Breaking The Silence TRB #33 April Martinez

Some stories arrive like a storm and leave the air clearer than before. Kathy sits down with April Martinez, who grew up loving church, survived years of hidden abuse, and then endured the whiplash of public blame and church hurt that pushed her out at sixteen. What follows is a fiercely honest journey through survival mode—protecting younger siblings, running from violence, two suicide attempts, foster care, and the aching desire to feel nothing at all—only to discover that numbness never heals what truth and mercy can.

The turning point comes through her son, Anthony. Diagnosed with a brain tumor at eleven, he finds faith with remarkable clarity: receiving the Holy Ghost, asking for baptism, and urging the family back toward God. One month after his baptism, Anthony passes at fourteen. April remembers the ride to the hospital as he prayed in tongues, his tenderness checking on her between waves of pain, and the unmistakable peace that settled in the room as he slipped away. The grief was crushing, but it did not have the final word. Breath by breath, April returned to the God she met as a child—the One who was safety before everything broke.

Across this conversation we unpack how trauma hides in plain sight, how shame keeps victims quiet, and how healthy boundaries are not bitterness but wisdom. We talk about reconciling with faith after church hurt, why a prayer closet can do what a platform cannot, and how a grandmother’s intercession can outlive a generation.

Tune in for more

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Background
• 4:20 Childhood In Church And Early Faith
• 9:30 Biological Father Returns And Family Upheaval
• 14:20 Abuse Revealed And Forced Silence
• 20:30 Escalation At Home And Running Away
• 26:00 Suicide Attempts And God’s Interventions
• 33:20 Church Rumors And Deep Church Hurt
• 40:00 Foster Care, Boundaries, And Survival
• 46:00 Marriage, Wandering Years, And Searching For God
• 51:00 Son’s Brain Tumor And A Promise To God
• 57:00 Anthony’s Faith, Baptism, And Homegoing
• 1:04:00 Grief, Peace, And Returning To Faith
• 1:10:00 Healing, Forgiveness, And Healthy Boundaries
• 1:15:00 Hope, Revival, And Final Encouragements
• 1:19:30 Closing And Listener Invitation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider. With your host, Kathy Chastain, Christian-based psychotherapist and the Redeemed Backslider. This podcast is dedicated to those who are wandered but are ready to return to the life-changing power of grace and the freedom found in Jesus.

SPEAKER_04: 0:22

Hi, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider. I'm your host, Kathy Chastain. I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and I'm a Redeemed Backslider. With me in the studio today is April Martinez. Um, she lives right here in the area that I live in. So it's nice to have someone in studio with me today. So welcome to the podcast, April. Thank you for having me, Kathy. Yes. So um we got to talk a little bit about uh your background, your history. Um so I know that you were raised in church. Yes. And you went here locally to uh one of the apostolic churches here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04

Okay. And so um what was what was life like for you growing up in church before you left church? I loved church.

SPEAKER_01: 1:15

What was it you loved about it? You know, I I don't know. I loved everything about church. I couldn't wait. We would go to church basically every day. Um, my stepfather was part of the Spanish ministry. My grandmother taught Sunday school for a while. So it was just we were always there and I loved it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:36

And so your whole family, your extended family as well, went?

SPEAKER_01: 1:40

My grandmother was the first to come in, and then some well, it would be my mom that came in after, probably when I was about six, but my grandmother would be the one to take me to church with her.

SPEAKER_04: 1:52

And this was your mom's mom? My mom's mom. So you started going to church before your mom went to church. Yes. Okay. Thank God for the grandmothers out there. Yes. That's such a thread that runs through so many stories. I hear grandmothers and Sunday school ministry.

SPEAKER_01: 2:11

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 2:12

A lot. You know, when it's not when parents aren't bringing them, it's usually a grandma or Sunday school ministry.

SPEAKER_01: 2:18

It is. And I've been a part of Sunday school ministry and you see that a lot. I've seen parents come in because of their kids. It's a blessing to watch.

SPEAKER_04: 2:27

Oh my goodness. It it's so important. I think, you know, until I became a therapist, I never really understood how much uh we could influence children. I don't know why. I've probably just never thought of it. I always thought that children were kind of under the um confines of their parents. And so, you know, but boy, uh nowadays, like my heart just goes out to kids. That is where a lot of my focus is because I think kids, I could just talk on and on about children. So likewise that's wonderful. So are you still involved in Sunday school ministry? No, I'm at a different church right now, so I'm not. Okay. Okay. I know because your guys' work just kind of started. Um we're two years old. Two years old. Okay. Well, I think you guys are doing good, it seems. Yes, we're seeing moving. Yeah, right. It really is. Yep. Um, okay, so so you love church, and then your mom eventually came in.

SPEAKER_01: 3:30

My mom and her husband came in probably when I was about six, and they started getting involved. Bible studies at the house. Um, just they did a lot of like a giant friend group. Uh-huh. We always had somebody with us, um, you know, reaching out, outreach, Bible studies, whatever we could do, they were always doing. Okay. Till, oh, I want to say till I was about 13 is when kind of some I didn't grow up knowing my biological father. So around that time he found us and came back into our life. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 4:15

You and you have siblings?

SPEAKER_01: 4:17

No, I'm my father's only daughter. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 4:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 4:20

So I do have siblings, but they are not biology.

SPEAKER_04: 4:24

Yeah. Okay. So your dad found you and your mom?

SPEAKER_01: 4:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_04: 4:28

Okay. What was that like?

SPEAKER_01: 4:31

Um, I was really excited because I always had questions of what he looked like. Where did I get my features from? Yeah. And um, so really neat. It was really exciting. I invited him to church and he saw me crying and at the altar, and it touched his heart, and he started kind of visiting the church with us. But my stepdad wasn't really thrilled about the idea of having him around so much. I'm sure.

SPEAKER_04: 5:03

So that was that's difficult no matter what, you know, just yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:09

Yeah, so he didn't like that. But then one day out of the blue, my mom told me she was keeping me home from school, told me to pack up our house, and she wound up leaving her husband.

SPEAKER_04: 5:24

Your stepdad.

SPEAKER_01: 5:25

My stepdad at the time.

SPEAKER_04: 5:26

How long was he your stepdad before she left?

SPEAKER_01: 5:30

What probably from six to about nine uh thirteen? Okay. It was around that time, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 5:39

That's a devastating age to lose a parent. Yeah. Yeah. So what happened after that? I mean, it's always gonna be devastating for kids, but junior high, junior high era is really hard on children because they're transitioning in so many other areas as well.

SPEAKER_01: 5:57

Yeah, I was in eighth grade, um, switched schools because we moved from a smaller town into a bigger town. So we had to move, you know, the kids. Um, my mom stopped going to church. So um, something that I hadn't seen for a long time started to see her begin to drink. And all of a sudden she wasn't coming home at night. And it was just It was just you and her? No, I had my siblings there at the house with me. So it was just like a big heartbreak because ever my whole life as I knew it, you know, church all the time, you know, and yeah, the one who was telling me, you know, this is how we live, this is what we do, this is what we don't do, and all of a sudden, this is what she does. Right, right. It was it was hard. Yeah. Yeah. To deal with.

SPEAKER_04: 6:53

She left your stepdad like without notice. Do you think he knew? Do you you guys he came home one day, everything's gone?

SPEAKER_01: 7:00

Uh yeah, he came home and then it happened to be a church night, and she had left me after she moved, cleared out the house. She left my siblings and I with our next door neighbor. And um For what reason? I believe she was like getting things settled into the house. So I loved love my pastor and his wife. But she told me if anybody comes asking questions, uh asking any questions, you don't know anything. You just tell them I'm with this friend of mine. And sure enough, my stepdad showed up, knocked on the neighbor's door, saw that us kids were there, had the pastor come over, and I had to look my pastor in the face and say, I don't know, she's with her friend. And which broke me because I I wasn't raised that way.

SPEAKER_04: 8:01

Well, children should never have to lie for their parents. I agree. Yeah. What do you think you may not know the answer to this, but I I'm always, you know, hindsight's always 2020. Were you being obedient to your mom or were you afraid of your mom instead of telling them the truth when they asked, even though she told you what to tell them? Like, what do you think made you tell them what she told you versus just telling them the truth?

SPEAKER_01: 8:31

I was definitely afraid of my mom. Yeah. And I was also afraid of going to hell.

SPEAKER_04: 8:37

Oh, for being disobedient. For being disobedient. Isn't that crazy? It's a lie, but it's disobedience, right? That confusion. Yeah. Yeah. So what made you afraid of your mom?

SPEAKER_01: 8:50

There was some physical abuse. Now there was spankings, and I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not here to tell her testimony or you know, or I can I can't speak on her behalf. I can only speak on what I went through. Um, there was some physical abuse that went beyond spanking.

SPEAKER_05: 9:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 9:13

So, you know, when she said I'd get it, I I knew I'd get it if I wasn't obedient.

SPEAKER_04: 9:21

Yeah. And I'm definitely not saying anything wrong. I I always wonder that, you know, because you see the kids, I was the fighter, you know, I was the kid that would be like, go pound sand, you know, I'm gonna do what I want. And then my sister was really obedient and um dutiful, you know. So I I always wonder what makes a kid lie for their parents or not speak up, you know, in the midst of some, especially with abuse, like what makes a kiddo not speak up? And then there's the kids that do speak up, you know. So I was just asking, like, if you know, looking back, because sometimes I think in the moment we all survive the best that we know how, but as we grow and we get healing, um, I believe God reveals more things to us so that we can sort of put the pieces together.

SPEAKER_01: 10:17

He does, you know, because I have had to go back and look at certain things. I've had to pray. I've been in my prayer closet and said, Lord, you know, heal me from the things that I don't see.

SPEAKER_03: 10:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 10:28

I am definitely one of those um helicopter moms. Like my kids don't leave my sight, and it was always afraid. It was a fear of something happening to my kids that happened to me.

SPEAKER_04: 10:41

So well, because you have awareness, experiential awareness.

SPEAKER_01: 10:45

Right, you know, but sometimes my kids were like, mom, like we need. I do have a couple of kids that are more like, hey, mom, like you're suffocating me. Yeah, give me some space. And it's not easy sometimes to to accept, but I'm like, okay, Lord, help me to understand what I'm doing. So I've had to get in the prayer closet and really seek that because the effects of the things that I went through, I don't want to pass down to my family, to my kids and my grandkids.

SPEAKER_04: 11:16

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, with the Lord's help, we won't. I I think every parent out there makes a mistake with our children. Oh hopefully, I I think most is not ever intentional. It's just, you know, survival, um brokenness, just so much brokenness. The human condition, I think, you know. Even as we as we mature in the Lord, you know, there's just some things that take a long time for us to get out of our flesh and get out of just our instinctual nature of how we respond to things, you know. It takes takes a long time and think the good Lord He is patient with us.

SPEAKER_01: 12:05

Right. And I think too, you know, growing up it was just kind of a lot of confusion for me because what we did, you know, we taught the Bible studies, we were at church all the time, choir, you know, leaving service, or you know, and then at home nobody knew that my stepfather had been molesting me from the time for three years.

SPEAKER_04: 12:35

How old were you when it started?

SPEAKER_01: 12:37

When he started, I was ten. So when he started that, that was a huge disruption because he had been my dad from the time that I was about five, because they were together about a year before they married, and they had my sister that I had called him dad, um, used his last name in school, and then all of a sudden one night I went down, gave my dad a kiss goodnight, and he just crossed the line. And then it became a regular thing. You know, we'd come home from church and he'd be at my window watching me undress. Outside. Outside. And then, you know, I did go to my mom, or he told my mom actually, the first time it happened. What did he tell her? I touched her, is what he told her, because he told me not to tell. But I had been molested by my mom's first husband that had cussed, which was my brother's dad. So yeah, it's kind of she's was married more than once. But her first husband, I guess she married him when I was about six months old. My biological father wasn't in the picture. Um, she had my two brothers with her husband, her first husband. And um, so he had weekend visitations with the three of us. You're the oldest. I'm the oldest.

SPEAKER_04: 14:13

Okay. And then and then she met someone else. And so how old were you when that molestation started?

SPEAKER_01: 14:20

I was about four, and that went on till I was about ten. And I remember that because it finally stopped when the visitation stopped at 10 with my first stepfather. Then it started right after the first one stopped after I had to was able to not go see my brother's dad.

SPEAKER_04: 14:48

Do you remember as a little girl um being sexual or sexualized? Like because you've had this awareness, how that played out for you.

SPEAKER_01: 15:03

I know that I would get in trouble for playing house with like, but I had older cousins that would always say, Let's play house, but I was always in trouble for it, but I was real obedient. So if you told me to do something, I did it.

SPEAKER_04: 15:19

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01: 15:20

You know, no matter what. I got in trouble quite a bit before I finally learned my lesson. Like you may want to question what they're telling you to do because so I want to say in that sense, yeah, you know, play mom and dad or right.

SPEAKER_04: 15:36

Yeah, that because man, four years old is an early, early age for you to be abused.

SPEAKER_01: 15:42

Right. And it amazes me. I don't know how I remember some of these stuff, but I just I remember the age because I remember the day my great-grandfather passed away. They had gone to our we lived in a motel. And your mom and no, it was she was with uh at that time. She I was with my brother's dad. She was dating my sister's dad, her the one that was in church with us before they got married. So we were just there and they went to let us know that my great grandfather had passed away. And um he was molesting me and left the family knocking at the door as if nobody was home. And then when he was done, when we went walking together, you know, we lived in a really small town, we went walking to the family's house to see what was going on, and that's how I knew, which was an 84. So I was four years old.

SPEAKER_04: 16:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 16:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_04: 16:44

So what did your mom know about that abuse?

SPEAKER_01: 16:48

Not the first one. I believe from what I found out later was that my pediatrician had let them know or suspected it. Yeah. But they would ask me if anybody had given me in preschool, they taught about the uh-oh filling. Uh-oh. And they would ask me, has anybody given you the uh-oh filling? And I would always deny it because I was afraid of him. I had seen him be physically abusive with my mom and you know, threaten to spank me, and I just didn't want any part of that. So I knew to to be quiet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 17:24

Oh wow. That that's a very, very long time to be abused. Was it was it touching or was it full penetration? Touching. Okay. Yeah. Um well, thank goodness for that.

SPEAKER_01: 17:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 17:44

So your mom had reason to to suspect I believe so. Yeah. And then when you told her when you were 13, how did that go?

SPEAKER_01: 17:56

Well, when my her second husband told her himself, she wound up hitting him, threw him out. And then um later that evening the decision was put on me. Um I was asked if I wanted her to call the cops, that they would take dad to jail, and that the guys in jail would probably beat him up for what he did to me. Oh, no guilt there, right. Or I could send him to his brother's house and not worry about it. So I chose to send him to his brother's house. I I didn't want him to get hurt, you know, beat up. So I went to stay with my grandmother for a few days and then um they wanted to work on their marriage. And to work on their marriage, I had to be home. So it just continued on from there.

SPEAKER_04: 18:50

And I guess he never probably told your mom again.

SPEAKER_01: 18:53

No.

SPEAKER_04: 18:54

And you never did either.

SPEAKER_01: 18:56

No, I on one occasion, um, I was told if he makes me feel uncomfortable to tell him, Dad, that makes me feel uncomfortable because he's not supposed to do it again. And on one occasion, he was wrestling around with my brothers and my little sister. And um, he kind of I happened to walk out and he kind of threw me in the dog pile. But when he grabbed me, he happened to put his hands under my shirt and grab my breasts. And I told him, Dad, that makes me uncomfortable. He spanked me with the belt. Wow. And I remember being so hurt and angry that day that I don't ask, I have no idea why, but I remember I wrote a note and put it on my door, and it says, Nobody's allowed in my bedroom, except for I listed my siblings and my mom. Put that on my door. And I just, I don't know. And I did yell that I hate him. And that evening was at church, and I remember going to church, and I went to the altar that night and was begging God to forgive me because I said the words you're not supposed to say, you don't hate anybody. And I was just seeking repentance for telling him that I hated him. Yeah. That hurt me to say. Right, right. And my mom went and got me off the altar and took me home and beat me. For saying that too. For saying that. And I just remember, you know, it was there was open hand, there was fists. Um, she mocked me, she told me, You wanna, you don't want to be here, you want to go live with your grandma, which was my saving grace. I was like, yes. She told me, Go back, pack your stuff. I went to pack my belongings and she stood at my door, laughed at me. Hit me again. I fell on my bed and she was on top of me, hitting me. And then she tired out, left me in my room. I remember at the time he took off to the side uh now. I know he took off to the store because when he came back, he walked by my bedroom door and just tossed a candy bar on me to I guess make up. I don't know what it was, but I just remember looking at that. And then later on that night, when she decided to ask me what happened, I told her, Well, this is why I said it. This is you know, he touched my breast. She beat you up. She decided to ask. It was after that she asked, and then um I went to her, or she told me that it was okay for me to tell him, but I didn't have to exaggerate. And so I just stopped talking.

SPEAKER_04: 21:47

As any child would. Yeah, I just when you realize there's no one gonna rescue you, you just close down.

SPEAKER_01: 21:53

No, and if I was to tell my grandmother, I'd never see my grandmother again. If I was to talk to my pastor and his wife, I would never talk to them again. So the people that I loved the most were held up against me. Yeah. So I just learned to be silent and just take what he did as often as he did it. There was just no reason in my mind to ever speak out again. So when she left him, she tried to tell me that was the reason she left him. Yeah, no. But I was all three years later, that that was a little difficult for me to understand back then. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 22:39

And my if anyone's feeling my disdain, it's not personal towards your mom in terms of that. It's just I just hate what the devil does to people and the you know, hurt people, hurt people. And I don't know, I don't know her story, but child abuse is so similar in nature, the way it plays out and the way it affects kids, and I can't stand the gaslighting that goes with it and the confusion on an innocent child. That's that's what the devil does is he brings so much confusion and wants to just like really keep you stuck. There's no way for you to turn, right? You know, and the lie that if you were to tell your pastor or your grandma, you wouldn't see them again. And children believe those kinds of things, and to some degree, they're they are at the mercy of their parents. That could be very possible.

SPEAKER_01: 23:39

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 23:41

Were you allowed to go back to church?

SPEAKER_01: 23:44

We were allowed to go to church, and that was just still thank God for being God because that's the only place I felt good.

SPEAKER_04: 23:54

Yeah. I'm gonna bring your microphone. Oh, sorry about that to you. That's okay. You can just pull it back. Okay. There you go.

SPEAKER_01: 24:01

Yeah. That was the only place that I had like that. You know, I I like I said, I just loved the presence of God. I loved being there.

SPEAKER_05: 24:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:12

And you know, the people of the church were just, you know, I loved everybody that around. I'm still like that. I love people. So it doesn't matter if I'm at work or home or in the store. My kids tease me constantly. They're like, mom, you make friends everywhere you go. I just love people. Yeah. But, you know, just that was where I was able to just kind of like be okay, was during a church service. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 24:43

That's good. Um, how do you think all of that affected you? The abuse, like, were you afraid to sleep at night? Were you afraid of the dark? Were you hyper-vigilant? Were you um, you know, overly quiet? Like, can you do you know what you were like as a child in this?

SPEAKER_01: 25:08

I believe that's when the insomnia kicked in. I didn't sleep for years. And when he would because I would hear him come in, and I remember playing dead. It was like if I didn't breathe, if I didn't move, and I would like roll over on my stomach and just like freeze until he he would leave.

SPEAKER_04: 25:30

So I would if he thought you were asleep, he wouldn't touch you.

SPEAKER_01: 25:33

No, he he would.

SPEAKER_04: 25:34

Oh, he would just wait for him to be done. Yes. And then leave. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:40

Yeah. Just hope that, you know, it would just be let it just go.

SPEAKER_04: 25:44

When you went to school, were you were you happy in terms of I'm asking, because some people just put that kind of stuff in a box and they go to school and they can be someone else. They can be oh, absolutely, playful, fun self. Other kids kind of just close down, shut down, kind of hide away. What were you like as a kid?

SPEAKER_01: 26:06

I just went out and just had fun with my friends. It was an escape. It wasn't home. Okay. He wasn't around.

SPEAKER_05: 26:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 26:14

So I could go and have fun and, you know, be silly and just act like nothing was wrong.

SPEAKER_04: 26:21

So at 13, your mom moves out. And what happened after that? Did you see him again ever?

SPEAKER_01: 26:30

I did see him a couple times. I mean, he was my sister's dad or is my sister's dad. So, you know, he'd still see her. Do you know if your sister was ever abused by him? No. From what she's said, no. You know, but um like I said, my mom stopped going to church, but I would still go. Again, that was still where I wanted to be. But because my biological father had came in, then the rumor started that that's why my mom left my stepdad, was because my dad was back. Which was no, it wasn't. They weren't together, but my dad was around for about a year. Do you have a good relationship with him? I do now. Okay. That took a lot of years, but yeah, we're we're in a good place now.

SPEAKER_05: 27:19

Good.

SPEAKER_01: 27:19

Good. Um, he was uh an alcoholic living on the streets, so I didn't see him for I want to say that he came back into my life after 13. He was around for about a year. And then I found him again when I was 23.

SPEAKER_05: 27:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 27:34

And he went through like a program to get sober, and so now he's 20, 21 years sober. Wow, that's wonderful. Yeah. So now, you know, we have now we have a great relationship and he's good. He he's really worked on being there and making things right. Can't go back and change anything, but yeah, take accountability, which is uh so appreciated. I bet it is. Yeah, I bet it is. It was new to me to have something like that happen.

SPEAKER_04: 28:03

Right, right. So um the rumors started at church. At church. Okay, tell me more.

SPEAKER_01: 28:10

So you know, you'd get the people that, you know, and like I said, I loved it at my whole church. Right. So you got the people that hugged, oh, are you okay? You know, is your dad living with you guys? And we all know, you know, and then like, oh, and then you have the blunt ones that were, are you, um, is your mom and dad together? Be all no, you know, I I they just weren't. Oh, okay. And um, that was kind of getting, it was wearing on me, but again, too, I was still under, I can't tell what happened. Right. So even though my mom had told me she left him for touching me, I still couldn't say that to anybody else. Right. And um, so I didn't. So I just didn't know why she left, you know, other than what she said to me. Right. And then that kind of died down a little bit. And I thought, you know, everything was good. But then um I started talking to a boy in our church that was older than me. And I wasn't supposed to be talking to him, you know, and always a boy.

SPEAKER_04: 29:24

Uh, right, or a girl, you know, for the boys, it's a girl, for the girls, it's a boy.

SPEAKER_01: 29:29

It is this was a kid. I was like 14, he was like 19, and he was just really nice to me, you know, and it was somebody that was being nice to me in the storm of everybody else not being nice to me, or almost now. I look at it, it was almost like being shunned because of what they were doing. So now it was like kind of like, oh, can I I all of a sudden couldn't go home with a friend after church, or I couldn't, you know, they weren't inviting me over any more. Because our families weren't hanging out anymore. Right. So it was like, okay, so that was, but to kind of backtrack when she started um going out and drinking and partying, um, I kind of took on the parental role of taking care of my siblings. So, so nobody would know, you know, she started dating somebody else and was gone for a couple of nights at a time. And, you know, I'd be home. Leave us kids alone. It got to the point where my siblings' elementary school was calling my middle school to ask me where is your mom? And of course, if CPS got called, I was gonna be in big trouble in my mind. So I would have to say, call an aunt from school. Hey, can you come take me out of school? Go take this kid out of school and take me home so I could take care of them. Oh, yeah. So it was like everybody kind of covered it up as well. So, but I was the one there taking care of the siblings. And if I got babysitting money, I walked down to Foods for Less and picked up what we needed as far as groceries, just kind of whatever I could get to help take care of the kids and be there to protect them. How old were they? Um, we're all two years apart. So if I was 14, it was 12, 10, and eight. Wow.

SPEAKER_04: 31:29

At least they were of age where they can take care of themselves, just like bathe and yeah, that kind of thing. That is a lot. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 31:40

Yeah, it was a lot to carry by myself. As an adult, I look at that and I look at my kids and I'm like, they're so immature. Love them.

SPEAKER_04: 31:47

But I know that it's true. Like when you look at your grandkids and and um other kids like four years old, that's so little than eight years old where they're at in school and development. Like it's it's just so young to think that that was you at that age. Right. You know, being abused, and oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 32:11

So uh um, you know, things were just kind of getting bad. And there was another time where um I had made a new friend. There was a new family that started going to our church, and they lived fairly close to us. And we had gone to school, and she and I had ditched together. Like I said, I was really obedient. So all of a sudden, this little bit of rebelliousness or following is essentially what I was doing. Right. Um, we got caught because the boy that I was talking to called in for both of us, called our school. So they called the parents, and I got home that day and they asked me how my mom asked, how was school? It was all great. She was like, Oh, really? And remember she followed me upstairs. I just went upstairs, put my backpack down, and I don't know. I she's I had been, like I said, there was some physical abuse, but this time she picked up an iron. And never in my life I had oh my word, I ran for the first time. I ran from my mom, terrified. I went to this family's house, pounding on the door. Please help me, please help me. She's gonna beat me. She's going to beat me, please help me. Wow. And they let me in and they were trying to calm me down. And sure enough, she was right behind me, and they let her in. And I had a crossbody purse where I was running from her in their house where she wound up, my hair was really long. So she grabbed me by my hair, and she wound up breaking the strap to my purse somehow and was beating me in their house with it. And it was almost like a square to go like around their house from the front door, like you go through a kitchen. And she dragged me around there and I started hyperventilating, and they told her, Hey, you gotta stop. She's she can't catch our breath. Right. And she was like, She could pass out for all I care. And I just remember, like, again, nobody would ever help me. Yeah. And I ran away from home after that.

SPEAKER_04: 34:30

Well, probably the wrong thing to say, but thank goodness that you did.

SPEAKER_01: 34:35

Ran away, yeah. They made me go back.

SPEAKER_04: 34:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 34:38

But um there was Where'd you run to? I went to home with some friends after school that were not church friends. I went to like a totally different school. Now I wasn't with any of my church friends that I grew up with. So I had a couple of friends hiding me out, but one of the moms called my mom and went and got me. And she agreed, my mom agreed to let me spend the night with a church friend. The next day at school, I just wasn't feeling good. So I called my friend's mom instead of my mom, but they sent my mom to get me. And she's like, You're coming right back. It's not gonna work. You're gonna you're staying home.

SPEAKER_04: 35:19

And um and CPS was never called by was such a different generation. I know that you know, people kind of stayed out of everyone else's business.

SPEAKER_02: 35:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 35:31

And in the church, you know, I can't speak for everybody, but I know that my parents had such a level of naivety when it comes to those kinds of things. You know, my childhood friend was being abused by her stepdad, and um no one knew really what to do. Like you just don't know what uh there's so much more education nowadays, and people are so much more willing to speak out, but I think it's so very common. But I think people just didn't know what to do then, right? Which is so unfortunate because there's so many people that have been victims. So an iron, she never got you with the iron because you ran away. Yeah. Do you think after that, after you ran away and you were forced to go back, did the abuse begin to settle? Like was she did she become aware that maybe she can't do those things as much like she used to be able to, or did it just stay the same until you left?

SPEAKER_01: 36:36

It would be okay for about a week or so, and then you know, then she wound up moving her new boyfriend in and married him, and he was abusive. To you, to me, and to her and to my siblings, but sexually or physically abusive to to us, and I just something happened to me, I think, by that time where I learned to fight because I don't like to hurt people physically.

SPEAKER_04: 37:05

It's against our nature, I think.

SPEAKER_01: 37:07

Right, and it was never me, but I remember him hitting my siblings, and it was just a full-on fight. I was like, you're not putting your hands on them, yeah. So I went on defense mode for especially for my siblings, but even for my mom. I didn't want to see her get hit, you know, and having to jump in and watching his family watch him beat her. Yeah. So here I am between 14 and 15, having to fist fight a grown man because he was hurting my family. Yeah. So then um, I wound up being pulled out. My aunt, I ran away again from that abuse because I was like, he needs to leave or I'm leaving. Yeah. And she was like, I can't leave him. Yeah. And talking to the boy at one point, I was threatened not to talk to the boy, and it just so happened, and that I was walking in our neighborhood. He lived close to our neighborhood to the store, and he happened to be walking back from the store. And he saw me, and so he decided to walk back to the store with me. And um, somebody saw us, called my mom. So by the time I got home, um, she was like, You're talking to him still. And she was like, I just got a phone call. I said, Yeah, he was walking home and I was walking to the store. And I think she had sent me that time to go get something. Because there were not cell phones then. No, I think, yeah. Yeah, no. And so um I walk was walking and he just followed me when I got home and she didn't believe me because I told her I I'm not talking with him anymore, you know, like I'm not, I don't want to be in trouble. And he um she happened to call um the family from the church that he lived with. And I'll never forget it because she called them and asked, Does April still call over there? Well, this is was the youth hangout. Yeah. So yeah, I would still call the house, but I wasn't calling to talk to this young man anymore. I stayed completely away. I didn't want no trouble, but she didn't believe me. The lady of the house said, Yeah, she still calls here. And um, so she beat me again. And that time I went upstairs and I had just had a back injury. Like the week before, I think I had taken one tablet out of there, but I drank a whole bottle of Tylenol with coatine. And by the time my mom, my sister found me purposefully. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't want to live anymore. I was tired of, you know, I felt alone. Nobody could ever help. Right. You know, it didn't matter.

SPEAKER_04: 40:03

Yeah, everywhere you turn the door, there's no one to rescue you.

SPEAKER_01: 40:08

Nobody, you know, and I remember um I'm so sad because it was my little sister that kind of found me. And by the time they got me to the hospital, they pumped my stomach, gave me the charcoal. Um praise God, I survived.

SPEAKER_05: 40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 40:25

But there was already some organ damage. And um, to this day, I am completely allergic to all pain meds. Wow. I can't take anything with Tylenol coding, anything in the family. So any medical procedures or anything I have, it's been the grace of God that has pulled me through with my pain management because I cannot take it turn into a really severe allergy. Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_04: 40:51

How old were you when that happened?

SPEAKER_01: 40:53

Uh 15, 14, 15?

unknown: 40:57

Gosh.

SPEAKER_04: 40:58

Yeah, I am just uh of the mind that when kids, you know, attempt suicide, there's really good reason. They're not just they're not just doing it to do it. They're so desperately hurting, you know? Yeah. And I feel like there's this whole there's there's so much talk about kids just doing it for attention now, you know, and it's so sad to me because maybe, maybe it is for attention, but who cares? It's they're hurting, right, you know, and um they're just doing the only thing that they know to do to kind of stop the pain.

SPEAKER_02: 41:37

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 41:38

And it's devastating. But um was that your only attempt ever?

SPEAKER_01: 41:44

I did it when I was a little older, I want to say. Um maybe 1920. Um I I still kind of blows my mind, and actually very few people, I mean, other than when I was a kid, knew about that one, but nobody knew about this second attempt. Um I tried to hang myself. I hung myself, but it was really crazy because I felt something, and so now I know it had to have been God because something like literally it felt like somebody just hit the back of my knees and I fell out. I had a belt around my neck and I fell out of it. You fell out of the belt, yeah, out of the belt, like and I had the bruising on my neck. It looked more like a hickey, yeah. But um I've never because it startled me that something literally knocked me out of it, yeah, and there was nobody around. Yeah, had it been an angel. I believe that. I truly believe that. Now looking back, I could see that that's what happened. That God just saved me more than once. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 43:06

Do you feel like you've discovered the reason he saved you? Like do you feel like you've discovered your purpose besides salvation, obviously, but No, you know, I mean, I I I try to help people.

SPEAKER_01: 43:24

I feel like I get in those situations where I try to help everybody, but I I'm not too sure. I think God's still working on me on a few things that, like I said, I've been seeking healing for because I just don't want anything in the way anymore.

SPEAKER_04: 43:41

Yeah, yeah. April, have you shared your testimony much? Have you shared those parts of your story much? No, this is like my first time. How does it feel to talk about it out loud?

SPEAKER_01: 43:57

It's it's I can feel like a weight lifted, and I'm praying because um I was praying. I was like, Lord, I don't know how much I want to share because I'm ashamed. I'm not proud of it. I don't want my kids to think like it's a cool thing, mom survived.

SPEAKER_04: 44:13

April, April, April, April. Hold on. The devil tried to kill you. You don't get to have shame. And I say that with love. Don't let him shame you for what others did to you. That is his biggest, that's one of his tricks, right? Right. I mean, it it it angers me that we carry shame because of of what others harmed us with.

SPEAKER_02: 44:46

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 44:46

It's backwards, it's so backwards. And um you know, I know we all have choices, and I'm such a huge advocate for that way of thinking, but I do understand brokenness and um and the enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy. And so please don't own the shame of trying to take your life, just live.

SPEAKER_01: 45:18

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 45:19

And and and use that against the devil and open your mouth and speak every chance you get about what God has done in your life and who he is, because if he if the Lord hasn't revealed the purpose in all of this, he will. I believe that. I I don't believe anybody, I mean, I don't believe anyone is saved for no reason. I don't believe we're saved just so we can sit at church and patty cake. You know, it's obviously more than that, but that's not what it's about. It's it's about reaching others and reaching the lost. And your testimony, I mean, suicide is so rampant. It the numbers have skyrocketed just since COVID. Um we don't get to hear stories often enough of people that survive, right? You know, and and the healing journey that they go through after. But um, yeah, I I don't want you to I know that that's part of what we all go through with shame, you know, because we see ourselves, but um I hope you don't carry that.

SPEAKER_01: 46:36

I think I'm starting not to, and and I think that's why I was able to share today because I wasn't sure if I would share that. Yeah, you know, but but um it's it's a part of my story.

SPEAKER_04: 46:50

Yeah, yeah. It's yeah, and it's such a it's I always think, you know, when I have people show up in my office that are suicidal, I think, what does God have planned for you? Because the devil is working really hard to take you out. I I I think that I I sort of think the devil works overtime to take people out that God is really going to use to make a big impact.

SPEAKER_01: 47:19

I'd agree because I my husband would always ask me, like, you know, he wasn't raised in in church like I was, you know, but he would always say, Well, why does God allow this and that to happen, you know? And I'm like, I don't think it was God that did that.

SPEAKER_04: 47:38

It was the devil.

SPEAKER_01: 47:39

It was the enemy that's tried. It's like we live in a world that that's what we do. We fight. We're gonna fight. There's good and evil, there's good and bad no matter where we are. Yeah. And so I do recognize that now. Back then I didn't, especially as a kid. I just didn't.

SPEAKER_04: 47:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 47:57

It was just a lack of understanding, you know.

SPEAKER_04: 48:00

And well, it's a common question, you know, like I'm coming to church, God, I'm praying, I'm I'm at the altar, you know, and they go home and it's a whole different life at home, and and it it doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_01: 48:16

No.

SPEAKER_04: 48:17

It does it doesn't make sense. Um I think I I've I think that sometimes heaven will reveal maybe only heaven will reveal the things that God actually did protect us from. Things that could have been probably way worse than what they are. But I also know that our struggle be does become our testimony down the road to where we can help someone else, but also strengthens us and it teaches us things that we may not have learned otherwise, you know, like just resilience and being a fighter and seeking God in those deepest, hardest uh moments. I I think that in my life God has answered every question I've ever had. Right. You know, and I I think the longer that we live, those answers come. We don't know, we don't understand when we're kids. Um and it breaks my heart for kids that suffer and deal with things like this. But I hope that you are getting answers that you never got before. And I know that as time goes, he'll continue to reveal them.

SPEAKER_01: 49:37

I and I I think I am. Like I said, I've had to learn to get into the prayer closet because therapy was, you know, court-ordered therapy, especially after this first suicide attempt. So um it was institutionalized um for the attempt. And um How long were you in? I was probably in there for about a week and a half, two weeks.

SPEAKER_04: 49:59

Okay, 14 days.

SPEAKER_01: 50:01

Yeah, it was somewhere in there. And um, you know, I then, you know, you had the people coming out of the woodwork. Well, there was a couple of people that I knew loved me and would do anything for me. But of course, I never said anything to them. But once the suicide attempt hit the church, you know, people started showing up. And you had people offering my mom, hey, can we take her? Let's get her out of here. And of course, her answer was I wasn't gonna get rewarded for my bad behavior. Right. And um, so yeah, that was just another kind of crazy thing. But eventually she let me go stay with an aunt that didn't live for God, but then that's kind of when I was kind of pushing my limits because by that time I had started my freshman year, high school, brand new friends, and um started dating a boy and just was started drinking, going ditching school, getting my I really went rebellious, um, chopped off all my hair, dyed it jet black, and just the people of the church were just like not happy with me. But after the suicide attempt, I think that's is where I kind of is when the truth came out about my stepfather because she didn't tell the counselor or the psychologist at the hospital why the real reason that I had been beaten that day. She told them that it was because of what my stepfather had been doing to me, was the reason why I had attempted the suicide. So, because of that, that's when they went ahead and decided to put me, because they did were talking in front of me to put me into the hospital. And then the church caught wind of everything. So when I would still try to go to church, because my grandmother was still living for God. So she would, you know, pick me up, especially after that. She wanted me in the house of God, you know. She was like, No, you you gotta go. So I would still go, but then that's when it got bad with a specific friend group at the church. Yeah, but it was quite a few families, yeah. Where blatantly told me that I was lying, that I was trying to ruin his life. Was he still going to church?

SPEAKER_04: 52:28

Is that why? Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 52:29

Yeah, he was still going to church. So um if um if that was true, why did I call him dad? Why didn't I say anything? Right. I mean, it it got pretty bad and intense because I couldn't go to a service without somebody saying something. Right, right. And then it went into my youth group. My friends weren't allowed to hang out with me anymore.

SPEAKER_04: 52:55

I had one probably the thing you needed most was secure connection there.

SPEAKER_01: 53:01

Right. But it was just kind of the these families were turning against me. And I remember one of the young guys in the church and I were kind of, he was sorry, but he was kind of annoying to a 15-year-old. Yeah. Yeah. But he would just drive me. So we would always bicker and no, not the crush kind. He just drove me, he got on my nerves. And he was messing with me. And I was just like, you know what? Shut up and leave me alone. And we were kind of arguing. I don't even remember, but I all of a sudden he was like, you know what, April, you're gonna be a whore just like your mother. Wow. And I remember just jaw dropping, crying, and I try I did try to hit him. And a couple of the other young men, one threw me over his shoulder and got me away from him. And then here comes the other young man's mom, grabs me by my arms and shaking me, telling me that this is what happens when your parents aren't in church. This so it was again, it was I was carrying condemn.

SPEAKER_04: 54:03

Yeah, condemnation.

SPEAKER_01: 54:04

Yeah, it was, and so I carried it. Like it was all my fault. Like I'm a part of this. This is and I had no control over any of it.

SPEAKER_04: 54:13

Right. And so um well, and it was happening in church, yeah. You know, you guys were going to church thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 54:22

So from what I grew up in to these couple of years was not the same building, but just the same people, but it wasn't the same church environment that I grew up in. It had nothing to do with the Holy Ghost or anything, it had to do with what was going on at home, why the questions, and then I remember going to a church service one night. One of the ladies that was from their friend group wound up marrying, he did get arrested. Okay. My mom wore a wire and he confessed and he got arrested. And um, one of the ladies went and married him in jail. Oh. So she was still part of that friend group. Yeah. So, of course, I got another smart remark about me being a liar, right? Ruining his life. And I walked to the church office, called my aunt, and said, I'm not coming back. And I remember standing outside of the gate of the church, and I was like, I will never be a member of this church. Ever.

SPEAKER_04: 55:25

Yeah. And um church hurt, I think, is one of the most devastating types of hurt.

SPEAKER_01: 55:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 55:34

Because it's a place you go to feel safe and go to hear from the Lord. And our expectation of Christians, I hope people don't place such high expectation on Christians. I hope that with the culture everyone realizes that people are just people, but right, there's still such an expectation. Oh, you call yourself a Christian, then that means you're perfect. You never sin, you never have issues, right? It's not like that. But as kids, and I think even adults, we go to church, we expect those we see every week to be at least good people, right? You know, and hopefully good Christians. But, you know, I we said it before the podcast started, but the more and more I do this podcast, we're getting to sort of look behind the curtain and see what people really live through in life. And good, good people, good Christians that really, to me, being a Christian is I'm gonna pursue God. I'm going to, I'm gonna love him and read his word. I'm gonna do my dead level best to be like him to others. Um, but man, I see all the time where I fall short, where my own woundedness that still is healing causes me to react in a certain way, you know. Absolutely. And and when I see that in myself, I'm like, where is this coming from? I don't, I do not want to behave this way, but yet it's there, you know, and and we just we have to just keep letting God work on us and search us and heal us in those places so that we don't bleed on others.

SPEAKER_01: 57:33

I agree. And it's something that I've had to pray for too because I don't want to do that to anybody else. You know, I'm human, I have bad days, I have days that just didn't start off the best. And by the end of the day, I'm frustrated, I'm tired. So I I know I'm not perfect, and so I try to be understanding to everybody else around me that just because I love the Lord, I dedicated my life back to God. That doesn't make me perfect. Yeah. And I'm gonna have my moments, and so are others. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 58:05

Yeah. So um, okay, so how old were you when you said that I'm never coming back to this church? 16. Okay. And then you said um you were 34 when you rededicated your life. So where did 16 to age 34 take you?

SPEAKER_01: 58:28

Um, for a while it was just any house party, any rave drinking that I could do.

SPEAKER_04: 58:36

When you when you look at that, what what do you think made you turn to that?

SPEAKER_01: 58:43

Were you just um like trying to escape the definitely escape and I didn't want to have feelings anymore?

SPEAKER_04: 58:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 58:52

I did not want to have feelings.

SPEAKER_04: 58:54

You see that a lot with addiction, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 58:56

I just there was just nothing because I love so big, and it's just my nature that I hurt and again Because you care, because I care so you know, and then when it came to You don't want to care anymore, I did not want to care at all. And then um, you know, and of course I wasn't hanging out with the best of friends, you know, brand new people. I was completely not in the same high school as my church friends that I grew up on purpose because you know, some of them hurt me, and then just you know, I was far away from all of them as I could. Yeah. Um, so I was just being naughty, just rebellious, just trying to do everything that um that I was told I couldn't do and just do it.

SPEAKER_04: 59:46

Well, I mean, because on the one hand, you're trying to not care, not have feelings. Rebellion is a different thing. Do you feel like you're kind of both like purposefully being? Rebellious, yeah, I want to do all the things I yeah because you were so obedient. Right. It went you went clear to the opposite end of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:08

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:09

I did. And then like the aunt that I lived with for a while, like she would allow me to like drink wine coolers with her and her sister-in-law. So that's kind of where I was getting like the introduction of it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:20

And then what of course I wasn't telling my family that I wasn't, I was drinking. And then um I was started hanging out and spending the night out. And then there was which I was told because of my allergy that like to be careful of street drugs because I could have an allergic reaction to them. And I still tried, it was crank. I didn't even know what it was, but I did. But that would help me drink all without a hangover.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:53

So I could just drink more and have more fun. And I didn't care. And I at that point, I don't even think I cared if it would have taken me out.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:02

Right. Because that's the other piece, right? When we don't care, we don't care about us. We don't care about ourselves. There is no value there for our own life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:12

Right. You know, and then um I wanted my aunt and her husband started having some issues. So they sent me to live with my grandmother, who still went to church. So when I went back to grandma's, I was going to church with her and trying. Same church. Same church. But still, you know, there was still some. So then she would kind of go like to neighboring churches with me on different services, just so that way I didn't have to stay in there. But it was still her church. Sure. So, you know, I understood now. I understand. And even then, I kind of did. My grandma was my best friend in my whole world. I lost her in 2016. But um so for that short amount of time I was with her. But then child support hit my mom. So um I had to go back home. So she could collect the money. So that way, yeah. So that way she didn't have to pay it. And then it just she was still with that third husband, the physically abusive guy. So it just wasn't work. It was still fighting with him. It was still, you know, trying to defend her, still trying to nothing had changed. Right, right. So at one point, um, I remember um getting into a fight with him on calling the cops. I had to run. He pulled every phone cord out of the house. And um, I ran to a neighbor's, they let me call the cops. I did, um he was arrested. He hit my mom, one of my brothers, and myself. And um, I remember like fighting him and her yelling at me, stop, you're hurting him. And I remember I just so ridiculous. I was like, wait, what? You know, he just threw my brother over a couch and and you after him, and you I'm hurting him, right? So it just it was just a mess. So I ran away again, and this time I wound up in a group home and then foster care. Oh boy, how is that?

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:16

That at least you're old enough to speak for yourself at that point.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:20

Yeah, I I refused to go home. Um, I was like, I I'm not going back there. And I wanted my siblings out, but CPS would have gotten involved at that. They they did. CPS did get involved at that point and um put me in the group home. And then there was a friend of mine whose mom wanted to be a foster parent who um she wound up getting her license to get me. Oh, good, good. And um, but that was uh another one. She wound up losing her license. She was kind of being a little um deceptive. So they they took her license away. But um, so I still was going to the same church. But now some people are leaving and going to other churches, so it's kind of like thinning out some of the the problem group that I had. And um just blows my mind. I just I'm sorry. When um, you know, going through the foster care and I wound up having to go to court against my mom to for her to lose her rights to me and fight her for visitation of my siblings.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:38

Oh, did you um emanciate?

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:42

I didn't get emancipated. They were gonna I stayed in the um um custody of the state.

SPEAKER_04: 1:04:48

Okay. Um so was state conservator over you then until you turned to the city.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:52

I believe so, yeah. So they would just kind of let me go stay with different people. I wound up bouncing around for a long time. And then um I met my husband. I actually I gave my mom another chance, right? Midway, about 17, almost 18 at that point. My siblings were begging me to come home. Plus, we want to see if they really love us. And yeah, yeah, you know, hoping that things were different this time. So I went back and she was divorced from that third husband. She had a significant other, and um, which I don't have any problems with them. I think I was already at age and they all knew just to leave me alone kind of thing. But um moved back, moved to Hanford, where I met my husband. She was living there at the time, and I wound up meeting my husband, and I got pregnant and married my husband, and here I am 27 years later.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:52

How miraculous, though, that you were able to get married so young and stay married. Oh, yeah because it's you know, trauma histories make relationships really difficult. And um that's really a testimony of the Lord, but also to you um and your husband that you guys could stay married and make it work for so many years. And the opposite because you hadn't even gotten any healing yet.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:22

Oh no, and our first five years were horrible. I will say they were horrible. We did go through a separation for four months and moved out, got my own apartment. We had um, he had a previous marriage, so we had his three children with us. So um, and then we had five together. So we had a big family of eight kids. But um, I just we did, we went through it, and then through these years, though, I would go visit churches because I still wanted God. Right. Because I still remembered the good part of God before all the mess happened. And as I get older, you begin to understand that people are people and it's not God. Right. So I would go visit churches, but I still wasn't having good experiences. I went to go visit another local church and the family whose door I had beat on. The the mom came, saw me, giant hug, you know. I was like, you know, hey, how are you? You know, and you know what? I just had lunch with your mom, and we were just talking how funny it was that day when she spanked you at my house. I'm like, yeah, being dragged by my hair was not a spanking, and you're stopping her because I'm hyperventilating. And oh, and my husband, I had shared my story with, and his mouth dropped. He was like, Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:51

He was like, Are you he was just because we minimize, I think people minimize because they don't understand.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:00

No, and he was like, Oh, well, we're not ever going to that church, you know, and then he grew up Catholic, so the this is totally new to him, right? And then different, you know, when I'm explaining the differences of it, you know, you still bump into those people, yeah. To kind of, you know, the Pharisees. Oh, yeah. They're all around sometimes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:24

Yeah. We pray for them.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:27

I do, I really do. I I don't want, you know, you see it a lot of times, and now it's just kind of like, you know what? Hey, we're all just human. Yeah. And I I really feel like things are changing.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:42

There's wonderful, wonderful people and Christians and people that are really getting it for themselves. Right. You know, are well generations of change, but I think um as we grow older, we understand things different too. I imagine that generation, there was wonderful, wonderful people that love the Lord. We were just kids. Right. We didn't see it. And I I look back. Um, Brene Brown says, you know, in her work, if we can just believe that everyone is doing the best that they can with what they know, you know, I've really grown to appreciate that and believe that. I really believe, except, you know, people that have personality disorders and sociopathic tendencies, but in the general sense, especially in church culture, people really are doing the best that they can with where they're at and what they know. Yeah. And God is healing them, you know, as long as they keep pursuing the Lord, I believe God'll do the work. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. So what made you come back at 34? Like what how did that happen?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:56

So when I was 31, so a few years before I came back, um my in 2011, my 11-year-old son was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:07

At 11.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:08

At 11 years old.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:09

Oh, I can't imagine that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:11

Um, perfectly healthy, great kid. I mean, um, you know, all the mom things that I can definitely say. And um, I remember getting the diagnosis being transferred out to Valley Children's, and you know, they had to go in and do a biopsy. And I was he having symptoms? Had he been sick? Like, how did that come about? Honestly, they were stunned that we found it because I thought he had a stomach flu. And what it was was um the tumor was um blocking the left front ventricle, so it was causing the CSF to build up and so was making him nauseous. And um when I took him in, asked for a um CAT scan, they found it and sent us out. And that day I'll never forget that just ice, like my blood felt like turned to ice when they told me what it was. So I had promised my grandma, you know, and promised God if he brought him out that I would take him to church. And my kids loved my grandma, and um I to went to church to testify of God bringing my son through the brain surgery and bringing him through all of that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:36

The tumor was in the brain, but it was blocking his his ventricle in his heart.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:41

No, the in the brain. Oh, okay. And um so I would visit more often because there was more need. There was more need, but not for me. I had this mentality, like I don't deserve it, but he does. Yeah. You know, like, okay, God, I I'm not asking nothing for me. Like I'm I'm past redemption.

SPEAKER_05: 1:12:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:07

This is just for him, you know, and my kids deserve it. Not just him. His name's Anthony. Um, it was um, it was for my kids, you know, because now something that you only see on movies is actually happening to me, you know. So um he did a year of chemo at children's for about six months, he was okay. Then they found that the tumor was changing. So he did, I want to say it was like nine months of a clinical trial at UCSF. Then that stopped working. And um, by this time, it's early 2014. Um he was starting his third round of chemo back at Valley Children's. But we had gone to visit church and Anthony wound up getting the Holy Ghost at 14. He was 14 at this time. Praise God. And he was like, Mom, I just want to go to church. And I'm like, okay, you know, we'll go more. And I want to find his oh no, I want to go to grandma's church. He didn't want, so I felt like I couldn't tell him no because all he was asking for was God. Right. So I would only go to church on Sunday mornings and take him. And he just grew. Like, I when I think about it, like it amazes me because here's this kid. In essence, they're Sunday school kids because we only go to Sunday morning service and they're only going to Sunday school. Right. And I mean, they loved it, they were thriving. And then he would come to me, and this is probably around, I think it was February, end of February of 2014 when he got the Holy Ghost. And um in August, the summer the um church offered to pay for him and his older sister to go to junior camp, which is where my daughter got the Holy Ghost. So they're loving it, they're just dedicating their, and I want it so bad, but I'm still holding back. Like I'm not gonna mess this up for them. Like I'm not asking nothing for myself. I just want them to have this. Yeah. And then we started kind of going Sunday morning, Sunday night. And he started coming to me, Anthony, and we'd be out, mom. Sunday school says we have to be baptized. Uh, I need to get baptized, mom. And I was like, no, I just want you to wait till you're older. Um, just, you know, you got to understand what you're doing before you do it. Just like thinking more logical than spiritual for sure. And so he started coming to his dad and he would tell his dad, Dad, I want to get baptized. And my husband would back me up, no, you know, wait till you're older. You got to understand it. And he'd be out, no, but dad, and the by he'd start quoting scripture and telling, and my husband was like, Where is this coming from? Like, this is the and then my husband, I would invite him to church and he's be like, I'm staying home to watch football. But then he would just show up at the church on Sunday evenings. So I would pretend that I wasn't excited, but I would be excited for him to come. Sure. And um at one point I wound up calling my old pastor's wife from my childhood, and I called her and I was speaking to her, and she tells me about the prodigal son. She was like, April, God is waiting for you. And for some reason, I just couldn't believe it. Like, really, and I've known that story. I just never ever applied it to me or even thought that I was in that category because I was rebellious. You know, I started doing things on purpose. Yeah. And when she talked to me, we had a very nice long, and I'm so grateful for her. And we had a great conversation and she encouraged me. And I remember that next service, I was like, here I am, God. And God just touched me and just, you know, refilled me. And I was like, I don't ever want to lose this nothing like his presence. There isn't, you know, and you know, my kids were young teens. So I remember even telling them, guys, we're gonna go, you know, we're in this. Are we, you know, we're on this as a team, and they're like, Yeah, we want this, mom. We want to go. I'm like, okay, we're gonna do this. But I would warn them too, you know, like, guys, people that go to church are still people. I was like, there's a difference between your testimony and your business because I didn't ever want my kids to go through, get hurt. Yeah. So I tried to teach them that, you know, but to be loving, we don't judge anybody, just kind of, you know, if you see somebody struggling, pray for them. It's they want us to know they'll tell us. Yeah. You know, and but Anthony getting the Holy Ghost, he finally talked us into getting baptized. Yeah. So he was baptized on August 10th, um, 2014. Him and two um, two more of my children, his older sister and his brother, right, under him. Oh, so they all got baptized that night, and then um he passed away September 10th, one month to the day after his baptism that we agreed to. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_05: 1:17:47

He just had his death anniversary. Yeah. Yeah. How old? He was 15, 14. 14.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:56

I cannot imagine.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:59

No. It's you know, um, it's not easy. I'm not gonna sit here and say that sometimes I can I don't cry every day like I used to, but I think about him every day, you know. He he'll always be, he's my son, he's forever a part of me. Um but I'm still amazed at how things happen, how God worked. Yeah, he just saved him. Yeah, he did, and you know, I because I drove him to the hospital a couple days before he passed. And um, when he wasn't feeling good, it was a Saturday. He passed on Wednesday, but like it was almost late night, Saturday night, when I took him into the hospital. And I remember driving him and I could hear him praying, and he was speaking in tongues in the front seat. And I just laid my hand on him and started praying with him. And I don't even know now when I realized it, I started praying for God to strengthen him.

SPEAKER_05: 1:19:05

Do you feel like he was afraid or was he at peace?

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:09

I think he was at peace because he spoke in tongues on the drive to the hospital. When we got there, they gave him some morphine to to like help with his pain because he said he had another headache. And um he he would wake up. It was like he'd be dozing and he'd wake up and he was like, Mom, are you okay? I'm like, Yeah, I'm okay. And he would tell me, Mom, thanks for taking care of me. I'm like, stop thanking me. I'm your mom, I'm here, I love you. I'm I'm always gonna take care of you, you know. And he'd doze off and he woke up and he's like, Mom, is dad stressed out because my husband has a fair of doctors and hospitals, and I was like, Dad's fine, like you know, and my husband happened to call on his break because he was working graveyards at that time and he talked to our son. And then um all of a sudden he started, he woke up again and they were like, if he can hold down the soda, we're gonna send him home. And he was unable to hold down the soda, but um he laid down and he was in some pain again, and all of a sudden he started speaking in tongues. He was just praying. Something I knew something was different because I don't interrupt people praying, but I did. I called his name. I was like, Anthony, Anthony, and he opened his eyes, he looked, he goes, Mom, I'm praying. And I just shut up and I just looked at him and I started praying for him, and then he he never woke up. But it blows my mind that he knew where to go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:54

So I know he was God prepared him. God totally prepared him. He did, and and you to be, you know, to lose a child, I can't imagine. But to know that God has him and that there was no fear and he was at peace is such a gift from God.

SPEAKER_01: 1:21:20

It really is, you know, and then his birthday, um, his a Christmas baby or uh two days before Christmas, but he loved Christmas. But his um cousin that he met at junior camp that summer, they had written each other notes and um that they were to open on their birthdays. So she had told me she was like, Anthony said I couldn't open this until my birthday, which isn't till June. I was like, open it on his birthday. His is coming up. She was like, Okay. So on his birthday, I got a phone call from her and she read the note to me. And in the note, he told her, God spoke to me and told me that he's gonna take my pain soon. And I was like, because mind-blown, because he used to ask me, Mom, how do you know that God's talking to you? And I was like, Well, in the Bible, Samuel heard a clear voice. I said, I've heard people say, you know, when they're reading the word, they'll get like a strong impression, or in prayer. I was like, I guess it's different from everybody. But he kept telling me and he was like, Mom, I'm gonna minister. And just his story, and then when he passed the cards, I actually barely read them, maybe about a year ago. I was amazed to see how he was sitting in class with his teachers teaching the word to his teachers and to his friends. And I was just like, wow, I I didn't, I had no idea. Yeah, like I knew he loved the Lord, but I didn't even know what he was doing. And if you saw him, you would have never known he was going through treatment. Yeah. Never. So I just he I think that's what brought me back, but that's also where I was like, okay, Lord, like I know that the only reason why I'm okay is because of God. Right. Because losing my son took my breath away. Yeah. And there were times where just, you know, you're sitting there and the grief just hits. It literally feels like the wind gets knocked out of you. And learning too that I had to pray, Lord, I don't need you to get me through the day or even an hour like right now. If you don't get me through right now, I'm not gonna be okay. Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:54

And he's that's a fearful thing to know the desperation of wondering if you can make it through the minute, you know, just in the moment, because it's so um all-encompassing, all-consuming.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:11

And it's been 11 years now, and God has pulled me through each and every moment.

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:19

And the enemy's tried, you know, he's tried to knock me out of the church multiple times, you know. Things still happen in with people, yeah, but there's nothing out there worth worth it. And there's nothing. No, yeah. I was empty and I was always seeking that that I knew was real. And now I can look back and be like, the why I felt the comfort. He's the comforter with everything that I went through as a kid. Yeah. When I was in that church house, when I was there, when I was in that prayer, when I was surrounded by that, like that was your safe place. Yeah, your refuge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:25:04

Yeah, that's what God's been for me. I think sometimes I just go in my prayer closet and I just curl up and you know, there's nothing like being in his presence and just knowing he's got it all under control.

SPEAKER_05: 1:25:20

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:25:21

Yeah, I'm I'm so sorry for your loss.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:24

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04: 1:25:25

I'm really grateful for what God did through it, you know, and and that your son is in heaven, the the place we want to be. And I think there's peace in that. There's there is there's loss, obviously, but I think there's peace and rest in knowing our loved one is with the Lord, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:50

Right. Because I'll never forget that that I wondered why I was hurting it. It's hard to put in words. I I don't even know if I can describe it right, but because I I I held him till his till he was gone, you know, he came into this world straight onto my arms, and I he I didn't let him go out by himself either. Yeah. But um I just I'll never forget like this this presence that was in the room. Yeah. That and it was, it was like this peace, and it felt weird to me because it was like this this can't be happening, but like there was this weird peace that was there. And I know that it's God. I'm so grateful. I'm just so thankful for God's hand in my life, yeah. And just pulling me through all of this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:26:47

Well, he's not done. It's not just He doesn't save us just so that we survive in life. He saves us to be a blessing and to live in blessing. And that is blessing is not just materialism. It you know, some sometimes it's not materialism at all. Blessing is just joy and peace and um love to to to be able to love others, I think is such a gift, you know, to to have that desire to just love people and just to be good to people and kind to people where you know you really get to live out who Jesus is. Yeah. And uh the best has got to be yet to come. I am amen. I mean, I I believe that that the Bible says that, but I really believe that I feel like people are coming out. Oh, I hate when I get weepy and can't talk. Okay, but I'm seeing so many people coming out of surviving life and walking into living life, you know, and there's such a difference. And I gotta believe it's not for nothing. God is shifting the season and shifting where people are at in their life for what is ahead of us, right? You know, for the last day revival for sure. Um I heard someone preach a message about the bride and God's coming back for a victorious church, the bride without spot or wrinkle. And we've heard that our whole lives growing up in church, that that's a bride without sin, that's a bride without, you know, that's a pureness, which it is. It's all those things. But it had been a long time, and maybe I never did think about it. But it's also a bride that is happy, that is expectant, that is joyful, that is ready, that is, you know, um looking forward to the greatest thing, you know? And we're not gonna be this broken down church that's barely limping to get to church, barely limping to the altar to hold on by the skin of our teeth for one more day. It's so as I hear your story and I hear other stories in my own life, God is, I think He has shifted it to where we get to walk in victory, we get to walk in the best is yet to come. I think it's here and it is beginning. I think it's just starting. But, you know, I can't wait to see what God does in this earth and what God does in all of our lives, you know, all of our the backsliders that's come home and are in the process of coming back.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:01

And the the gang community, I mean, I said it in the last show, but I want to say it again. I I really see a revival happening in the whole gang culture. They're getting saved and people are coming to the Lord.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:16

Wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:18

Well, we got several in my church. You wouldn't know it. Some of them you would because they're tatted up, you know, on their face. But um some of them you wouldn't know the lives that they've lived because it's under their clothes. Right. You know, but man, miraculous deliverance stories that God is God is God is moving in this earth in such a powerful, powerful way.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:44

Oh, I believe it. I really do. And I'm keeping it even for my family as well. I see God's still moving and working in there too.

SPEAKER_04: 1:30:54

Oh, you know, it's none of it's by accident. Every little piece of the puzzle is gonna make sense. And and you know, I will believe with you that God is gonna save all of your family. You know, the ones that want to be saved, I think. Oh, yeah. There's people, bitterness sets in, and bitterness is an ugly, ugly, ugly root. But God can even work, God can even God can even touch a heart that is bitter and make it soft again.

SPEAKER_01: 1:31:32

And He can, because I think I carried a so much bitterness with my mom. Yeah. And it's been a few years now that I had a conversation with her to let her know, you know, I love you. Um I pray for you. I pray for we don't have, you know, a a relationship. Um, but it's no longer bitterness. I think it's just boundaries. Yeah. Healthy, trying to be make healthy boundaries. And it's still something that I pray on, you know, like I sure, sure, yeah. Like, you know, God's gonna have to weave that in the right way.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:06

And I always think if if I would be okay seeing them in heaven, right? Then I love them, you know. I may I may not want to do life with you, but um I definitely want to see them in heaven, you know. God knows how to take care of all the rest.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:25

Oh, yeah. And that's what I'm trusting.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:28

Yeah. Um, so April, um, I'm glad you're here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:33

I'm glad I got to be here and share. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:36

I mean, I'm glad you're here in life. I'm glad you're here on the show, but I'm really glad um that you're here in life. So am I God's still got a lot of redemption left for you. And he he will complete the work of his hands.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32:54

I believe that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:32:56

Yeah. Um, so what would you say to the backslider that's out there that hasn't come home yet?

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:04

Come home. There's nothing or anybody that's gonna ever fill that void and heal those wounds. Only God can do it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:33:20

And what would you say to the spouse or the parent of the prodigal?

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:27

Don't stop praying because no matter what we do out there, God doesn't leave us. We know, we feel it, we you know, we may push it away and ignore it, but don't give up. I'm so, so grateful for my grandmother's prayers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:33:44

I mean, you know, my cousin Keith and uh both of his parents passed away, they they never got to see their prayers answered for him. Right. And yet, you know, after 40 years of crazy and prison and gang life and you know, horrible, horrible violence, he's living for God. Yeah. He told me yesterday morning before church, he texted me and he said, I woke up crying, speaking in tongues, and that's never happened, you know, and he is still so amazed by God and how God shows up in his life, you know, and I just thought, man, God is so faithful, he's so good. But yes, never stop praying because you may not see it. Right, but God is working and he will work. He doesn't stop. Yeah. Oh, well, thank you for being here and sharing your story and your testimony with us, and um and we and mostly, you know, giving God the glory for saving you, redeeming you, preventing you from taking your life and saving your son, knowing his time was coming to an end. But God, God in his beautiful mercy and way saved him.

SPEAKER_01: 1:35:23

Yes, he did. I'm so thankful.

SPEAKER_04: 1:35:25

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, April. And um, and thank you for all those watching. I hope um if any of our podcasts bless you, please share them. Um and like them and subscribe. It blesses us. We send this out into the world, and I don't always know um if it reaches people. Um, and I don't need to know. I know God is gonna do a work and has done a work, but um, but really um we're trying to reach people that was like me, people that was like April and all the guests we've had on our show. So if you know a prodigal out there, please, please send them one of the stories that's shared because someone is living the story same as we all were. And if you have a testimony to share, um please reach out. Our website and email address and all that good stuff is on the link. Um, but we really appreciate you watching. I know it blesses me when I do hear, and I know it blesses all the guests that share their story. So thank you so much for being with us, and um may God bless you. Bye.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:43

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 the redeemedbackslider.org. We hope you will tune in for our next episode.