Graye Parsons Shares Her Personal Testimony

**This episode discusses serious and possibly trigger topics such as: child sexual assault, sex trafficking, drug/alcohol abuse, physical abuse, and parental abuse.** 

If you or someone you know is being trafficked, please contact the Hotline for The Nation Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-888-373-7888

We also have local resources to connect you with if you reach out to us personally, we will make sure you get the help you need!  

Transcript

Charity: 0:19

thanks Gray for coming. So glad she's such a sweet person. Such a good friend. Such a beautiful story. And excited to hear what she has to say. And I appreciate Felicia for the updates in the room,

Graye: 0:31

making the lights look so good and working so hard Yeah, I'm super excited. I got

Philesha: 0:35

here early today'cause I was like pumped. Anyways, to have someone here that I just, I don't know you except for when I worked at the gym. Yeah. You were just a regular gym goer. And what charity has said is just that you're super sweet and have a really good story. I'm excited to hear it and whatever you feel comfortable sharing. Yeah, because I told her, she, I

Charity: 0:55

said, I don't know what she's gonna share. She'll share whatever she wants to share. Yeah. Either way. I know you love the Lord, and I know that the Lord's impacted your life and you have a story tell about it. Yeah.

Graye: 1:05

I'm pretty seasoned at this point, honestly, so I'm like pretty comfortable with it, Okay. So I was born and raised in Cy Arkansas, and my parents were semi-local people too. They we lived in Cy when I was born, like I just said. They were married for a little while. Got divorced when I was four maybe five. And I also had a little brother at the time, a 1-year-old brother. And then eventually both my parents remarried and had joint custody with me and my brother. They. So my birth mom whom I refer to that way because my stepmom is who I consider to be my mom. She did the raising and is still around and I love her very dearly. But my birth mom and my dad, after their divorce and getting remarried and everything we were doing like the back and forth thing for a really long time. And my my stepdad was a very abusive man. He he didn't hurt us. I can't really speak for his children. But we did witness him hitting our birth mom a lot. There was a lot of altercations and there was a lot of times where, my dad had to come play, rescue and pick us up and then there'd be court visits and, litigation and. All the things that come with situations like that. And then we we would it was like a, it was like dependent on our birth mom's behavior, I guess you could say, and her decision patterns. Whether or not we were seeing her every weekend or every other weekend, or, there were times there were a couple times where she was just gone, we really didn't see her for a long time. One time. I didn't see her for a whole year, yeah. But I have been in CCE until I was married. Got married when I was 19 and moved to North Carolina with my husband. He was in the Marine Corps. he served four years in the Marines and then he was medically discharged and we moved back to cce. And we have been here ever since.'cause he had a trucking company and we sort of did that for a little while. We haul campers and did all that. And then we just fell into our lab. We ended up working out of Idaho, doing agri he was doing agricultural trucking, but I was with him. We were going back and forth from Arkansas to Idaho, Arkansas to Idaho. And then we landed back here, and now we're trying to get settled. But as far as as far as me, I, like I said, I got married when I was 19 and then we we tried to have children for about 10 years and I had about five miscarriages and a lot of heartache, a lot of heartache with that. And eventually I got pregnant with my firstborn daughter. And nine months ago I had another little girl. So we are very blessed to have a full, joyous household and hopefully there'll be many more praise the Lord. Yes, absolutely. And as far as when I was a child that's really, I guess the meat of my story. The precursor to me meeting Jesus. But when I was seven I, I was being trafficked actually in Arkansas and not too far from here. I was trafficked from seven to roughly 11 years old, and I was threatened and really made to be extremely afraid. Of what would happen if I told someone, if I went to my dad or my mom and said, somebody's hurting me, or I don't feel comfortable going to this place or that place. I was made to think that I'm gonna be seriously hurt like that. I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna kill your parents. I'm gonna kill your mom. I'll hunt down your brother. You know, I mean, basically any tactic to make me scared enough not to tell their secrets

Philesha: 5:19

Do you think people in your life knew without knowing?

Graye: 5:22

No.

Philesha: 5:22

No.

Graye: 5:23

So this is what has been, that part has been extremely difficult for me. Because I ha I struggled for a long time, not really wanting to talk publicly about it. Yeah. Because I didn't want to bring any shame to my dad and my stepmom because they are great parents. And they are not unaware people. So that's actually where it gets interesting. So because they were police officers,

Philesha: 5:49

So they know now. I'm sure they do. Okay.

Graye: 5:52

So, okay. So when I, when was newly married. My husband went to Afghanistan on deployment. He was gone for nine months. During that time, I I went to I was, okay. So I had, I still had a relationship with my birth mom until that point, until I was like 1920. I don't remember. I would've been, 20 by then. But I still technically had a relationship with her, albeit a codependent, terrible relationship. It was a relationship, and in my mind I was like, oh, I can reach her. I can help her get better. She was an addict and she is an addict. And honestly, for anyone listening to this, I pray for her. I mean, I would, I spend, y'all have left oceans of tears at the altar for that woman because I want her to know Jesus. And I want that to be, that's really important to me for everybody to know that before I tell the rest of this. But when. You know what I hope she gets to listen to this someday. I really do. A hundred percent. But when I was, when he was in Afghanistan, I was trying to spend time with her, and I I had picked her up one day from her house and we were gonna go to lunch or something, I don't remember, but we were just gonna spend some time together. She asked me to make a stop, and I probably should have known better than to do that. But I was just giving her the benefit of the doubt, and I was in control. I was driving the vehicle. So I thought, okay, so we, she tells me where to go, and we're driving down this road, and as we're getting to the end of it, it's pretty long like driveway, I see this house and it was like. An avalanche of memories and feelings and just totally, completely overwhelming. And I had all these flashbacks and I started just remembering things, and I was like, oh my gosh, no I'm crazy. Like I'm losing my mind right now. I'm really, I'm certifiably insane. This is ridiculous. Why would I think that, really chastised myself for it. And at the time I was living with my in-laws I was waiting on back base housing while he was in Afghanistan.'cause we were still, like really fresh married, before he left. And I went to I, I came, I, sorry. She, so she comes, she gets back in the car and I'm like, no, I'm leaving. I've gotta go. I don't wanna be here anymore. I'm taking you home. And she's oh my gosh. Stop freaking out. I was like, I'm, I just don't wanna be here. And she's okay. I dropped her off, I went back home. I sat with myself for a long time. Eventually I talked to my mother-in-law a little bit about what I experienced and she informed me,'cause she's a psych nurse and a very goggling faithful woman. She told me that it is possible to suppress memories as a survival tactic and that it's not just possible, but incredibly common. And so that's essentially what happened to me. And I used to be really nervous about saying that because people were like, oh, okay, sure. Oh, no. But I think it's becoming more people are becoming more aware of that possibility. Like it really is just your brain's survival mode. What I, knowand and it was just, I thought I was certifiably insane. At one point. I hadn't even told my mother-in-law like, I need to be admitted somewhere because I'm just not I'm not okay. My brain is not okay. And it was like, it's taken a physical toll on me, and so she said, I think maybe you should write a letter to your birth mom and lay some things out. Maybe you just need some boundaries. Of which I had none. I knew, I didn't know, I didn't know anything about drawing lines in the sand for myself, I was just winging it, with relationships. And so I I took her advice and I wrote a letter. In that letter I simply explained to her, I as a product, first of all, I actually started the letter by saying, I love you. I forgive you for everything that you put us through and for all the bad decisions you've made. And I hope that you get better, and I hope that you turn your life around. But I want you to know that I love you, and there's so many things I love about you. But because of your actions, because of your decisions and the situations you put us in, all I said was I was raped and I was put in bad situations over and over again. And so I really, I'm having a hard time right now, and I need to draw some boundaries. And so my boundaries were, I'll meet you in town if you want to go get lunch, or, that's pretty much it. We can meet in town, that's a good boundary. We can meet in town, but I'm not gonna come to your house. You're not gonna come to my house. You're just, we're done, we're done for now. And and I need you to respect this. And of course, she was not having it. I delivered it to her. I left and she called me almost immediately cursing, screaming, how dare you if you were raped, why didn't you tell anybody? And I was like, okay. As a part of that, when I was like 12 years old. I actually did try to tell her that I had been raped. I, I tried to tell her what was happening to me, and she called me a liar. And I just shut up after that. I just was quiet. I didn't say anything. I, and so moving forward to this letter, she was just not taking it well, and I thought, oh my gosh. I just need a break, like a whole total cutoff break. And so I told her, I said, this is not over. I'm not cutting you out. I just really need some space. So respect my wishes and please do not call or text me. Just give me a couple weeks to sit on this. And she couldn't do that. She called me. Pretty much I don't like next day, two days later, something like that. Pretty much right away she was texting me, calling me. At some point, I finally answered the phone and I said, Hey. Remember what I said, I just needed some time. You can't seem to respect any of the boundaries that I've set in place, so I'm gonna have to ask you to truly back off I'm gonna have to change my number or something. This is not gonna work. At that point she really started to lay into me about my letter and the things that I said in it and said, basically again, calling me a liar, telling people that I was mentally ill. She's gonna tell people I'm mentally ill. She's going to make sure that everybody knows that I'm a liar. I was like, you can tell people whatever you want. It's not true. That's on you and my character is gonna stand.

Philesha: 12:40

Can I ask you, at this point, are you following Christ or is that what's aiding you in this, you think that Christ was like. Working through you in this moment.

Graye: 12:51

I would love to tell you about that

Philesha: 12:53

in a minute. Okay.

Graye: 12:55

Alright. I really would. Yeah.'cause there's a, it's significant. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So essentially what that, what happened there is she admitted that she knew what was happening. She admitted that she was a perpetrator and that she had, was doing it for drugs. And so I was, yeah. So essentially I was traded for her drugs and I think partially I didn't realize I was being trafficked either, especially even when I was like slightly older because you hear a trafficking story and one it feels like foreign. It's that happens. Over there or over there, or to those people. And it's usually like people talking about somebody got kidnapped and they were abused thousands of times, or whatever. And then and that wasn't my case. It was a lot, but it wasn't, it didn't feel sane, so after I got educated, I realized what was really happening and what had happened to me rather. And my husband I had to tell him what was going on. He, again, he was in Afghanistan. Our communication was very limited. I, although I did get to talk to him a lot more than most people do on deployment. And so at that point when she had confessed to me, I was so stunned. I think just total shock ran through my body. And I told her, okay, listen, I love you. I love you. I really do. I hope you know that and I forgive you. But we're done. We're not having a relationship anymore. You will not be a part of my life. And that's it. We're done. I hung up the phone and aside from her breaking through to call me one more time, years later, I have never heard from her. And yeah, I went through a horrible, deep, dark depression and lots of bright moments, once Wheeler got home from Afghanistan and being able to move back to North Carolina and just be together, those were good memories. But also so many hard memories. Me waking up in the middle of the night to turn on all the lights because I'm like, I'm losing my mind, I'm seeing stuff and hearing things and, quite frankly, I just think it was flat out demonic oppression, I'm just severely oppressed and I developed a very heavy drinking problem as a coping mechanism and I was working in an industry fashion that didn't really frown on that, like drinking was just that's what you do. You go to a promotional event, here's have some free drinks. You go to an after party, have some free drinks, really terrible environment. Honestly, a lot of good people. I have a lot of sweet friends. One of my best friends in the whole world was the photographer, and we still are, big as thieves. But even though she's a. Across the ocean. But yeah, so back to your question, when I was 12, I went to church camp. My parents thought, they need a summer activity. Of course, both of my parents were working part full-time, and so they were I'm sure trying to find activities for us when we were outta school, yeah. So anyways, they, we went to church camp and I did the overnight. I don't know if my brother did at that time. But anyway, so I stayed overnight for two weeks,

Philesha: 16:21

I think,

Graye: 16:22

and I had a great camp counselor. She was wonderful. I loved her. She was very good for me. I was able to talk to her about a lot of things and excuse me. Who's me? Same time, at one point I was listening to Michael Lincoln. I don't dunno if anybody knows him. He was teaching the gospel and I was listening and I thought I was hearing, but I really didn't, I really didn't take it to heart. What I, not because of his teaching, but because of the follow up from others. I was taught you need to be baptized to be saved. And so naturally, me and my tiny little self, I'm like okay, then baptize me. Let's hop in the pool. You know what I mean? I'm like 12 years old. I'm just out here surviving, trying to figure things out. And so I was like, yeah, let's do it. So somebody said a sinner's prayer over me. They didn't really have me pray or anything like that. They just set it for me, and then they baptized me. And in our, at our church, we say, that's just getting wet, that's all I did. I took a bath. Yeah. But the Holy Spirit was not with me. I did not receive the Holy Spirit. I spent a lot of time talking about Jesus, talking about the gospel. Trying to minister to people in a way. I spent a lot of time praying. I read the Bible. I studied really hard, I did Beth Moore studies on repeat as a teenager, and learned a lot actually. I can't say that I didn't learn anything or that those experiences weren't good for me. They obviously were stepping stones building blocks to getting me to a point where I truly met Jesus. But I was just not, I just wasn't there. A couple years later, I go back to camp at age 14. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm such a dirty sinner. I'm still doing all these things. Somebody help me. I'm gonna go to hell because, I've messed it all up. And instead of telling me if you're saved and you're born again, and the Holy Spirit lives in you Then just take your burdens to Jesus. You're okay. It's gonna be all right. You have a heavenly home and you're not supposed to be perfect. You're supposed to strive to be Christ-like. But nobody told me that. Instead they told me to be baptized again. So that's what I did. I got baptized again. News flash. You did do it. I got wet twice. With well-meaning people, well-meaning people. But what happened is I ended up essentially not really having any hope, thinking this is all God has to offer. Depression, alcoholism, miscarriages. At one point a broken marriage, my goodness, I was mean and hateful and selfish. Addicted massively struggled with pornography. I was just like, I was not who people thought I was. I girl, I was real good at keeping secrets. I can tell you that. And there's been very few people who really saw it. You know what I mean? They didn't need to know. They just saw it. They discerned it in me. And one of them was my pastor currently, and he's yeah, there's something going on in her. She's got some dark stuff going on in her. And he was right. So my parents, so here's what happened. So all these years passed, I'm like depressed and hurt. We finally come home and I'm feeling like a real heal. Like I had been harshly judged on my modeling career and just so many things had happened at a lot of church hurt. A lot of misunderstanding about who God was, what grace was, what Mercy was. And so my mom and dad had just started going to New Beginnings Community Church, and they invited me to a revival, like a old fashioned tent, revival outside, Southern. I don't know if he's Southern Baptist, but he's a southern man and he's Baptist. Okay? Sure. But anyway, and he was, just, hammering down on the gospel, okay. And he and my pastor as well, and I was listening and, I, I kept coming, but y'all, I was showing up after drinking and smoking and being hot and, just sitting there listening to this guy okay, yeah. I've tried. Yeah. I've tried. Nothing's changing. I'm reading my Bible. I, how many times have I hit my face? To the floor, praying, crying, screaming out to God to fix it, to take these burdens from me and nothing. And so at some point I realized that I was maybe doing things the wrong way. But not before I had my first child when she was two, three months old. I don't totally remember. No, she would've been older than that. Just, it doesn't matter. Point is she was an infant. Okay. He was fresh. Like I said, we were going back and forth to Idaho. My husband had been working there and we were not estranged, but we were trained. Really just having a hard time communicating, understanding one another. A lot of hurt. Was dealt on both sides. And I didn't see a way out of it, quite frankly. I just, I thought, man, my gosh, we're just gonna be unhappy for the rest of our marriage,'cause we just can't seem to get it together. Yeah. And I was, I was on the phone with my pastor and another friend that's a deacon at our church being like, oh, my husband's just not a leader. He's not doing this well, he's not doing that well, I wish he'd read his Bible more, or I wish he'd pray over me more. I wish he'd do this. Why isn't he this way? And the whole time that these two men were ministering to me, praying for me, counseling me, they had no idea that they were actually just working on my heart, who I was. Because what happened is Wheeler and I had this big blow up fight and I realized, okay, something's gotta give. I'm doing something wrong here. We were living in a camper. We had an RV up there and he was working late. His parents had. Taking me and the baby up to Idaho, they were gonna stay for a few weeks and we were sitting in the camper and it was like midnight, one in the morning, somewhere like that. The guys were out working hauling cattle and so he and his mom and I, we went and put the baby in bed and she's let's just watch a movie. We'll just stay up till the guys get home. I was like, yeah, that sounds great. So we turned on a movie. It was wonderful. At some point we start talking about the recent events and I just told her, I just don't know what to do. I really don't know what to do. I feel totally hopeless right now. I feel I've got this baby that I prayed for 10 years for this is all I ever wanted was to be a mom. All these things and everything just feels like it's falling apart and, she said gray, and it's very typical for her. All I know is to just pray about it. So let's go before the Lord. So she hit her knees on the RV couch and she said, come on, get down here. And I sat down beside her and she said, I'll start and you can finish. So she started praying. And about the time I got two words outta my mouth. I was hit with the Holy Spirit. And I knew for the first time in my life who God was, and I knew that I could be saved. I knew that I could have an eternal home.

Charity: 23:59

Amen.

Graye: 24:00

So I cried out to him with a genuine heart. Finally, instead of just crying out to a God who I thought might be out there to fix my problems, instead I repented. And I told him how sorry I was and I received his forgiveness, his grace, his mercy. And when Wheeler came home, I unloaded everything. I was like, so listen, me and your mom were praying I got saved. And he's what? I thought you were saved. And I was like, listen, I'm really sorry about that. I wasn't, because you know what he thought I was, he thought I was encouraged him when we got married. And I honestly, so did I to be there. And so I just I'm, telling him I'm just so excited.'cause I'm like, I finally just feel like I received the Holy Spirit and my weight is just gone, and I'm to say there was no struggle. Like the struggle was still there, but I had a hope, I had finally gotten a hope in Christ and I felt like I had new tools and a new a new resolve. I knew how to move forward from that point. And so I just resolved to be a good wife. I resolved to be Christlike to my husband and to love him no matter what we were dealing with. And in hopes that it would be returned. And it was, it was, because, and there were, there a time came when my husband said, I've noticed the change in you. I've seen it. You're different. And it's because, and this is very important to me to say and it's been heavy on my mind lately, but it's because I died, I literally died and was born again. The old me is fully gone. Praise the Lord. Yes. And so with that, I, I gave up drinking and I gave up smoking. I I didn't drink during my pregnancy, but Yeah. Or smoke but I gave up, all those things gave up getting high and. All my vices, are just gone. They're just gone. Because for the first time, I went from feeling guilty to truly grieving the fact that I had hurt the father with my sins. And that being said, the very next day my husband baptized me in one of the most beautiful places in the whole world. And it was freezing. It was like 45 degrees water, and I would have no regrets. And yeah, so with confidence, it's where all my foot is asleep, but with confidence. Now I can say that I know that I'll be with Jesus eternally. And before that moment in my life, I knew full well in my spirit that I was gonna go to hell. I knew it. I knew it. And I ignored it and I waited far too long. That is the greatest regret in my life. I'm not a person who has regrets, but I had one and said, I just didn't know Jesus sooner. What a beautiful story. Yeah. Yeah.

Philesha: 26:50

That moved me a great deal.'cause girl, I relate to a lot of what you said. I had been exposed to alcohol and marijuana at such a young age, and it was like, my parents' philosophy was you're gonna do it, so you might as well do it with me. And I, that set me up for failure. Lot of people so many years. Yes. And my grandpa, my papa, he was my very best friend. And he wasn't just a major pothead. He just, he, his philosophy was, I'll smoke till I die. And so it was like a, it was a bonding thing for me and him for such a long time. And. It really wasn't until he was like on his deathbed that he accepted Jesus. But for a long time I felt like I was working against my family. I told her parents this when we sat down, like I felt like I was really trying to grasps who Jesus was and my family was just not, they weren't there but me actively seeking Jesus, I feel like has made a change in my family. And now my dad, my real dad who have, he had addiction problems and things like that, that he's turned his life around. And so his relationship with Jesus fuels my desire to have a strong relationship with Jesus. And same with my mom. Yeah. But I had to fight against the Yeah. Generational curse of addiction.

Graye: 28:16

Yeah.

Philesha: 28:17

And I had a moment, honestly, it wasn't too long ago, I don't remember exactly when, but I was just like I used alcohol as a crutch. And when I realized what it was,'cause I just justified it in my mind. Like I I'm not an alcoholic, I don't need it every day. But it was something that I was reaching for that instead of the Bible.

Graye: 28:38

Yeah.

Philesha: 28:39

And I realized that, and I had one of those moments where I just fell to my knees and was like, God, forgive me. I'm so sorry. So yeah, definitely there's strength in talking about it. Sure. But also a lot of strength in letting that go. Letting Jesus exactly. Take that. From you. It's, but yeah. I'm so glad that you're sharing what you're, what you went through. I just, one thing that gets me, and I know you've forgiven your mom, and that's only Jesus can give you the strength to do that. And it's so hard for me not to judge that because as having kids, like that's the most purest, most innocent life. How could you ever do anything to defile that? Put them in harm's way? I just, yeah.

Graye: 29:25

I did, I went through a little bit of time where I was feeling a regenerated anger after having my first baby. But God dealt with it with me pretty quickly. I think the biggest issue coming from that was. Like having the irrational fear that I'm gonna somehow do to my kids. Anything that she's overdone. Which I'm obviously not, I'm not going to make those choices. The thing is the reason that I can forgive her, obviously yes, is Jesus, but it's because the Lord taught me about my own sins. And like I tell everybody this, her story is not really mine to tell, but, and I'm not giving her excuses. There's reasons, no excuses, but the things that she experienced were pretty rough too, she had some really difficult things to get through in her life as well. And yeah, where she's at is self-inflicted, but it came from a place of hurt. And lack of hope and need for connection. And I pray that she breaks free from that. I really do. And I've actually resolved that if I ever did see her again, if it was safe I would share the gospel with her again. I would tell her where I've been and what I've done. I don't think I could've done that a few years ago, before really truly meeting Jesus. But yeah, praise

Charity: 30:51

the Lord for that. Praise the Lord for forgiveness. And I think it's so beautiful because like to me, when you go through something and you can still forgive, it makes me think there's little things that like, I'm like, man, those people did me so wrong. But ultimately, like you see people that go through way more. And they're, and they can forgive.

Graye: 31:13

And it makes you say, okay, who am I to forgive? It's saying, Jesus,

Charity: 31:17

you're not enough to cover what they did. And it is very if you're not forgiving, it is not Christlike at all. And then I'm preaching to the choir because, I'm still working on forgiving people that don't care if I forgive'em or not, or could care less.

Graye: 31:32

Yeah.

Charity: 31:33

And so it's kinda oh, okay, how do I truly forgive this person? But ultimately, like I know in the back of my head, okay, you could do X, Y, and Z and you could, oh, bring to the choir over here. Because I'm like, come on Jody, you just really need to work on truly forgiving, But anyways, basically I need to do better on. Yeah,

Graye: 31:51

we all do. We all do. We all do. It hits us all at different times, for sure. I did wanna say you were talking about there should have been signs, like surely somebody saw it from the outside something that people don't always realize or don't take seriously enough is the fact that people, especially children, but also adults, but especially children who are put in a situation where they're being threatened with their life or others' lives carry the responsibility and weight of another person's life. In their mind. It may not be true. It might be true to an extent that they would actually fall through on those actions, but it's not likely. However, a child does not know the difference. Therefore they weren't getting any signals from me, necessarily. Because you're purposely probably hiding it since you were scared. Absolutely, 100%. And I will say, there were o there were other things as well, like my birth mom also hit things really well. Aside from, the abusive stepdad. My dad didn't necessarily have any reason to believe, and my stepmom that she was being horrendous. There was a period of time where it was like, eh, she's not a great mom, but whatever, but. She was mean, really wasn't a great mom, but still, it wasn't like, oh my gosh, she's on meth, or she's trying heroin, or she's prostituting herself, or whatever. It wasn't like that.

Charity: 33:14

Yeah.

Graye: 33:15

Until later when it was like, okay, now we're like pretty sure she's, she can it anymore. Yeah. Yeah. She's using and abusing. And that being said I'm just very sensitive to that because my dad is such a protector and he, my dad would ask us frequently, he asked us, has anyone touched you inappropriately? Are you unsafe? Are you okay? And I would say, yes, we're fine every single time. What is a man supposed to do? What are you supposed to do? He did everything that he was supposed to try and, no. What was happening? And so also then you take into account repressed memory. There's also a period of time thereafter where I shut it all out. My, but my birth mom, she hid a lot of things from him, a lot of things. Just one small example, just for the weight of his story. I have a little scar here. You can't really see it anymore if you, unless you get really close. But my eye got split open right here. And the story that was told was that I was hit with a toy, like a crispy and I was, but she hit me with it. And it was like this disc and it split my face open, and so I had to go to the ER and, get stitched up. So it's just like little things like that. Like what else? What else are you supposed to do? You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay. And my, my dad took such good care of me even through that, he's the one that came, and I remember I sat on the tailgate of his truck while he took my sutures out. He took'em out himself and, checked up on me and everything took really good care of us. But no parent's. Perfect. And my my mother-in-law told me one time, she said, I think that when you have adult children and you look back, you realize that there are things you just couldn't have known about your children. Yeah. And that's a tough pill to swallow, but it is the truth. You just couldn't have known some things. And that's where raising your children in the mindset of Christ comes into play. In one area. Obviously it should come into play the whole time, but yeah. Anyway, I just wanted to add that's, I just think that's important. Because you just, you really just never know.

Philesha: 35:33

Hundred percent. So one aspect I wanna ask you about is, since you have come to be more confident about telling your story, are, is there organizations that you want to work with or have worked with or any attention you wanna bring?

Graye: 35:55

Okay. There, there are a couple of organizations that I admire. And I I haven't necessarily worked with any organizations. There, I have talked about it in the past and talked with some people that were interested in getting me there. I'm, it's not really the season for me. I'm raising small children. And I really want to focus on that. Yeah. But I still share my story a couple, a couple of places to name, one being local, tower of H Mill is a new recovery place. They haven't been there very long. For women, I just think what they're doing is really great. Also, daughters of the Other Side is really exceptional as far as recovery. Addiction, recovery that's crest centered. But for Sex trafficking, human trafficking and whatnot, I would say hope 61, hope for Justice. Those are great organizations.

Philesha: 36:48

The Tim Tebow Foundation is I've been so passionate about sex trafficking. And just helping families who have gone through addiction and children who go through child abuse specifically. Yeah. It's such a I don't know what else to do. So I've partnered with Tim Tebow and I have a. Like a donation page basically. Sure. So that's the only thing I know to do right now, except for also having you on the podcast and talking about your story, bringing it, bringing attention to it. Is, and I know that social media does a great job of talking about it already. But I don't know, you just, I feel like there needs to be more heart to it instead of sensationalizing. Absolutely. The politicizing it that drives me nuts.

Graye: 37:35

Yeah.

Philesha: 37:36

And that should not be Republican, Democrat. I don't care who you are. We should take notice of that, not just not just the illegal immigration, but like it's, it happened to you literally in our local area. Yeah. It's happening. Whether you realize it or not,

Graye: 37:51

the numbers are astronomically high in Arkansas. It's pretty alarming actually.

Philesha: 37:56

Yeah, my mom was a social worker and dealt with stuff like this all the time, and I'm just like, that's another reason why I wish that there was more I could do and I'm praying Jesus right now. If there's more I can do, I want to do it.

Graye: 38:08

There is, I've got context for you. Yes.

Philesha: 38:10

I I'm just gonna look at my notes to make sure I'm not leaving anything out. Okay. This was a question I wrote down. What would you say to someone that went through what you went through who hasn't quite turned the corner like you have?

Graye: 38:24

If there was any, like they are post half post event.

Philesha: 38:28

Yeah.

Graye: 38:28

I feel like the answer's pretty obvious, but just I would pray that they would find Jesus much sooner than I did. To know that no vice of any kind, drink, drugs, men, food, anything. Anything. Anything. I think we don't get enough weight to all the other ways that you can have a vice. Get to grief. They got like a whole show about strange addictions, yeah. You're phone constantly. Do you disconnect? Do you disassociate? Do push people away? It's not worth it. It's not worth it at all. Have real raw relationships. Talk about what you need to talk about. Don't be afraid of people who set boundaries. Love them and lean into them because they're good for you. And but obviously, namely the very most important is to just seek Jesus, seek the word, and know that there's hope and know that you can be healed from it. Because the fact, y'all, I, good grief, I, there was a time where I don't think I could have physically sat here and said a word that I've said today, used to, even in a private one-on-one set, setting, telling a friend or somebody about it was almost unimaginable. And now I can do this calm in my spirit, like my body's calm. So that, that's that, I know for a fact that Jesus can help anyone and everyone, and we all need it. And not to be heart of heart and know that.'cause I know a lot of people say why this? God let bad things happen to good people, it's because there are no good people. None of us are good. No matter your sins, I don't care if you lie to your fourth grade teacher and that's all you'll confess to, you're a sinner. You need him.

Charity: 40:08

This isn't heaven. So evil things are gonna happen because this isn't heaven. This is the world. There's a, like the devil is the king of this world, and he's the one running around trying to have his demons influence everybody to do evil things

Graye: 40:26

The word evil, I think is very off putting to so many people. But the truth is that's what it is,

Philesha: 40:32

right?

Graye: 40:33

Evil is the word because we have this chronic heart, and if you're honest with yourself and you think about what's going on in your brain. You would know that's true.

Charity: 40:44

Because like your goal is to be Christlike, which is perfection. But obviously no one's going to be God, Jesus you're just not, clearly, or we wouldn't need Jesus and just the people that could,

Graye: 40:56

Yeah. No, it's a result of a fallen world.

Charity: 40:58

Exactly. Yeah. But,

Graye: 41:00

Yeah,

Philesha: 41:00

Yeah. I appreciate you coming so much and sharing your story seriously. Yes. And thank

Graye: 41:06

y'all. Thank you for letting me do that. Glory to God, I a hundred percent. I just, I used to tell that story for me for coping, and now it is, it's truly for him. I just want people to know Jesus when they hear that.

Philesha: 41:21

Amen.

Graye: 41:22

That's it.

Philesha: 41:23

One of the like, principle things that started this podcast was the story of the woman at the well. And how. She didn't tell Jesus anything about her life, but he knew. And he was like, girl, you better get right. And then she was like, oh my, you are Jesus. And then she goes and tells everybody, and that's the thing that we want to take and give to everybody who's listening is that's why we're doing this. To tell everybody. Just tell everybody. Yep.

Graye: 41:51

Yeah. Absolutely.

Philesha: 41:53

But yeah, it's definitely something that, I know this episode was it had really hard topics covered, but Jesus can break through anything and over, you can overcome everything through him. So your testament to that for sure.