being at home. Just, I think, going through a lot of loss, um things that I'm through I I love being home with my dogs. I really do. That's where all the writing creativity comes out too yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, I going to ask you something. Do you see? I don't know if you have your pulse on our denominational structure, but do you see change taking place there?
Speaker 3:You mean you can see? Oh, I don't know much, I'm not as loud, yeah.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's evolving into a lot more love and less judgment awesome a lot of the people they're loving yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:I think the climate in the world has affected the church, though as a whole, they're loving. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I think the climate in the world has affected the church, though as a whole I'm talking about the church in America and so there is still some of that hate, divisiveness, not healthy. They're allowing the world's narrative to affect them, and so I think that's something I wish the church could get away from and realize that we're passing through, that we're discovering love, that we're here to make disciples of men for a purpose. So that's the thing I wish could change in the church world. I'm talking across the board, in every denomination where I see you and I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:And what would you say to the prodigal out there who has not come back home, who just doesn't know what to do? What would you say to a prodigal that's out there?
Speaker 3:I would say, having been one before, don't write God off for good and don't do like I did. Put God and religion in the same box, because that will prolong your healing. And to, like Kathy said earlier, pray at home, wherever you are, pray and start talking to God in your own way and then pick up the Word of God. If you are, pray and start talking to God in your own way and then pick up the Word of God. If you have to do it on your iPad or an actual Bible, read it and start charting pages and marketing it and then eventually you will start filling the poll. You may already be filling God's legend and polling you.
Speaker 3:I would say that's the best start Now. If you want to go into a church, go for it, do it. But I know a lot of prodigals struggle there, ones I've talked to and I struggled with it, but they're our son. They go run in a church. Whatever God is calling you to do and pushing you to do, I would say, do it. And the one thing I didn't mention, kathy, that I think is so important, is that the biggest thing that I held on to through that is I had unforgiveness in my heart, and sometimes unforgiveness is what's blocking you from surrendering your heart to God. Actually, it is where this yeah, you unforgiveness and from going back to church. You have to learn to forgive and to let go, because that's all. We're going to put a wedge between you and god and you and the church. You're in religion, unforgiveness, right right, yeah, I would.
Speaker 2:I I think about unforgiveness a lot because I think it is a source of disease and sickness and demonic activity, just many things. And I was just praying about that this morning at ladies prayer, like Lord, how do we bridge that gap for people who feel really justified in their anger and their hurt, you know, to get them to a place where they're willing to just crack that door open so that they can eventually forgive? For me, my forgiveness was supernatural. God supernaturally took it from me, but I had to be willing to give it and I didn't feel it in my emotions when I was willing to forgive, but I knew enough that it was going to be a requirement of me. If I wanted God to forgive me, I had to be willing.
Speaker 2:But I feel like when I did, it took a few months of me praying about it and saying, lord, I forgive them, lord, I forgive them before it was gone. And then, when God really took it, I got nothing left. I mean, I got no bad feelings. I can see them, I can talk to them, I could even hug their neck. I'm okay because I'm okay, because God took that. But I don't know what that thing is for those that are really still struggling with unforgiveness. It's such a hard thing.
Speaker 3:It is so hard, kathie, I was thinking just now. At one time I wanted the man who abused me I would say I hope it just goes to hell. I had so much hate and unforgiveness in me to hell. I had so much hate and unforgiveness in me. Once I forgave which was later on, way later on I began to feel more compassionate and almost like, well, I hope God does restore, I want him to go to heaven. I became more compassionate.
Speaker 2:Right Because still a soul.
Speaker 3:Still a soul. I'm not going to wreck him. I'll never wreck him. He's a soul I'm not going to reconcile, I'll never reconcile no. He's a soul Right. God created him. God wants to restore, so that helped me a lot once I forgave. It taught me so much about how huge and necessary forgiveness is, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, steph. So for anybody that wants to get your books or or find you on social media, pick up your devotions. Where do they go?
Speaker 3:um, well, the biggest um place I'm at a lot is facebook. I have a page there and I'm on there all the time. I strong lead. The books are on Amazon and I'm really bad at self-promoting. I'm trying to get better at it. I have a team that's working with me now, so we're working on that, but most of my books except Rawls, out of Print right now is all on Amazon.
Speaker 2:Okay, and she does spell her name with an E, so it's Stephanie with an E, and so if you look for her on Amazon Stephanie Haney Montez you might have a hard time if you're using an A, so it's S-T-E-P-H-E-N-I-E and I highly recommend you get them. If you see Steph, if you're meeting her for the first time here, she is always the same authentic, real. I mean you don't always find that with people, but wherever you see her, whatever she's on, you're going to get the real deal. And if you have known her or just known of her, hopefully you get a better opportunity to get to know her better. Today and, steph, I just am thankful that you said yes to doing this. It's really great to catch up.
Speaker 2:You know, people affect our lives in ways they may never understand. But there's some people in my life like we were not friends for a long length of time. I never knew the intricate details of your life, but I did know that you were very kind to me and included me at a time when I didn't fit in and when I felt like a fish out of water, moving to CLC, brand new in my own conversion back to the Lord and it mattered. I have such wonderful memories of that and I thank you and I've thought about you so many times over the years and I'm so grateful for all that God has done in your life and how you're living it out and preaching the word and walking the path that God has you on.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Yeah, I remember you were new and I reached out to you and I have such fond memories. You were always beautiful.
Speaker 2:I felt so, thank you. Thank you, I felt so ugly back then, but we do when we do all the things you know, and one day I'll figure out a way to talk about that subject with people. But thank you for being here and I just wish you all the best and I hope I'll get to see you in person sometime soon maybe one day we can make it happen.
Speaker 3:Thank you yeah inviting me. I know it took a while to get me here. Just a lot going on but I am so appreciative for what you're doing, when you're doing something powerful, kind of bringing recognition to the prodigal side of things, because there are so many prodigals, so I am.
Speaker 2:Thank you, great Thank you. I think we're going to have a last day revival of prodigals coming home, you know. So I'm believing for it. Ok, I love you, steph, and God bless. Thank you, bye, bye.
Speaker 1:We are so glad you Steph, and God bless, thank you. Bye, bye, 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 theredeemedbacksliderorgorg. We hope you will tune in for our next episode.
