What if the story in your head isn’t true? /// FOLLOW x UP

Epissode 005: What if the story in your head isn’t true?

Eric and Steve explore the stories people live inside of—and how those stories quietly shape identity, grief, fear, ambition, and spiritual formation.

Through personal reflection on seasons of betrayal, disappointment, rebuilding, and unexpected change, they talk about what happens when the narrative you thought would define your life suddenly falls apart. Along the way, they unpack the internal scripts that replay in our minds, the false beliefs we inherit about worth and achievement, and the slow process of learning to replace those stories with what God says is true.

The conversation moves through grief, trauma, performance, healing, and formation, ultimately asking: what story are you allowing to tell you who you are?

Meet your hosts, Eric Parks and Steve Carter

Eric Parks

Eric is an Executive Pastor at Plum Creek Church in Castle Rock, Colorado, who cares deeply about helping people rehearse the way of Jesus in everyday life—and holds firm as a Denver Broncos fan, no matter how often Steve brings up the Bears.

Steve Carter

Steve is the Lead Pastor at Christ Church in Oak Brook, Illinois, offering a thoughtful and honest voice to the deeper work of formation and calling—and remains a devoted Chicago Bears fan, even with Eric representing Broncos country.

Explore all of Follow

We’re all following something—habits, expectations, ambition—but Jesus offers a different way. A way marked by love, presence, trust, and a life that actually leads somewhere good. Not perfectly, but increasingly, we begin to shape our lives around his.

We believe that if Jesus is right—about God, about life, about the soul—then is only makes sense to rearrange your life around what he says is true.

Follow isn’t a program to complete or a path to master, but a way of life centered on Jesus. A way of living that takes shape over time through a steady rearrangement of our lives—our priorities, our rhythms, and the things we trust most.

Links

Follow: https://www.followtheway.church/

Plum...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

And and we can't get a story real, right? 90% of the thoughts you have today are the same ones you had yesterday. Like it is on repeat. So you don't have as many fresh thoughts as you think. And of those thoughts, a majority of them are negative, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:18

And four out of five are untrue. That's who someone said you are who doesn't really know you, or that was someone said that out of their own pain or their own self-preservation. That's not who you are. So let's focus on what we can control and who God says I am.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Welcome to the Follow Up Podcast, a podcast that believes at its core, the single most important oriented belief that if Jesus was right about God and life and the human soul, then it would make sense that we rearrange our lives around what he said is true. So that's what we're exploring. All that Jesus said was true and how to rearrange our lives around it. Steve Carter. I'm here. Yo, S Doc Carter. Oh, yeah. What's up, dude? That's a little Jay-Z reference. Doc Carter.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Well done.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

You know, um, I've also here heard you're quite the lyricist.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

You know, I'm the businessman or I'm the businessman.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Oh, that's good. That's good. Question for you. What's your favorite like fictional book that you have ever read? Favorite story that you've ever been like, dude, best story ever.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

I mean, the first one that comes to my mind is Lord of the Flies. Oh, oh, really? Like there's so many that are just th kind of going through my mind. Because before I was a uh like biblical studies preaching major, I was a film uh major. And so I I think I love the power of a good, good story. And it's probably because of like the time or the season or the moment, but um I really love Goodwill Hunting. Um such a what a great story. Um what about for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Fiction book or movie? I came across this book uh by an author named Matt Haig a few years ago called Midnight Library. Oh. And uh honestly, on the surface, too, it's it's about someone who's, I mean, it sort of has it's a wonderful life vibes, where just exceedingly sad about her life, and she gets a chance to go into this library in this in-between space and um check out these books of alternate universes where her life turned out differently. It's it's such a well-written book, great storyline. Probably um my favorite book, though, of all time All the Light You Cannot See. Holy moly. Who's that? Um that's a great question. Uh why am I going blank on the author's name? All the light. All the light you cannot see. It won the Pulitzer Prize in like 2016. They made a Netflix show out of it. It the Netflix show's fine. Yeah, the book is it's so beautifully written. Like, I'm like, oh my gosh, it's so good. Um, it's one of those two, you know, like you have some where you're read like reading or watching and you're like in it, it like pulls you into it. Yep. Um, yep. That's that's just story, right? Like and I mean, uh obvious transition, we're talking about story today, uh, especially as it relates to formation um and how we're being formed. Because the story that you're in, that you believe you're in, says a lot about the person you're gonna become, right? That's right. Like if that's right. If you believe that you are a particular role, then you have sort of played it out a particular way. So we're gonna talk about story today. Um, so let's start with an actual story. Okay. First time we met. We we alluded to it a little bit, yeah. Um, but I'd love to unpack that because I think in that story, uh, which we tell often um there was a lot going on in your life and my life. And so I'm gonna rewind the tape. Yep. Um, you and I uh did know each other. We um had lots of mutual friends, and this was 2019. So pandemic hadn't happened. Um, and I get a call from a guy who says, Hey, I want you to pick up this guy, Steve Carter. And I go, Oh, I know who Steve Carter is. I've never met him. I'd love to pick him up at the airport. Picked you up from the airport, and we had a pretty long drive out into the mountains. It was for this like finishing well conference thing that we were both part of. Um, and what I remember about the drive was you started to share your story at that point, which a lot of your story was still pretty fresh, right? Like, um tell me where were you in 2019? Where were you in what had been going on in your world at that point?

SPEAKER_01 5:35

The last week of 2018, we pulled out of Chicago and we moved to the desert. And um part of it was just uh, you know, my um life had been so set in um Chicago, and we lived kind of like a mile and a half from where our personal Chernobyl had happened, and and so um we as a family, my wife was from um the desert, she grew up in Arizona, and I had just I had like this weird dream where I felt like I was awake into the middle of the night, and I felt like the Lord say, you know, go to the desert, wait for instructions. And I thought it was more metaphorical. And then when I told my wife the next morning, she just teared up and said, I've been sent to the same thing, I want to go home. Oh wow. So we uh we pack everything up and we move, and we were literally like in a rental town home, um trying to heal as a family. Um, and it wasn't anything like that I had done. It was it was a uh a spiritual mentor and um just found myself siding with the women and and resigning, and so it just out of nowhere, didn't have like a what's next, um, but trying to pick up the pieces when I saw my whole future um in the neighborhood we were living in, in the job I did have, uh, doing the stuff that I love to do. And now I found myself like detoxing overnight.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

That this is it fair to say, like um that was a very sudden book ending. Sudden. Good because so sudden. I mean, I know the story. You you had a very particular here's what's next, yep, here's what's gonna look like, here's what I've been working towards. Yep. And um sometimes in life it's like real fast, sometimes it's not. This one was the real fast.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Real fast, real fast. And so um, so yeah, we're we were just um moving, we had moved to Arizona, and then I just uh we basically had like three values. Like one was we're gonna grieve, breathe, receive. Like I just I had to learn about a grief. I knew how to achieve, I didn't know how to grieve. Yep. Two, I wanted to make we wanted our family to be well, like to get healthy, and then we wanted to create beautiful things. And so I didn't want to give up on the church. Again, the church didn't hurt me. Um, and so I was traveling and speaking on the weekends, and then trying to be Uber present to with my family during the week. And so that was kind of like the rhythm, and um get invited, and I had been a part of this kind of gathering of guys who finished well for I don't know, probably four years, five years.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Um this was like my first one. Your first one, yeah. Like I had never been there before.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Yeah, so I had I'd been there and then um yeah, pulled up and and landed in Denver, and you picked me up and we went for a drive, and felt like you were kind of in a similar season of um your own kind of path of wait, wait, this wasn't the way it was supposed to go, and and so it just felt like uh one epic trauma bond a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Oh, there was certainly that. I do remember um at that point I had been gone from my previous role for only a few months. Yeah. So there were there was some trauma bonding for sure. It's also like really comforting to be with someone who pretty quickly like you started telling your story pretty quickly, like there wasn't like uh lots of pleasantries. It made me feel like, okay, I'm not alone.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

And if you're a few exits down the road from me in terms of your journey, not that you were out of it yet, but it did give me a sense of like, okay, I think we can do this, right? Because the story that we were living at that point is this isn't going well. Um, so I'm a seven on the Enneagram. For those of you that are sevens, um, when things aren't going well for us, sometimes it's hard to believe that they will ever go well again. You know, you're like, uh well. I remember when things were good and they're not good right now, and they'll probably never be good again. Sitting with you in that space was like uh that was that was a really big turning point for me personally. Yeah, it was huge. So I wonder, bro, like you've done a lot of internal work. We're now 2026, we're way down the road. And it's funny because uh we were talking with a guest on the on the podcast uh some time ago, and she had pointed out that oftentimes you really can't, you really don't know the story you're truly in until you look back over a long stretch. I wonder, like, as you look back over that season of your life, what's some of the biggest lessons you've learned about story, like the narratives we tell ourselves um in the midst of the trauma, in the midst of the brokenness. Um let's start there. What's some of the biggest things you've learned about that?

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Do you ever know those moments where something you said and you knew it to be true, you just hadn't experienced it yet as true. Totally. Um, I remember when I was a junior high pastor, it's like my first job, and I used to tell parents all the time, you know, kids are very perceptive. They're just crappy interpreters of reality. You know, what they perceive, mom and dad are fighting, or mom and dad are getting divorced, it's it's their perception, there's something that's true there. The problem is when they start to interpret it. Yeah. Oh, mom and dad are getting divorced because of me.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Um I I think what I realized as I started to try to pick up the pieces was what I had perceived, yes. But some of the some of the hardest parts about grief is not just grieving what is, grieving what you thought it was gonna be. That's huge, right? I thought this was gonna be the next 25 years of my life, or I thought this was what's gonna happen. I thought X, Y, and Z. And so that's one piece. And then two, when all of a sudden something goes awry, like, and and they would talk about like you know, betrayal trauma is like one of the hardest traumas. Um, because you don't know who to trust.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Um, and you don't you almost like gaslight yourself because you're like, I how did I not see this? How did I not know this? Okay, and so you you start to almost not trust your internal kind of ability to interpret your perception. So you're just kind of like, I I don't even know. I'm I'm probably gonna get this wrong. And so I think having to step back and just almost zoom out. And what I always appreciate for me about the text or the scriptures is you can, and people have done this like in three acts, some people have done it in four acts. I typically will take the Bible into five acts.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

And so you've got creation. Um, we were all created in the image of God. You've got fall, um, we all have uh made decisions that go against uh the desired intent. You've got uh struggle, uh, which is this kind of idea of what God calls the first people, um, Israel, um, that they are people who have struggled with God and themselves and have overcome. And and I think that in that I've always thought whenever I meet someone, I want to figure out their Mago Day. They're they were created in the image of God. I want to find what's good about them. But two, there's always something that's like whether their choice, whether their childhood trauma, something where um there's some fall, some brokenness in their life. And oftentimes it's our own struggle trying to make sense of that brokenness, whether to numb out, whether um to make sense of, whether to escape, whatever that is, whether to work um and try and do good. When I'm talking with people who are exploring or far from God or questioning or cynical, if the redemption doesn't make sense of someone's struggle or someone's fall, it's hard for them to really, really tap into that story. Um, when you look at the New Testament, Paul's constantly using different metaphors for the cross. And I what I think he's trying to do is he's trying to like show how the cross makes sense of people's struggle and fall or pain. And then after the redemption, um, you have the restoration, the the church and the people joining in the restoration of all things. This is God's story, but it's also your story. Yeah, it's my story. And and and so I think to almost like zoom back and go, okay, everything that happened happened. Okay. But let me go back to like the actual story. And I was created in the image of God. I was created good. And then here are some some some parts of me that became susceptible from my fall, um, being performance driven, um, having a biological father out pretty soon um after I was born, um, having an adopted father who was far from God and didn't really tell me he loved me. My mom was gone a lot. Like there's just there's a bunch of like stories, and then you can add in abuse in in many ways. And I think I I didn't know how to make sense of that. And so I just thought, well, when I do a good job, people tell me I'm I'm good. That you're good. And so of course I'm gonna drift to performance. Well, what do you do when you feel like you've done the good job and yet people are still turning on you? And I think I had to like make sense and learn to make sense of, oh, this this actually is what happened at Willow in 2018. This actually I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, but has the potential to be arguably one of the most impactful formational stories or revelations if I choose to let it happen.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

How did you get there and when? Because that pivot, that's a really big step, man. Yeah, like how did that happen and when did that happen?

SPEAKER_01 16:36

I I think I felt that people had thought I had done wrong. Yeah. And so there's there's part of my ego to be like, I'm gonna prove you wrong. I'm not one, I'm not like that. Um I had in a pretty like sick way, but every negative comment, whether it was a text, an email, a DM, a comment on social media, I had printed out. And I had like probably for two years, like I would just regularly go back and like that's not who I am. That's not who I am, that's not who I am. And and I think like deep down, um you know, when this is a a terrible kind of connection, but say with me, after 9-11, we hadn't caught the bad guy. Yeah, right. So there was this like cultural act and ache of injustice that he that the the bad guys are out there, which Hollywood fed and created CSI to meet that need. So every 30 minutes the bad guy got caught. Yeah. And so I think deep down, um, starting to realize like looking at this going, oh man, these people are emailing me or messaging me their angst because I'm actually accessible. And so partly what I had to start to do is just to translate that. Um when someone said, like, you know, you're a coward, why did you leave? You know, or they swore at me. I just, you know, I almost like rewrote underneath them and simply was like, I wish you wouldn't have left. Um this wasn't your problem. This wasn't about like I just I almost went through all of those to kind of go, um, how do I reframe this um in a way at which I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, but I'm also not just allowing that shame just to kind of stick to me. Part of me just wanted to believe um that if you do the right thing, it will be honored. Um and the moment of that was my son was probably, I think, fifth grade, and we had went to Starbucks to pick up coffee, and we were waiting in line. It was a crowded Starbucks, and uh a lady walked up to me and and she just put me on blast. And my son grabs my hand, and he's looking at her, looking at me, looking at her, looking at me, and this woman goes for like four or five minutes just yelling at me. And everyone at the Starbucks is just like watching this happen. And I um I just kind of say, Hey, thanks for trusting me with your your full candor, and I'm gonna just take our drinks and leave. And and I'm walking back to put my son in the car, and he said, Dad, you always taught me if you do the right thing, you'll be rewarded. So you either didn't do the right thing or that didn't feel like a reward. And um, and I just I just remember like saying, Hey, when mom was pregnant with mercy, she threw up multiple times a day for nine months. But on May 22nd, when she held mercy for the first time, she wasn't thinking about all that. And I don't know when we will experience our version of holding mercy. Um, but I'm just trusting, I'm choosing to believe we will. And that's all I have for you. And uh, and I just remember him saying, I hope you're right. Eight years later, I'm in a role I love, and with a team I love. Like it, I'm on the other side. I'm holding mercy, I don't take it for granted. But 2019, 2020, 2021, not knowing where it was all going every day was like an active step of faith and navigating through the dysregulation of what someone might post on Twitter, what someone might say, um, trying to hold all of that and show up well to therapy, show up well to my family, show up well to what I was trying to do in the world. Um but it was hard. It was an active everyday of faith. And there were a couple of weeks I didn't even get out of bed. Um, I just uh it was too much. And there were moments I was like the lowest I'd ever been. There were moments I just I you know um I could I could maybe take care of my soul, but living in that grief, I couldn't take care of my physical well being, you know, like I gained a bunch of weight and and there was shame on it. I just it was just like a I was hard for me to to do it all. And you I almost had to be like, okay, I can't, I can't. I can't keep up the way I used to. And so there's gonna be some slips, but the most important piece is my walk with Christ, my family, and not giving up hope.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

I know there are people who were up close to you in that in in that whole stretch. Um, but one of the things I got to watch was someone navigating a change of story that they did not architect. It's one thing to be like, well, I did this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or I chose this. Yep. It's way different when you're like, I didn't choose this. Especially when you think back to because I was thinking about when you were talking about the achievement story, and it got me thinking. Um, there are a lot of different stories that we tell ourselves to get through life. Um I don't know, and some of them would they're more achievement story, the approval story, the control story, the can the comfort story, whatever that is. Like, this is what life's supposed to be about. Yep. And the great challenge is when that story ends. However, it ends, you're like, wait a minute, what am I supposed to do with this? Uh, I ran across this uh research, Dr. Lee Warren. Have you read anything from him? Dude, unreal. Like, he's uh brain surgeon, was in the Iraq war, um, done a lot of cognitive uh behavioral research on the way the brain works, stuff that you're familiar with. But basically he said, you know, the the challenge with the way that we think, right? This and and we sort of think in a story reel, right? Yeah is that 90% of the thoughts you have today are the same ones you had yesterday. So, like it is on repeat. So you don't have as many fresh thoughts as you think. And of those thoughts, a majority of them are negative, right? And four out of five are untrue. Think about that for a minute. Yeah, a majority of them are negative, and most of them are untrue. Yep. Which means like oftentimes we're living in a story that, and here's the biggest challenge the voice that's telling us a story in our head sounds like our voice. Yeah, so we trust it. Yep. So when it says, You're dead, yep. Our pets' heads are falling off, right? We're not gonna make it right. So I wonder like, what have you learned about when a story gets undone, when a life gets flipped over? Um you know, again, touching the bottom of the pool for someone who's like in a spot where, like, dude, I've been living a story and I am right now beginning to understand this is not my story, this isn't true. Yeah, what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

So it's interesting. We in the the place we were staying in Arizona, we had a little casita, his little like kind of in-laws quarters, and I just kind of like set up a little space there, and I remember just taking a bunch of note cards and not knowing at all like this Lee Warren um insight. I just all of these thoughts that were in my head, um, you're not a leader. Um, things that I've been told, you can't lead yourself out of a paper bag or paper box. Um all of these beliefs that I held almost as if they were gospel um that weren't true. But I almost needed to write them down um about myself and my identity and my core, and just write down all of those negative thoughts or all of those like negative perceptions or all of those things I was actually choosing to believe that were true. I remember just having, I don't know, 120 note cards. And I just almost like taking a little kind of old, you know, black and white and putting it up in front of the light like photo. I just took each note card and just said, like, is this true? Wow, is this true of me? And you know, am I a piece of whatever this person has said? Am I um not a leader? And and and why am I or why am I not? And then and it really it really took me back to a talk I'd heard from Christine Cain and uh Christine Cain had just said, like, you know, there's all of these great questions in the first few chapters of the Bible, you know, where are you? Um, who told you that? Did God really say? And I just remember just like looking at these and being like, did God really say this? No. Oh, it's good. Did God really no? Did God really say, no? And almost like, and and and you know, started doing um a therapy, like a therapeutic practice called IFS, like, and you and I have connected about this internet and uh internal family systems. But one thing that they'll often talk about is updating your parts, and you almost have to update. And this was me updating this isn't true. I'm not saying just because I updated it once, it didn't come back, or those negative thoughts, or those lies, but I had to remember hey, hey, hey, hey, remember, we updated our parts, that wasn't true. That's not who you are. That's who someone said you are who doesn't really know you, or that was someone said that out of their own pain or their own self-preservation. That's not who you are. So let's focus on what we can control and who God says I am.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

That's what we do, that's what he's saying. I love it when we run across research that sort of just affirms everything that we read because um one of the things that I learned in the season that we walked through as a family. Um, and and you uh you man, you have been such a good friend because you walked through tons of it. I mean, it wasn't like I was done. It's funny, these these these uh the moment it might happen in a moment, but the long tail of the grief and the trauma and all of it, dude, it stretches into years and it affects other stuff. Yeah, so the work was for me, okay, Eric, in the same way. You were gonna have to. I didn't write them on cards, I think it's a brilliant idea, but I'm going to have to replace some some things. Like I'm gonna have some work to do. And I was writing down some of the stuff that I have, and I still do tell myself four simple things. One, I was loved before I did anything. Now, me and you are doers, dude. I'm a grinder, I love it. I love to work and I love it. I love it. It's like like that, you and I are cut from the same clothing. I've often said to people, I'm like, there's very few people who like outwork me. Steve Carter's one of them. That's about the only person I can think of. Um, but for me, the household I grew up in, um always felt like I wasn't very smart, you know, like I was, and I'm book smart, not particularly book smart. Um, I'm clever, but I'm not book smart. And what always got me to the to the top was, but I'll I got a motor. Yeah, I can go, right? Like I can like figure it out. And because of that, I attach so much worth to work. Yeah. Like, hey, people want you around because you work really hard. You're loved because you work really hard. People don't, I mean, and and it's funny because even as a man, sometimes you're like, Did I really think this? But I think deep down, I was like, I'm not sure that I saw myself as really much loved or valued beyond the work that I could create, the safety I could produce, um, what I could do for even my family. And I had, I have been on this journey of replacing that thought with you were loved before you did anything. That's good. Like for real, like before you did anything. That's good. Um, and I don't that's not like a one-time thought, like, right? If you have achievement in you at all, even as a seven, um, I know you're like a three, and like perform like producing is so key to threes. I gotta tell myself that often. It's like, hey, um, your work, what you do, people don't love you because of that. Even if you've experienced some of that, right? Like, it's not pretending that you and I haven't had some trauma where you could point to not being that you were love for the thing you did. For sure, for sure. 100%. So, so that's been like one truth, and and and that I've had to I continue to come back to. The second thing is this that um something did go wrong. It wasn't just my fault. Right. I I try to teach my kids, I literally had a phone call with my kid uh today. Um, you don't always get it right, but you can make it right. Yeah, it's good. Um, and you've watched, and man, I have so admired you, your willingness to try to get it right, um, to lean into hard conversations, to be willing to expose yourself to things you don't have to, because um look, that's not to say that if you were in a situation where you were abused or something went wrong, that you somehow have culpability, but it is to say that we all just sort of make mistakes. Totally. Oh we do, totally, and this is the truth.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

But if you if you play back and you go, and I I struggle with this, if I don't get that first point of yours right, oh how will I ever get the second point right? Like 100% of the time. I might get it 60% of the time of like just out of like performance and sheer willpower. But if I if I don't believe at the core of the core that I'm love before I do anything, it's gonna be it's it like it so you start to see how it it really builds almost like this flywheel, you know. And I think and I and I think Eric, I think one of the the the wildest pieces for me was watching how generous and compassionate you were for others in that season, but not yourself. Like, you know, I I I tell this to my wife all the time, like, you know, a part of what got us through was people like you. Like there were there were things that you were so good to our family, um in such like incredible ways, you know. Um, and it it was like that same level of compassion that you could so naturally show to another person. Um it was and beautiful watching how you've grown to be able to show that to yourself. And and I think it's it's hard, you know. I like I think I'll do we'll do anything for our kids, we'll do anything for our wife, we'll do anything for our the people we love. And yet sometimes we won't do that same energy towards the hurt places within us, you know, and watching you kind of walk through that um was a was a good hope for me personally.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

That's kind of you to say, and I think that is the truth, right? Like again, not not to be gender specific, but I can only speak to it from a man's perspective and what I was taught, and we are taught, I was taught some things about providing and work. Yeah, um, and I I ran across this uh article, it was very interesting about why is it that retired men sometimes are so quiet? It's fascinating. And they said some of the research behind what they're finding is they're not quiet because they're angry or upset, they're quiet because their entire identity was built on a like a performance myth, and now that that's gone, they don't feel like they have anything to say or add value to, right? Like it's like deep within us, yeah. And that has been like um, I dude, I'm right at my prime. It's not like I have it figured out, but you are right. Like, if I can't start with I'm loved, and then even, and I know it's like we start talking about self-love, and some people are like, oh come on, but I'm like, it is true for me anyway. It's way easier to extend a ton of grace to to other people and then ignore um ignore my own stuff, yeah. But then that leads me to the third thing I tell myself. Um, because and I don't know how it felt for you. After after my Chernobyl, our Chernobyl, um part of why you were such a good friend to me, and dude, I will remember it. I won't say the whole story because I just won't, but there was a time when we pulled over, and I don't remember um if it was soon after this, and um I'd shared some of the journey, and you got out, we were at a gas station, and um you were livid and and said some things in defense of me that I will never forget because it felt like in the moment that I was on an island all by myself. You know what I'm saying? Like, is anybody gonna save me? And even in your 40s, you it's funny because you're like, uh, well, you're a grown man, right? But you do feel like, yeah, is anybody gonna save me? And the story I have just kept telling myself is um rescues already happened. Eric, you don't need saving from this, you're gonna be okay. You've already been saved. Rescues already happened. I know you feel, and we felt so isolated, had so many friends disappear, felt so afraid, um, so scared. Um, and really feeling like, is anybody gonna throw us a life preserver? And the truth is, a lot of um what motivates me is I just I don't want anybody else to feel that. Like if I have life preservers, I'm gonna try to throw them out to my friends. I'm gonna say like, hey, no, I mean, I'll I'll do the best I can. You come here, I'll I'll hook you up, I'll take care of you. Um, but that's the narrative, the story I've had to tell myself. Okay, dude, you are loved before you've done anything. Um, yes, you you were part of this, but it wasn't just you, you're part of it. Like brokenness is the two-way street. You are both victim and perpetrator at this very same time. Yep. Um, rescue has already happened. And so, like those three components, it does flow out of love, but that rescue piece was huge for me because man, I don't know how it felt for you, but I really was like, what am I supposed to do now? Yeah, you know, yeah. Um, and then my last one, and I just kind of end on this, is um uh you still have a role, you still you're sent. You you still have something to do. Yep, it isn't over. One of the things that I think happens to people like me in particular, I said at the beginning that you get into one of these um stretches where you're afraid, where you don't feel loved, like all of the stories in front of you, and you really believe, like, well, maybe I'm done then. Like maybe there's nothing left for me to do. And I just kept coming back to that's just not a true narrative, right? That's a false thought. It's like your cards, it's like, okay, then what does the Bible say about all of these things? Yeah, about me being loved, about my role in the the brokenness, um, about uh rescue and about being sent. And I just keep I try to come back to that on a regular basis. Um, like, hey, that's that's the real story you're in. That's the real story.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

It's interesting, is like the the story of Joseph gave me such bizarro hope. You know, I mean, here's someone who had all the ambition in the world, you know, he's got a dream that his brothers are gonna kneel before him, has a special place in his father's eyes, has a beautiful coat, gets sold into uh slavery, and um and it's it's just like a wild story of what he keeps going through. Right. But he finds himself in prison, he helps like some guys get back, he tells them not to forget them once the dreams come true. Pharaoh has this dream, most of you know the story. Um and this this guy says, I remember this guy in prison who's able to interpret dreams. So Joseph interprets the dreams correctly. Um and then uh Pharaoh puts him in charge, but then he ends up marrying two, uh marrying a woman, has two kids. One of the kids is named is Manasseh, and the other one's name is Ephraim. You can like just skip over it really quickly. But like Manasseh meant something like you caused me to forget about my family. And Ephraim was like you redeemed what was taken. So, like, imagine like you naming your three kids, you cause me to forget about my deepest pain. And you like, yeah, and and there was this woman, Anna Golden, out of I want to say Dallas, um, or Houston, but she wrote a song called Thank You for Manasseh. And it was it was this whole piece of I thank Thank you for Manasseh. Um and I'm I'm letting it go. I'm giving it to you, God. And I just I always like to think about you know, if you fast forward, or if you like play the tape back and you go to 2014, you're in a huge season of growth in the church that you're at. I'm just speculating.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

But those four points aren't that clear. Some some other four narratives of your story are driving. And on the outside, crushing success, approval, amazing, getting invited into rooms, all of that stuff. And yet it is not fundamentally as theologically sound as those four statements that you had. And so it's it's amazing how you know you're the fool's errand is a phrase you always used to say, you know. But that that fool's errand, like on the outside, it can look like all the outcomes are screaming the right story, the right story, the right story. And at that time, yes, there's good fruit, good things that's coming. Yeah, but it's not sustainable, it's not long-lasting. And and I think it's just when you can look back and go, man, I'm I'm thankful for Manassa because it allowed me to get those four pillars foundations right, legit, yeah so that I never became the the fall. Yeah. So I it allowed me to figure out what I need to to hold on to to finish this race well, you know, and I think you've you've uh you've been a testament of like doing the work. We none of us have done it all right, like you said, your point two, but like rec recognizing like know better, do better, and in taking steps of health. And um and I look at that and I go, what a gift that is to you, what a gift it is to your family, what a gift it is to Palm Creek. Um and yet it's so hard to believe that in 2020. Yeah, it is so hard to believe that in the moment. And yet if you do it, you begin to realize like again, very simplistic way to look at spiritual formation, but some would say simple, uh, complex, sacred. You take a simple truth, you know, um, God works all things together for the good. Okay, that's a simple truth. Yeah, and then it hits the complexity of 2020. Yeah, or it hits the complexity of when just the the rugs pulled out from underneath you. And you have to go, does God work all things together for the good? Yeah, even in the midst of this, even when I didn't see it coming, even when it wasn't fully my fault, even when. And then once you get to that other side and you see, oh wow, it's like that that verse becomes weighty and sacred. You can say God works all things together for the good, even my Manasseh, even 2020, all of it. And it just I think you now carry that as like an Ebenezer stone or like an altar. Absolutely, you know, it's just with you saying, No, I I've seen God work when it didn't make sense and gives me hope that He'll continue to work even when it doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

Well, that's my hope, you know, in the same way that for real, you you know, you I borrowed some faith from you in that car ride in Colorado. And I borrowed from you. Yeah. And I hope people who tune in and are listening can borrow some faith because my guess is somebody's walking through a season of profound sadness or disappointment uh realizing that I'm in I'm in a I'm in a shift of story and it's not from chapter three to four it's a whole new book and so my hope is is that like you sharing your story uh thanks for sharing that someone can borrow a little bit of faith in a season when um the story they're in um is shifting to a new story yeah so and I and I'd also say to that person if you don't have those four pillars um go back and pull from Eric's um you were loved before you did anything you start there like we can if you can just get back to believing that truth you're 75% of the way that's true you know without that it's it's gonna be done with a lot of like blood sweat hustle work energy um trying to prove or earn something that you already have yeah so good so that's gonna do it for today if something landed for you in this conversation don't just let it sit take it with you carry it into your week talk about it with somebody let it do something in you and if you want to go deeper click on the link in the show notes we'll be back soon with more so until then keep following up