Glimmers of Faith and Hope !

Discover the transformative power of faith found through life's toughest challenges. Explore how deep faith and prayer can reveal your true calling and lead you to unexpected blessings, including love and spiritual growth.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome to another episode of Glimmers of Hope. I'm Rob Stafford, and I'm pleased I'm to be joined by George Margolis. And uh he's a young man that I met at our recent men's retreat with Montrose Church. And uh we're gonna be expanding our podcast to include a new series, and we're gonna be talking to young people about what in this world, this life, uh concerns them, or they might have a fear, and trying to um provide some words of wisdom and encouragement from all the different generations, and um that's what we're gonna be doing. So uh welcome, George.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Thank you so much, Rob. And yeah, this is just I'm I feel honored to um be a part of this and that God led me to Rob. Um, I've been wanting to do this kind of thing for a while, so this is just like an alignment of God's plan. And yeah, so we're really excited. We're gonna be uh having a number of guests over the next couple of weeks and months. Um we're gonna be having some a lot of wise young people who who are strong in their faith and who wanna who wanna um spread the spread the word. So yeah, well, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah, so um we can start off, you know, like is there a number one or two or three concerns that like you need to have pearls of wisdom from some uh old guy like me?

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Yeah, totally. Um I want to say, like, I feel like a lot of young people struggle with anxiety, um, and and that can hit at a young age, so like even before your teenage years, uh, I I know myself and a lot of people have struggled with it, and it can manifest itself in a number of ways, but just like having the scripture that says like trust in the Lord and like cast all your fears upon him. Like the Lord says we'll have to bat there's it the word fear is in the Bible 365 times, and there's 365 days in a year, so I just I really think we have to fight it every single day. Yeah, but I want to say like anxiety, I know like there's so many ways people things people can be anxious about, and to some it may seem like it just doesn't make any sense, but to that person it feels like a very heavy weight. So just like reading the scriptures um on like fear and how you know the Lord is always beside you, and you know, looking back on my anxiety, I can definitely see how it made me a lot stronger of a person today, a lot stronger mentally. Um, a lot stronger of a man.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah, personal experience.

unknown 3:19

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

So that's one thing. Um, and you know, personally for me, um it manifested itself in like a variety of um cleanliness. Oh, so I had some OCD with uh cleanliness and germs and sickness, and you know, it's just like certain experiences in your life that uh that maybe were traumatic for you that cause you to um associate fears to certain things. But um I can remember my aunt sent me a scripture um that when you trust in the Lord, you know, you will soar on wings like eagles when you let him uh just guide you through life. And that helped me a lot. So yeah, I would say anxiety for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Well, it says in the Bible, you know, it's like you know, don't worry about yesterday because today has you know plenty of trouble today. Exactly. And uh not to spend time worrying about what what has been. So how did you uh kind of overcome your or you know, not not to presume anything, but how did you deal with that and what what steps did you take and how did you get through it?

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yeah. Um for me at a younger age, it was really like I wasn't in like reading the word on my own. And I I grew up Christian and I I went to church with my mom. And I would say little scriptures here and there helped, but what helped me the most was um was a therapist, like just having someone who was there for me and like I could talk to and who would listen to me and just like helped me just take small steps to conquer the fear each day, and the more you the more I would conquer that fear each day, um, the stronger I would get.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Cool.

unknown 5:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

And uh, you know, you've been a Christian going growing up in the church, and um, did you have any testimony that you wanted to share?

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Yeah, for sure. Um a big fear that I have heard a lot of my friends talk about is what are we gonna do with our lives? Um, what what like it's there's a lot of pressure on us now to choose a career path very early. Like you should supposed to know what you're gonna major in before you even get to college. And that's high school. So that's a lot of pressure, and you know, prices of there's like the price of living, especially in California, you know, trying to like have like make enough and be able to have a family, there's a lot of pressure for all that. So um for me, uh I was I went into college very like just I'm gonna be open and I'm gonna explore and I'm gonna just learn and see what I'm really interested in. Um, but it didn't just come to me. So it after like year two, um, I I went and studied abroad in Argentina for four months. Okay. And that was a life-changing experience for me. I was, you know, on my own, basically not living at home. I lived with a native family there. Okay. And it was a complete cultural change. And but it was everything it was in a good way. It made me grow, made me adapt, and I definitely got stronger in my faith when I was there.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

And was it a Christian family that you were living with?

SPEAKER_02 7:01

Or yeah, they're they're Catholic. They were Catholic. We didn't really um talk about Christianity that much, but we did have uh I I got I went to Pepperdine, and so we we're a Christian university, and we had a house church on Sundays at the place where we would have school. And so we definitely had that church community still, and it was definitely it was a blessing. Um, but my struggle uh was when I returned to the United States. I had to like reintegrate myself, and it was weird because they had there's something called culture shock. When you go somewhere else, you're kind of shocked. But I actually had reverse culture shock. So when I returned, it was like those four months were were so amazing, so challenging. Um when I came back, it was like, whoa, like a readapt, and for some reason it was like everything was I I got kind of low, and I also got like this was the time when I had to pick a major. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

So I I was like how old were you when you like went to Argentina?

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Um, I was I want to say 20. Okay. Yeah. This was in 20 the fall of 2023, okay. And I got back in December, right before 2024 started. And so I went from this peak of like exploring to sorry, I kind of lost my training. But basically, this like discovery time and then can't coming back and having to pick something, like being completely open to what absorbing everything I could in Argentina, and then immediately like by a year or two, you got to pick a major so that you can take the major classes and graduate. And that was like really scary for me because I still hadn't like figured out what I was passionate about or what I'm what am I wanted to study. And so I had this period of like I picked my classes, I started them, I was questioning if I liked them. I was feeling very anxious, very scared, and just like very stressed out. And started thinking to myself, maybe like maybe this is my sign that college isn't for me. Maybe I need to like look into trades or look, I really what I actually thought was like going to culinary school. That was like my first big idea. Okay. And it was just like I felt so strongly that I had to pick one thing and chase it, like go fully into it. Yeah. And you know, my mom and dad were telling me, no, like you don't have to pick yet, just just keep doing classes and keep moving forward, you know. And but for some reason I I've like I couldn't, I had to stop and figure it out. Like I couldn't do anything until I like picked. Okay. So that was for me, I just had to take that semester off for my mental health to it was just like really bothering me. I couldn't focus. I couldn't like I was I was hurting my health. I was so worried about it. So yeah, basically like my sleep and and just like my appetite, I was worried sick. So I took a semester off, and during that semester off, I realized that I would have been better off staying in school and just keep doing classes. Yeah, yeah. But but I did have a lot of time to reflect on my life and like look into researching things that I might want to do as a career, and that I was just just like basically learning things that I thought were interesting. So reading like books and studying some, like I studied a lot of like literature and basically um what like I kind of left out a part. I want to go back a little bit. Before I took a semester off, I I met a really good group of guys, these two guys that I met on this crazy schedule that I was on, waking up at four in the morning to go to the gym and going to bed at like seven at night, seven at night. So I was not on the typical college schedule at all. Okay. Um, I met this one guy in the gym, and he's studying to be an orthopedic surgeon. So he's got a great head on his shoulders, very uh disciplined, and he just opened up to me about God and like we talked about being a being Christians, and we would go work out and then go to the beach and jump in the ocean. We had this routine that we felt really good about, and we would have an early morning Bible study together, and I even had this uh I was in a Christianity course that semester, and I kept telling myself, like, if the Lord speaks to me in a way that I believe to be Him telling me to stay in school, I'll do it. And my friends, like reading the scripture, having an assignment that said, like, honor your father and mother, all these things were telling me, like, listen to your friends and family. And I like knew that was God, and yet like it was my like part of my journey to like leave and like looking back, like I want to like I feel like I should have listened, but you know, when you look back, it's also like what you you're just the decisions that you made, like they might have been ordered by God for a reason to like lead you in a way that you had to like learn, you know. And so I was like, I was kind of like not listening to God at that time. And when I was off and just living at home, and like to myself, I was you know, like I didn't pick up my Bible for a while. It was like I was in a rebellion and I just like wanted to basically like I just got more and more like just sick, like not healthy, and like just wasn't feeling good, was feeling very depressed, and like lost a lot of um my joy in life. And there was times when I would like as I started to like look for anything that could help, and I would I had my Bible in a closet, it wasn't even like out, and I went and like grabbed it and I like just opened the pages, and what I would read was like so meaningful for what was going on in my life, like it was basically saying, like, don't idolize yourself, don't like try and achieve this version of yourself. In Argentina, I tried to like do bodybuilding and like took it too far and lost too much weight and I wasn't healthy, and so I had this image that I had to had to reach in my mind, and it just I kept taking it too far. Okay, and I didn't even see that that I was doing that. And when I read that, I was like, like, I haven't been focused on God. I've been focused on what I want and just trying to create this world that I think and not just following the plan that He's already put for me. And it was just like I wasn't like grateful for this everything that had been already taking place. I was halfway through my college degree at a beautiful place, like I had so much going, and I started to like look look at things like more with more gratitude. And I don't remember who told me this, but I I eventually realized I just need to look into my heart and see what am I really passionate about in life, and that had always been like sports and exercise and nutrition, and so uh I also had a lot of pressure on me because my parents were in the medical field, and so I was thinking I had to be a doctor, and I was also struggling with my classes because it's a lot of it's a lot of time studying, and yeah, so that was very stressful, but yeah, I decided to do I I was I I learned about physical therapy okay and and I was like, man, like I love learning about the body and uh and just how I can I wanted to help people like especially help people um like get back to moving their body without pain and like you know exercising because it made made me feel good. It like gave me it was like still giving me like happiness in my darkest times. And so yeah, I I learned about that and then I was like, okay, now what do I do? Yeah, and like as soon as that happened, I like felt like every single day. Basically, before I figured it out, it was like every single day I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. I thought about it constantly, and then once I figured it out, I could finally like know that I'm in my heart that I'm moving forward each day towards my goal, and that is like such a like nice feeling. It's it was so uncomfortable to me to not know. And so knowing um gave me a lot of peace, and I I think uh I started to get back into the word and start just you know trusting that it was gonna be slow for a while, but then I got back into some summer classes and I and I kicked my school back up and and I actually ended up graduating a semester early.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Awesome. So was there any one person in particular that had a big like you had a moment where you you know the just even if it was a random conversation that helped you at all or or was it all self-discovery for on your part?

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Man, like my mom was definitely there for me the whole time. Like she will be there for me, like in my best and in my worst, and even if it's like hurt hurts her. So like she was definitely like listened to my every idea of what I wanted to do with my life, like gave me very sound advice, sound wisdom every time, like looked at my strengths, looked at like what I've always enjoyed, and she would just like encourage me with you know, if I thought I wanted to do something, like really, she would encourage me towards it. And if I decided it wasn't for me, then she would she would, you know, be okay with that and just help me to brainstorm more. And yeah, eventually like I figured it out.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Yeah, I mean sometimes I think you know, parents can you know the their kid says, Oh, I want to do XYZ, you know, and the parents go, You can't make any money at that, or yeah, you know, are you you know, and it can have some devastating effects, but it's great that your mom was uh able to help you through that.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

Yeah, that's a great point. Um like she told me, like, there's no pressure, like I w I want you to do what you want to do. You want to do what you feel called to do. And yeah, like just her being very supportive of me finding my passion and you know, wanting to help people was like everything I could have asked for. And obviously I felt like I wanted to do something, like challenge myself because my parents did. And yeah, I would just say like don't feel like you have to do it, like find what you've always been passionate about, try and create like something that you can help people with that.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Right. Yeah. Well, you know, I've always felt that if you find something that you love, it's not really work.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

You know, it's like but if you you know, there's a lot of stories about young people that they feel like they have to be what their parents want them to be. And you know, you can there's countless stories of how miserable.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

I want to ask, um if like what would you say to someone whose parents want them to like be a doctor, but they just really don't, and they're like kind of struggling with that.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Well, you know, you'd have to say with all due respect, mom or dad, you know, I gotta find my own path because uh um I had a I had a friend that his daughter was gonna graduate high school and she wanted to go to Arizona, and you know, the mom wanted him to her to stay at home close by because she was an only child and she didn't want her daughter going away. Yeah, and not that my advice changed anything, but I just told him, I said, let her go to Arizona, let her find out for herself if that's where she wants to be at. Yeah, and so they did. And she came back after the first semester because she's like, I don't like it. But she made the decision. Yeah. And so if you can correlate that to you know what you want to be when you grow up, I would just say, you know, you gotta let the kid you have to let a kid fail. You know, it's like but like within but also like not letting them do like a bad thing, but well yeah, not not a stupid thing, but you know, you know, it it's kind of like uh you know you're when the kid is small, you know, a child is small, your the parent is there to protect them because They don't know any better, but as they grow older, the boundaries increase. You know, so and you and a parent knows what what a child or young person is capable of. That's the way I look at it. Yeah. And that, you know, I mean, if a parent is really pushing somebody, say, yeah, I want you to be you know like a neurosurgeon, you know, and the kid is like faints at the sight of blood, you know, maybe not.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Yeah. Yeah, just like having the bravery to stand up and say that this is my life. Uh I'm going to do my best at what I feel called to do. So yeah. Yeah, I think that's great.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

So you had um, you know, we're we're getting to the point where uh, you know, we got a few minutes left, and uh just want to see if you had anything that you wanted to say and kind of wrap up your feelings.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Yeah, like I look back to that and it was definitely the hardest part of my life, and I really went through the majority of it without God, but after but like it led me to God. Like that hard time led me to God, and I just went so deep into my faith after that. Like it was like such relief and such gratitude that he showed me what he wanted me to do. He he showed me my calling, and I just trusted him in everything after that. And I would just I started praying, I started reading the Bible, I met my now fiance, and when we met, we were we were both raised Christian, we weren't fully um like practicing though. And so we like we increased each other's curiosity and we started like reading the Bible together and talking about our faith and praying, and then she's the one who invited me to Montreux Church. Okay, and so we found a church, like I found a church family here being from Arkansas. I hadn't had a church here in like the first almost three, two and a half to three years that I was here. Okay. So that was like a big thing, and we started, you know, that routine of going on Sundays, meeting people there, and yeah, just having that that regular faith commitment. And it's it's been great. And now I just feel like I wanna you know tell my testimony, and like we've heard in church that that's the best way that you can help people. Like our struggles are like meant to for us to learn from them so we can help others when they're struggling, and like help help them through their hard times. And yeah, I know there's a lot of power in the word that we can, and also our testimonies that we can help people.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Well, that's the thing is is that when people are willing to open up and talk about their struggles, about their faith, yeah, it gives other people courage to say something because um yeah, you know, that it's just people tend not to talk about the ugly stuff and because they think, oh, I'm the only one, but when somebody starts talking and is vulnerable, then that makes it so that they feel like, oh, I'm not alone. And it's just a nice way to kind of break the ice and help people talk.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah, totally. And I I believe that you know, as a person who wasn't always courageous, um, the more you challenge yourself in uncomfortable positions, uh, especially like I ask God for courage all the time to, you know, speak and to be vulnerable and to just share because we're all brothers and sisters in Christ. We should we need to be there for each other to listen and to help each other, and so like sharing is so important, and God can give you that courage to share and to open up and to spread the good news, and it's like very important that we do that.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Yeah, I've been wanting to to do you know part of my podcast with taking someone of my generation talking to a younger, you know, generation because I really want to find out what's going on with young people today, because you read in the papers that there seems to be a little bit of a you know movement, a Jesus movement, yeah, that's kind of you know go hearkening back to the 70s, and it's really cool, and it's cool um that we met um so that you know we could go and get to know each other better and you know find out what's going on in the young person's you know life, and I think it's great.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

Yeah, well man, I'm very excited to learn some more about you. Also learn some more about there's not much to learn. Some guests that we're gonna be having. And yeah, the Christian movement is very alive, and there's a lot of young people who are standing strong for their faith and and their belief in Jesus, and they're putting themselves in they're putting themselves out there because they have the love of Christ in them and they have the Holy Spirit, and you know, they just really let that lives. Yeah, they're on fire for Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yeah, yeah. I think that's great.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Yeah, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

All right, well, that wraps up the Glimmers of Hope, the new series. Uh, we don't have a name yet, but uh if you have any suggestions, you can always email at info at glimmersofope.me. And uh that's glimmers with an S. Thank you very much. Till next time.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Please reach out to us info at glimmers of hope.me.