Trauma vs Hope: Making Sense Of The Situations That Don't

Hope sounds naive when your job is to walk into chaos. We open the door to conversations cops usually avoid and track how the slow drip of trauma reshapes faith, family, and the way you see people. From the early “I want to help people” mindset to the moment a bucket finally overflows, we expose the coping that numbs and the practices that actually heal.

You’ll hear the story of a veteran officer watching his wife bleed out after childbirth, warming transfusion bags with his hands and learning to breathe again through prayer. You’ll sit in the passenger seat for first fatalities, death notifications, suicides, and the bizarre pivot from a fatal scene to a kid’s birthday party. We ask the hard questions out loud: Is God distant, weak, or indifferent? Why create a world where people can choose evil? Why does relief come so late? And then we trace a bigger arc—from creation’s “very good,” through the fall’s fracture, to a suffering Savior who does not stand offstage but steps onto it.

The hinge is the empty tomb. Resurrection reframes Saturday—the long stretch between loss and restoration—and gives officers and first responders a new lens to carry into the next call. Under that lens, presence becomes kingdom work: sitting with a mother in silence, absorbing blame without returning it, texting a verse to a rookie at 2 a.m. We swap coping in the dark for bringing wounds into the light. We don’t minimize grief; we anchor it in a promise: Revelation 21’s “no more death, no more pain, all things new.”

If you wear a badge, carry a radio, run a rig, or love someone who does, this conversation offers a path from numbness to meaning. Subscribe, share it with a teammate who needs it, and leave a short review to help this reach the next officer who’s sitting alone in a cruiser asking, “How do I keep going?”

Transcript

Naming The Weight: Trauma Versus Hope

SPEAKER_01 0:08

So episode number deuce. Like picking a hard topic again. Um, I know my mind, you know, kind of in preparation for this, having the topic, like my mind went a hundred thousand, you know, maybe even a thousand different places, and like what has trauma looked like for me? And so trauma versus hope.

When Hope Feels Naive In Uniform

SPEAKER_01 0:42

And like hope, you know, as a police officer, military guy, a medic, like hope, things like hope and faith and these abstract, man, they're weird to grapple with because we have learned through the years to live in reality. And man, hope seems naive. Hope seems pessimistic. Like, no, we we we make decisions based on the facts at hand. And so over time, like this idea of hope becomes almost like something for other people, not for us. Um yeah, I was trying to think through, like, you know, as I did some preparation for this, like I tried to think through like deeply about like trauma, I guess. We'll just call it trauma, you know, whatever that might look like. Um and like how that ultimately affects our reality, right? And it doesn't, we start out as a cop, like it's not immediate, right? It's call by call by call, year after year. And as my wife uh once reminded me, probably been a cop for a few years, she might have been having a little marriage scuffle. She said, You are not the person I married. And like 10, we're going on 15 years married. That was a long time ago that she told me that. Um I sure didn't forget it. Like, I was like, Yeah, I'm not the person that you married. I kind of wanted to remind her she's not the person I married either. We all change. Um, yeah, just I was thinking through, like, what do these changes look like when it comes to trauma? So I just took some couple notes and just kind of go through a few things that came to mind. So, like, especially when we we're talking about trying to be a Christian in this career field. So, like, how does

How The Job Rewrites Your View Of God

SPEAKER_01 2:54

trauma, the things we see, like shape changes our view of God, right? Like, for me, my story grew up in the church, was blessed to grow up in a good family, like I did the normal, like high school years, wild and crazy stuff, and and felt like maybe like I was kind of like well-rounded, but like I never absent like one real family trauma like tragedy. Like I never had to grapple with evil. And so become a police officer had a super strong faith. Like it wasn't a false, it wasn't a false relationship with the Lord. Like it was knowledge-based and heart-based. But man, like a year, two, three, particularly three, four years down the road, I didn't know if the things I was taught were real. Like it just goes through, like, God felt distant. Like, surely he, even if he is out there and he's real and he exists, surely he doesn't like interact with the world like we see in the Bible. And we see that it's a lot of times that like intimate connection with the people of Scripture and God. And I was like, well, surely God must not interact with people the same. He's a distant God. It's like, oh, God must be weak. Like I see these things, like these tragedies that just like randomly happen. It was like, oh, he must not be strong enough, he must not be powerful enough to have stepped in to prevented that whore, you know, that that that person that just left for work and then were showing up at their door telling their family they're never coming home again. Um or or he's either, or he doesn't care. Like he's either weak and he doesn't have the power, or he doesn't care. It's like prayer. I mean, we we pray. It's like you see these tragedy situations happen. It's like I'd be naive to think at some point there that family didn't pray for that person, and then they're they're just they're they're gone, or they died this horrible death, or they caught a random bullet, or like prayer seems starts to seem useless. All right, like you'll have situations in your personal life or your professional life, and you pray, and yet the end that felt inevitable, which is the opposite of what you're praying for, just happens. You're like prayers, probably useless. And then you get into this whole idea of hope, and it's like hope is a denial of reality, right? Like, that's for the naive. And then, you know, just going on beyond like some again, more notes that I took of like how this stuff changes us. Um, so like that's one area, like our relationship with God or our view of God. But then there's like these internal things, like the stuff our our wives would remind us of. Um, you know, we start to think everybody's bad, right? Because 40 hours a week we get to deal with the one to three percent of people or the normal person on the worst day of their life. And it's so easy to start kind of just looking at the world with this bleak vision, like this, these tinted lens. We start to realize like nothing is fair, like that's a childish elementary kindergarten understanding of the world, right? Like I get guilty sometimes. My kids are always talking about well, that that's not fair, dad. I'm like, well, the world's not fair, that's not life. Distrust of people. Like, I don't trust anyone, right? That's how cops are like that's just it's not it's just what happens, right? Our social circles shrink. There's a there's a small circle of people that I truly trust because you're let's say you have social acquaintances, and then one day you're at their doorstep on some crazy call, and you're like, oh, everybody's got skeletons in their closet, everybody lies. Like, I don't trust anyone. Emotional withdrawal, like obviously, you know, our emotions, our physical bodies change. Like, we don't react normally any longer to crazy things. I think of like the stuff that we see that sometimes we take our gloves off and go eat lunch. Like the normal person, if they saw they'd be in the fetal position, like crying. And it's but it's every day, like it's just normal, completely normal for us. Like it's just wild. Um, yeah. I mean, we we become jaded to the world, we become glass half-empty type people. And and there's a reality, we also stop caring, we stop trying to fix things because that's how the world's gonna be, and we ain't gonna do anything about it when we finally figure that out eventually. Um, we stop caring, you know, for a lot of guys at some point in their journey. They stop caring for themselves, right? Stop exercising, start drinking. Maybe they let their marriage suffer, their relationship with their kids suffer, like and we just start going down this road. Um, trauma, you know, it's not an issue, it's not an area like generally speaking, cops want to talk about and deal with, and sometimes we don't even know or realize like how trauma affects us. But there's a reality, like it does, it does, and it changes us, and it looks different for every officer at different points in their career. Um, so we're gonna dive into this. How in the world do we find hope in the midst of trauma? And you know, as we do other episodes in the future, and we have done one already, like we're gonna hit these topics where like a lot of times there's not a one plus one equals two solution. Like last, you know, episode one is justice and mercy. Like it's this sliding scale continuum. But in this area of trauma, like I myself, 15-year police officer, man, I've searched high and low, and like

Is God Distant, Weak, Or Uncaring

SPEAKER_01 9:51

I have only found one solution to the crazy, crazy stuff that we experience. Um, it is the full picture of scripture. A lot of it is in the very first book, and a lot of it is in the very last book. And it is what we'd call the true like redemption story, the macrocosm of scripture. And so, you know, verses eventually, you know, all three of us are gonna kind of share some of our dealings with trauma, but like I want to jump in, we can't go wrong with jumping into the scriptures up front. Um, so let's go right to creation. Like, what tell us about creation, Evan.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and it was good, and it was good, and it was good, and it was good. There's this repeat in the creation narrative, and it ends with it was very good. And I think that's the thing that hits me most about trauma and witnessing evil, is when I look around, it's not that things are a hundred percent wrong, and it's not that things are a hundred percent right, it's that they're almost right, and that there's this disconnect that's why are they almost so good, but they're not this trauma, this there's something broken, and so the creation story continues and say that God wanted to give us the greatest of all gifts, wanted to make us like himself free to choose. And in doing so, he opened the door to trauma because if if I can truly choose God, I can love God. But if I can choose truly choose God, I can hate God, I can turn my back on him. And so in this beginning, it was good, it was good, it was good, and the Lord said, There's this one thing you can't do. Don't eat of this tree. And of course, what do we do? I I have that as soon as I'm ever given a rule, don't walk on the grass. That's the first thing I want to do is walk on the grass, dang it. Um we eat of the tree, and God has said, You will surely die. And I feel like in that moment, all the trauma, what happened to your family. I know the backstory of that accident and everything. Like he knew at that moment of disobedience your family would endure that thousands of years later. Like, he knew how your family would be torn apart by disease, Derek. Like he says, don't do this, and yet we do. Now what? Now what? I would have wiped everybody out. Just finish the story. Start over. What would you do, Derek?

SPEAKER_02 13:21

I'm glad I'm not in that spot to make that decision. It'd be hard to move forward knowing all that.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

It says in the scriptures that Christ is a lamb slain before the foundations of the earth. That before God ever chose to create, before Genesis 1 ever happened, he chose the solution to Genesis 3. He chose the cross. And that's what blows me away. Because if I knew my creation would betray me, I would never create them, or I would create them in a way that they couldn't. But to know they would betray me and to choose to still create, it starts to open up our understanding of maybe God's a little bit bigger than what we try to box him in with because he must be distant, right? He must he must be impotent, he must he must not be able to fix this or else he would. Or he just doesn't care. I think that's the worst one. How could a good God with all power not do something to solve this drama? He must not care. I want nothing to do with a God like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Yeah, I mean, it's hard to like what you described. Out of God's love that He gave us free will and choice, I remember running, I was uh like it was so significant to me. I was running, I like I remember exactly what I was doing. I was running surveillance on this motel one night. We're sitting all night, and um, I don't really, I don't really read a lot of books, hard copy, but listen to them with audiobook. I was listening to uh C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, and he just describes this like in so much so like understandably and relatably, and so I won't even try to quote him at all, I won't do it justice, but that like if we have that like out of God's love, he gave us free will because it was more loving to give us choice than to make us robots. Um just like stood out. It's like, okay, because that's that's a question. It's like, well, why didn't like we're God created and it was good? Like, why did he even give us this possibility of car crashes and murders and cancer and diseases and like all of these things, and like so you've you've we we we see the creation and it's good. God gave us free will and our choice broke broke everything. And I think it's important. I mean, it took me years to understand like what do what do we mean it's like broken? Like the system is broken. So like even from a kid, so I I have a genetic lung disease, probably kill me someday. Like I I'm happy to be alive now. Like I I was told at the age of eight that I would maybe live into my 20s, be lucky to live in my 30s. And so at an early age, like I started to wrestle with this issue of like, how could a good guy like it's a genetic disease? So I can't even say that like choice, human choice, will this into action, right? It's not the guy that murders the person, the innocent people, right? It's no Genesis three, when the fall happens, the whole system breaks at a genetic level, at a cancer, disease, tragedy, trauma, murder, rape, molestation, broken marriages, broken relations, like everything breaks in that moment. Like, I mean, to the extent like we would not have jobs if Genesis 3 did not happen. Um, and so I I it's not that God failed, it's that the system broke. But then as we start to like walk into this redemptive story, like we start to understand that, but there's a plan to fix it. Like there's that there is something, there's an understanding when we look at the macrocosm of scripture that like we can invest every bit of our hope into. So God creates good, sin messes it up, and it breaks it completely and entirely. And then kind of our first stop's like Jesus. It's like what what does that look like? Like, what did Jesus do to start to fix this picture?

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Everywhere we look, we see brokenness, we see trauma as a civilian. Um I like to pretend it's not there where um I don't encounter it as frequently as you guys in the enforcement community do. And um,

Creation, The Fall, And The Source Of Evil

SPEAKER_03 18:39

but talk to anybody who's lived, and everyone has trauma in their stories, and so all of us as we try to form a worldview have to grapple with why, what's the reason for trauma? And so some of us grapple with it in our minds and say, well, God must not exist. I mean, if the universe was just cruel, pitiless, indifferent, then this is exactly what we'd expect to see. And they try to solve it in their brain, but they don't solve it in their heart because that doesn't satisfy me when I think of my childhood friend who died of cancer. Yeah, survival of the fittest. Like, no, that's not right. That's not the answer. So others would try to solve this problem in their heart. Um, some Eastern worldviews, Buddhism would say, well, the problem with suffering is that it's all rooted in desire, so we should just eliminate desires. And then there'll be no more suffering or trauma. Because my heart longs for things, my heart loves, so just remove that. But that doesn't solve this worldview problem either, because desires are good. My love for my wife is good, and you're telling me not to love her. How does that solve this problem? And so the only answer that's ever satisfied me, the only answer that's ever satisfied trauma and its existence is the person of Jesus. And that's the whole narrative. We're only one page into scripture when trauma enters the scene. It's the whole narrative to the last page of the Bible is dealing with this problem. How does a good God make things right? What is he gonna do? And so over thousands of years, he reveals his plan and he starts drawing us in until ultimately we see God in human form walking amongst us. He enters a no no place, town kind of like we live in, who knows about it? A small town. Wait, God would choose a place like that. He comes in a manger, comes humbly, he's born amongst animals, that he could be the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. This tension is only satisfied in a suffering savior. That God did not stand distant to trauma, but chose to enter trauma and redeem. The blood that you see is only answered by a bleeding savior. And so here is this man, the most wicked of traumas. Think about it. Stripped naked before everybody. Whipped until he's nearly dead from the whipping. Mocked, spit on, his beard pulled out. Crown placed on his head. A crown of thorns. Oh, but it gets worse, right? He's betrayed by his friends. Oh, it's worse yet. His friends abandon him. He's innocent. And he's wrongly accused. Worse yet, everybody knows he's innocent. Worse yet, they choose to free a known murderer rather than free him when they have the chance to. Worse yet. His torture, his death, his drug on and on and on. Suffocating. If that really is God hanging on a cross, what is he doing there? He's answering this question. He's answering this question that's plagued every human who has ever lived. If the crucifixion was the end, we would still be in trouble.

SPEAKER_04 23:22

And it seemed like the end, didn't it?

SPEAKER_03 23:25

I mean, the worst day of that whole process had to be Saturday. No hope.

Free Will And A Broken World

SPEAKER_03 23:37

Fearing for their lives. I feel like that's where we live today is the Saturday. When you're living in trauma and all you see is a Saturday, you don't see the Sunday. Because the only answer to trauma is the empty tomb. It's the resurrection. Scripture would say that in the resurrection Jesus was vindicated. That he was making everything right, that he was who he said he was. And if the tomb is empty, that changes everything. And so how do you answer this problem of trauma? I challenge you. Find any answer that satisfies you besides the empty tomb of Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah, I think what you're saying, like, it reminds me of like you know, those first few years in law enforcement, like I had like I did have head and heart knowledge of Jesus. But my focus was on the resurrection was on the crucifixion. And like it was it only translated to like, okay, when whenever this life ends, like I have salvation. But I I did I did not understand the bigger picture. Like it's almost like uh you could almost say like the cross is the Christian symbol, but it would be better understood that it's an empty tomb. And like, I I mean for years, like probably the first seven, eight years of my police career, like I had the reality of the crucifixion. I I did not understand the resurrected savior and the implications, let alone the return of Christ someday. And so, like, what you speak about, like this empty tomb. Like, we live in Saturday, we live from when this in this moment, from when he was crucified, but he's still dead in the tomb. Like, dive into the resurrection of Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 26:09

So, yeah, I think that's one of the biggest transitions for me and my faith too, was the crucifixion. I got my head around initially, and then it was the resurrection that took me years to get my head around. And we have this problem in the American church that we paint Jesus as a cosmic Uber that just gets us to heaven, a someday place somewhere where everything's good there, and not realize that his kingdom has come, his will is done on earth as it is in heaven, that the resurrection power is available to me today, not someday now. That the same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in me. And so when I encounter trauma, I bring resurrection into darkness, I bring hope there. And suddenly what you guys do as cops has a greater purpose, an expansion and an eternal story that you can bring resurrection into dark places, into dead things. Resurrection only comes where there's death, there's no hope. Here's a question for you. Is Christ, is God, more glorified through the existence of trauma or through the absence of trauma?

The Cross Chosen Before Creation

SPEAKER_02 27:46

So the answer would be through trauma. Obviously.

SPEAKER_03 27:50

Obviously, why obviously?

SPEAKER_02 27:51

But explain that right, like you know, you can't shine, right, unless there's a reason to shine, right? But so go so go into that. I mean, if he's if you don't need him, you're not thinking about him.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Right, but like in your darkest days, right, and you you search for Christ, you search for God, like you always you always seem to find it when you're at the bottom of life. Right? So it'd be the same thing, right? With with trauma, you're Christ, that light is gonna shine brighter because your focus is gonna be more on him because you have nowhere to turn.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

What do you think, Matt? I mean, uh it just it immediately reminds me of you know, one of the greatest, most significant like trauma events of my life. Um I think to preface it, I still wrestle with God, is a good God, right? This and maybe this is like a little a little bit kindergarten for me and my belief. Still working through this and studying the scriptures, and I want to say that God is a good God, that he never causes evil. You you said something, heaven in a class, I heard you say something one day, and man, ever since I've wrestled with it, is that God God does not desire our happiness, he desires our holiness. I wish I'd have heard that and started wrestling with it 10 years ago. So I'm still actively wrestling like when bad things happen. Like I have to just have to there, there are some situations I just have to believe that that's not God's will, but that he can use it. But then it it reminds me of this thing in my own life and the implications and the effect it had. And so just kind of briefly share, I think the broader story is a story for another day. But um, so the long story short, my wife had our second kid, and um the the kind of the throughput of it was her uterine artery got damaged. Um, your uterine artery, you know, through pregnancy is massively engorged because it's feeding blood to this baby. And all was well. We go home from the hospital after it's just you know three days or something. Um and she's in the shower one day. I'm drinking coffee. We had the first like pediatric appointment for our newborn that morning. I'm drinking coffee. She says, Hey, come here. Pretty calm. I looked in the shower, I said, hmm, yeah, that's a lot of blood. I said, why don't we uh we'll switch appointments? And I said, we'll go to your doctor instead of our kid's doctor. I said, I'm gonna go, you know, I was calm. I I'm I I I'm the guy at scene a lot. My theory at work is I that maybe it's not always true, but I my aim is I am the calmest guy on scene. Super calm. Um, I said, all right, I'm gonna go get the kids up and get ready, and uh I wake up one child. She says, Hey, hey Matt, come here now. And I walk in, and it is a full arterial bleed. Um, there's blood everywhere. I recognize immediately through what I've seen in the past. So, like this is we've got minutes, not not more than minutes. Um she goes unconscious, um, not because she passed out, like she went into shock. She she was losing blood fast, her body couldn't have enough oxygen. She goes unconscious right there. Our front door was not too far from the bathroom. I mean, I go from drinking my coffee and I'm dragging, and I'm dragging my half-naked wife down a sidewalk, and she starts labored breathing. We watch people overdose all the time, we watch people die in car crashes all the time. And she starts having agnal breathing. And you know, I can't remember exactly how old I was, but we're young. And in the minute, in the midst of five minutes, I start watching my wife die. And I later, unconscious, I remember the grass tips were frosted over, it was cold outside. I physically, it was the only time I've ever experienced this of all the crazy stuff I've been through at work, and like physically I couldn't get her in the car. I remember laying her on the grass, her clothes hanging off. She's barely breathing, and I lay her down, and I pick up my phone to start an ambulance coming our way. Um, you know, the way it works, your body you go into shock, your blood pressure, you start losing blood rapidly. You know, just physiologically, your blood pressure spikes, your body's trying to find homeostasis. So, boom, she, you know, you see this when people get shot and stuff, they they're they're down for a little bit and they pop back up. Um she pops up. I'm not even looking at her. I hear her say, What happened? I said, Hey, get help, we got to get in the car. Throw in the car. And this situation repaints itself five times over the course of five weeks. The last time, you know, and I don't know why we've asked, and she's asked, and I've asked, I don't know why God, in the end, saved my life, my wife's life. Because I see so many people that don't get that opportunity, but that's also another wrestling with for another day. The last time we happened to be divinely in this right place at the right time, we showed up to a doctor's appointment on the wrong day, and up well now we're three blocks from uh from an emergency room. The last time she starts bleeding, I swipe her up, throw her in my in a truck, she goes unconscious, and I'm blowing, you know, I know how to drive and in emergency mode. I'm blowing every stop sign, clearing my intersections. I fortunately had a number. I called the desk of the people that were about to see her. I called their behind-the-scenes number. I said, hey, we're coming in, we're gonna be there in two minutes.

The Suffering Savior And The Empty Tomb

SPEAKER_01 34:42

I carry her like lifeless body up. I throw her on a bed. Um, Derek went through a situation here recently. He showed me a picture of a lot of blood. I said, Yeah, that would be the most blood I'd ever seen, except for my wife. I've been on homicide scenes, I've been on too many suicides to count. The most blood I've ever seen was from my wife. And I threw her on this hospital bed, you know, normal white sheet on the bed. There was so much blood that it was it pooled on the blood on the bed and it was dripping off the sides. I mean, I was literally saturated and soaked with blood. And she was unconscious for quite a while. At some point, she regains consciousness for a short time. We were uh like at this point, I we're we're we're they they the nurses in this situation knew that I stayed calm. So, in in not a single one of these situations did they ever tell me to leave the room because I think I helped keep them calm and I had pertinent medical information to dispense to them. Um at one point, this is just it sounds so wild to even say, at one point I had a bath towel in my hand. I was wiping the floor with another nurse to get the blood off the floor so the doctors could continue to work on her, not slipping her blood. The blood finally, the blood for blood transfusions, red-packed blood cells finally shows up. I myself had one bag in hand. Other nurses had bags in hand. We're literally, because they just came out of the cooler or the freezer, whatever, we're literally taking this blood in our hands and we're we're we're we're we're warming these bags up so they can flow faster. I have no, I don't even remember how many bags of blood she got. She was lifeline to another to another hospital, and ultimately she lived. But your question You know, it took me time, right? Time trauma takes time to process. There are certain wounds that don't heal. Even Jesus had wounds on his hands after the resurrection, the scars. A couple years maybe later, I remember sitting on my front porch with her dad. And I said, and I mean I was in tears. I said, you know what, God, what I just finally saw was that, and this kind of gets into our last section of the return of Christ. I said, you know what, through all of that, I learned to put my hope in the resurrected Jesus. I learned to put, no matter what I'm looking at, no matter what I'm smelling, no matter what I'm hearing, no matter what I'm seeing, is that I can have this immense hope that surpasses any worldly understanding when I change my perspective, when I put my hope in the fact that someday Jesus is coming back and he's going to make these things right again. That that that this is a broken world that we live in, that we get to see it firsthand every day, every week, every month. But this deeper understanding that God taught me through that, because what was the worst thing that was gonna happen? She was gonna die. I was gonna have to raise kids myself. And I remember, I mean, this was wrestlings and wrestlings, and I remember like being in my patrol car one night, and man, it was a wild time there for a while. Thankfully, I was on third shift. I could kind of separate myself. And I said, What's the worst thing I can have? She's gonna die. I said, in this deep reality that like I've been a believer, I've understood the crucifixion for 20 plus years at this point. But then I had this realization that, and it has never left, and it is only deepened and only widened as I go on these scenes day by day after day. Okay, she dies, but I get to see her again. I get to be with the Lord, I get to be in this place. We'll get to Revelation 21. That I I that the tears are wiped away, that there will be no more death. And it was this like unbearable weight lifted off my shoulders that yeah, I was living in Saturday, my whole Christian walk, but I didn't understand the resurrection of Jesus and the implications of that. And I did not understand the hope that we can have in heaven. And so I told my father-in-law, I said, man, as horrible as that journey was to walk through, I wouldn't take it back. And I'm not saying that there's no that every that that applies to everyone's situation every time, because I know it doesn't, right? If you lose children, no, no one's ever gonna, you're never gonna want, well, I gained this lesson and so it was worth it. No. But in that midst of trauma and seeing my wife, if I in hindsight had the choice walk through that and gain what you gained, or never walk through it, I would have chosen to walk through it.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

Yeah, man, I I was I witnessed all that. Um I joke that I've never prayed for a woman's uterus more than your own wife. Man, that's awkward because I'm married myself. So um but man, it's just as you're sharing that, so many thoughts. I think of um I think of Paul in prison writing the book of Philippians. He says, you know, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And I'm hard pressed. I don't know which to choose because if I remain on in the flesh, it's

Living In Saturday Versus The Power Of Sunday

SPEAKER_03 41:07

more fruit. I get to serve Christ more, but if I depart, I get to be with him. It's like this is a win-win, however way we shake it out. Um He would write in the book of Romans, um, in uh chapter eight, verse eighteen, it says, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. It says, But if the spirit of him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Think of 1 Thessalonians 4. Uh Paul was just briefly at the church in Thessalonica, and then he got booted out like in two or three weeks. Um, like these believers come to know the Lord, and that's it. He's he's like kicked out because they're gonna kill him. And um, he's writing back to the church in Thessalonians, and he says, I don't want you to be ignorant. Um we didn't have time to cover this. You know, like they're worried about their loved ones who had passed away, who didn't have the good ending to the story. And he's like, I don't want you to be ignorant. We don't mourn as those who have no hope. And immediately following that, he goes into the resurrection. That the reason we don't mourn, the reason we encounter tragedy differently, is because of resurrection. Like, what can be done to us? That revelation you had is the revelation believers have had year after year throughout all the stories. The martyrs who would say, I would rather die than deny Christ.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

I think with that as I compare it to like that story, you know, that we went through. And my wife lived. Some don't.

unknown 42:58

No.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

I think there's that separation of like what you're talking about, where there's this we don't mourn like the rest, but we have hope. But there's a reality, like we're humans, and so we have grief, right? And I I remember, you know, and I've went through family tragedies of uh where they did they didn't live. And we have grief, and that's okay. We're going to have worldly grief, we're gonna have this emotional response. We miss this person, right? As you mentioned, your friend in high school is one of my best friends as well. I miss her, man. I still think about her. Deeply, deeply miss her. One of the very few deaths, like it it's so hard to even talk about. It's so hard to even comprehend that this beautiful person tragically suffered and died from a disease. And so I we have grief still. We're not. We're not saying you will not grieve, but we're saying that this that there in the midst of grief, in the midst of mourning, that there is hope. I I know I get to see her again. There is this incredible hope. It defies all odds. It it is beyond understanding this hope. I get to see her again. And it's not this fairy tale, like, right? Because there's some people that are gonna go to hell, right? And I know it's hard for us to comprehend, it's hard for us to comprehend anything about God, right? Good. Because if we could understand him, he he wouldn't be worthy big enough to be worthy of our worship. And so, yeah, we have what does heaven look like? I I all of these things, like, those are questions I have, right? I've not taken the time to really study. And even if you do study, right, there's three different opinions of what this looks like or that looks like, or it's okay. But that in the midst of trauma and tragedy and death, there is this hope that we can have, man. That like someday these things will be made right. And so, yeah, I may still have earthly grief. I'm going to. But that my perspective, long-term perspective, is so different. My outlook is hope.

SPEAKER_04 45:33

What about you, Derek?

SPEAKER_02 45:38

It's been a lifelong journey. Right. Um I think over time, just pre-law enforcement, everyone has their own story. Uh I kind of touched on before, you know, my mom's journey and her battle with cancer, and she ultimately died from cancer, and I was like a baby Christian.

Bringing Resurrection Into Dark Calls

SPEAKER_02 46:01

Like, I know Christ is real. I went to church a few times, I think I believe in him, right? So I had a lot of those questions that you guys talked about in the beginning. Um, why? Like why all this pain, why the suffering, years, years of chemotherapy and countless surgeries, and I can't even tell you how many nights, you know, sleeping in a chair in a hospital or having to go home from school and do school and work and go home to to help out because you know she's sick, or even in the end, not being able to hug my mom because she's too in too much pain. I think one of the things that kept me sane in that time was not my own faith, right? My faith and her faith. My mom was a really strong Christian. Um didn't go to church, she couldn't, right? She was sick, but she would watch every Sunday when it was on uh on live, she would watch, she'd pray, she read her Bible, I don't know how many times. And I remember asking her right before she died, or close to her death, like, are you afraid of where you're going? And she's like, No. Right? Like it wasn't even a question. So my faith and her faith really helped me get through that because I knew where she was going. And then it's just gotten progressively easier for me as my own faith has grown to like realize that that's real. Right. Um and then obviously transitioning over into my current job, which I had no idea would be this way, starting out. That's not what I expected it to be. I think it's the trauma in law enforcement, it's it's hard to grasp because every person has different experiences. I can share my traumas and what I went through, and it'll be completely different than somebody else, but every single officer has trauma. I think that it's oftentimes overlooked in law enforcement from the public. People just don't have any idea what it is that we go through. I don't mean to take anything away at all from military of the utmost respect and so much gratitude for those people that served in that capacity, but I think it's you, Matt, that maybe told me this one time. It's like a person who serves in the military, they have this fire hydrant of trauma that occurs all at once. Right? You're a young man, you you you serve in a combat capacity, there's just all this trauma that is poured out on you. And like, how do you comprehend that and grasp that in that moment? And then you have law enforcement, right? Like our trauma overflows also, but it's just this constant dripping of trauma for years. And if you put a 20-year career in, every day you deal with trauma eventually, right? If you don't have a a way out right through Christ is the way out for me, it was, um, it's gonna spill over. And if it spills over, hold on, because it could end really badly.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

So, like as we start to get into this topic of law enforcement trauma, right? There's you could see there's differences in generations, there's differences in just personalities, there's differences, and you know, you take ten officers, they're all gonna deal with it a little bit differently, right? But like from guys that don't bat an eye to walk into a situation that we think is a gunfight, I think we are um we would be completely lying if we said, well, yeah, it doesn't affect me. And so, and I think I've always lived off this principle that if I walk through something, whatever it is, I'm gonna talk about it, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell other people about it because there's just a reality that like they either are, they either did, are, or are going to experience a similar situation. And so, like, it's just always been my approach versus you know, some people keep these things in, right? Um, and so like I think it's important, difficult, however difficult it may be, um like dive into some of our experiences with law enforcement trauma and and and yeah, and then kind of parallel that with you know our understanding of Christ and the lessons that we're learning and put so everybody becomes a cop. I don't have to ask you, this is for every cop. You want to help people. I'm gonna help people. I don't know what the image you have in your mind is when you start, uh, but it's obviously very different when you're staring over this mangled up body and whatever.

A Near-Death Birth Trauma And Hard-Won Hope

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Well, I think young officers just kind of talk about that, like maybe our early careers and maybe how that could correlate then to some younger officers. Like, what did trauma look like early on for you? Or what I don't know how to you could take this a hundred different directions, right? What did it what was your some of your initial experiences and how did that affect you? Go for there.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

It's not normal when you start, right? Like you see your first dead person or just this gruesome scene, and it's like, this is not normal. Like, what did I walk into? And you look around at all these guys who've been cops for a long time, and they're just laughing or talking about something else about the game, and you're like, this person's laying here, aren't we supposed to be staring at this? Right? And and it's just not right, you know, and so then you try to mimic those people who you're around, and I think that like you think that's the norm, and then you just you follow suit for a long time, but it's it's not normal, it's not what we're supposed to experience.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

Easy to forget that the things that we see are not normal, yeah, because they are normal for us, yes, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

So for me, I mean I I know 100% the first traumatic thing that I saw, and this was straight at the beginning of my FTO, a field training, uh, probationary officer comes out as a car crash. I'm like, cool, car crash, there's injuries, like it's gonna be something for me to experience. I get to help somebody, right? Just what I signed up for. Uh I get there and it's a car versus a dump truck. Head on collision. Bodies are hanging out of the car. Uh, clearly, people are deceased, right? Not what I expected. Uh even now, you know, eight years later, I can still see clear as day the image of those people hanging out of that car. Um a little more to the story, we find out one of the people in the car was a murderer and was wanted, and we were trying to search for that person, and he was grasping onto an AR-15 just waiting to get pulled over or for us to stop him, and he was gonna most likely jump out and kill somebody, a cop. Um so then you have this trauma of something terrible that took place right that you can't unsee. But also you're like, is there a little justice in this? This person just murdered someone clearly was ready to kill one of us. Like, here you want to talk about an emotion emotional roller coaster, right? Like, how am I supposed to feel in this? I don't know. So I think you get enough of those in your career, especially in the beginning. You're like, I'm just gonna go numb. I'm not gonna feel anything. And that's really what the public wants from us, anyways, which is kind of hard to grasp as an officer in the beginning, but they want someone to show up who's cold, who uh has no emotion, who's not you know overly excited or sad. They just need a rock, they need that statue, that uniform. They don't want a person, they just want a uniform to show up and take care of the situation, right? So you go numb, which leads to a whole whole slew of other issues after your career goes on and you deal with it like that more and more. But that was my very first.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

I mean, I was so that was a call I ended up showing up on us. I was there on scene a few minutes after you, and yeah, like even for me, I don't know how long I'd been a cop, but I mean I mean that was nothing new to see a fatal crash. And yeah, that's crazy that that because yeah, what a weird tension that that created that particular scenario. So I mean, that's wild that that was your first real thing like that.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

Yeah, it's you know, and then from there, I don't know how far or how deep you want me to go into this moving forward in the career, right? But like that stuff is normal. It it's an everyday thing. Uh, maybe not a car crash with a fatality, right? But maybe somebody died in a different county, and now you gotta go tell somebody's mom, hey, your son's dead. Right? You have to be that that uniform, that statue again. Um, even though it it's emotional for you, or you know, you have a dead infant, or I I can't even tell you. I probably couldn't even count the amount of people I've seen who've taken their own life with a firearm. It's not a good scene to go on. Right? Um couldn't even tell you I have no idea a number. Um so all of those things, I mean, they build up over time, and you just become so used to it.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

I mean, I so this becoming used to it. It's like I it does seem like though, that like God's right, I mean, God designed the human body. It seems like though that there's some mechanism, because I yeah, just like you, I remember the very first trauma. Like I remember the first fatal car crash, guy got ejected, the car rolled over his noggin. Looked different. And but then fast forward, like that, like it's just so interesting, right? That crash that you just spoke of, I had a completely different emotion. I was calling on duty when that came out. I was pissed. I actually was getting dressed, started yelling and cussing in my bathroom. My wife's like, what's wrong? I was like, more freaking dead people. I had had like all these dead people that week. I'd been on scene to the murder. Um, and I knew like based, I think they said multiple unresponsive, and it was like, I was just, I was like, son, but I was pissed. And didn't, you know, didn't have that. Like, I could, yeah, I could still picture, you know, just like any scene. Like, I like I could still I can still picture that scene in my head, but like little to no effect. And so like it's an interesting. I think for the young guys, right? Like, I think we have a heart for new officers. I was an FTO for a while, you're an FTO now. Um I think there's this just this thing that like we just gotta point out is like a lot of these things will get easier, and I don't know if that's I don't know if that's right or wrong, but yeah, I mean, there's a certain person maybe that shouldn't do this profession. Like if you're having massive emotional responses very early on, like that okay, that's all right. Like maybe you go do something else, like and don't don't worry about it, like like maybe, but even for like the like uh uh the guys that develop into tactical monsters and cold blooded as could be, they still had those experiences early on that like yeah, have a great effect on you.

SPEAKER_02 57:55

Um here's what I'll say it's definitely a defense mechanism, sure, right? And like it looks weird from the outside in because you do see us laughing or joking around. It's just a way to cope, right? If we really, really dig into it, but that dripping of that fountain that I talked of earlier, you don't notice it because of that defense mechanism, right? It's still filling up eventually, like I said, it'll overflow.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

And I think it's interesting that everybody probably experiences it differently, but like I can remember like if you had a an empty container and you're dripping water in there, like I I remember those first few years, like seeing things that actually would probably bother me today that didn't. And I don't know if I I think the difference is I have children now, and so I maybe didn't like there's certain stuff you remember that like you would completely forget about in a week today. And then on the flip side, there's also some interesting situations where like I didn't fully understand the gravity of the situation, especially when it dealt with younger people early on, whereas now like those have a deep effect on me. But anyways, like I've got this empty container, it's dripping, it's dripping, it's dripping. This was my experience, and then like now, drip, drip, it's full, and I wasn't ready for the next drop. And like I think about um, and this was like, I don't know, I don't even remember exactly when this was. Maybe I'd been a cop for like five years. Again, like I'm tell a story about crying and losing losing my emotional shit. Like, because yeah, it happens, so probably happens to other people, they just don't talk about it. Um I don't know how much this had to do with it. I was I was uh gonna there was a gnarly officer involved shooting uh the night before. Um CQV, there's tons and tons of bullets going both ways. I was not in the house, I was on outside as a canine handler at the time, running perimeter. Um ended up having a runner that was I was trying to focus my attention on him. Um cleared that scene. My bad guy, bad guy had what was coming to him happen, and the officers made it out alright, thank God. I remember I probably got to bed that late that night just by the fact of how long we were on scene and doing that stuff, but like it didn't if you

Grief With Hope: Scriptures That Anchor

SPEAKER_01 1:00:30

just said, Hey, did you doing okay? I'd be like, Yeah. Like I shot a crap ton of rounds at the police, and they're okay. I'm fine. Another day. If again, if I have my recollection right, so probably stay up late. I worked an early shift that next morning. I try to be somewhat vague, but but also when I get into this matter, like it's a car crash. Um is like when you couldn't like it was new to me that like you'd have things like Life 360 or these like app, like I find my iPhone and like you could track your kids. And the short of it was is this younger person um was supposed to be at this destination. I assume probably had a really good relationship with their parents, and uh she didn't show up, and so they start tracking her. I I wish they would have just called so they didn't have to see what was coming. Um, but uh a parent ended up finding their child in a horrible car crash, and so I show up again, I'm fine. Um this is like I'm good. No emotional response. Um, you know, been on this, I have no idea how many times. And I had one daughter at the time. Um, at least one I I I think my daughter's pretty young. So she's probably two or three at the time, my oldest. And my father shows up. And poof, man, that's tough. Like, again, I'm like, I've already lived through these early officer experiences, right? Well, this doesn't, yeah, it might have bothered me years ago, doesn't bother me now. My shell's up, my shell's solid, I'm emotionally stoic as could be, like I always am. And I knew just based on the location and environmental factors of where this vehicle was, that we could not let these people down here. I understand that he wanted to see his child. It was going to be a logistical nightmare because of the terrain of where this crash occurred at. And so I just knew basic rational thinking, he can't go down there. And he doesn't want to see his kid like that. He kind of like I try to stop him. He kind of what we'd call like classified as like batters me. Wasn't worried about that at all. I knew obviously I'm not going to use force. This guy's not in trouble, I'd do the same thing. And as gently as I could stop this guy, I bear hugged him. And I just remember telling him, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And we fell down to the ground. And then just for a moment, I have I don't know why. And I learned my lesson and I won't do it again. But I tried to empathize. And I thought, man, what would it be like to be this man right now? It's the only time I've ever had an emotional response at work, and man, there was nothing I was going to do to stop the tears. But I also wanted to be the strength for the family. So thankfully, a couple of officers came over and kind of took control of him, so to speak, and I walked off in the woods and um my self-talk's a little rough. It's like, get your shit together, Matt. This is not the time. So I tucked it away. But that was that last that was that drop, it hit. And the container was not big enough to hold it. But I kept it together. The rest of that time we're we're good. And I got home and I walked into my kids' room to say her nightly prayers, and I started weeping. Probably scared her to death. She had no comprehension of what daddy does and what daddy might have just saw. And and and yeah, it was like crazy Austin involved shooting. I mean, I remember you hear the rounds going over my head and the guys I was with, and it's good. No problem. And then that next drop hits. And I just broke. And, you know, thankfully, I remember my wife kind of just standing in the doorway. She didn't say a word. Because we aren't gonna there was no words that were gonna needed to be said, right? And and that gets into a whole nother topic, but like I've I know there's guys that share stuff with their wives, and there's guys that don't. I've always taken that route that like I'm not gonna gross my wife out. But there is a reality that us in law enforcement military medics, it changes us. And so I've chosen, and I think it's a decent route to take to when I do have a big event over the years, that like I do share some of that stuff with my wife. And I I give her on the in hindsight, I give her a reference point for the man that is changing before her eyes, rather than she just wakes up someday and says, What in the world is wrong with Matthew? And so, yeah, I mean, we right, early trauma like it affects us differently. I I look at the new officers' lives, you're on a scene that's like a level 1.5 trauma, and you look over at them and their eyes are wide open, and and so yeah. Those things get better. Um, but then we have to acknowledge this fact that like our buckets are not they're not eternal buckets and that they they can't just hold infinity of trauma. And so I don't know what's that looked like for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:19

Yeah, I mean, I there's been probably three or four times in my career where something took place, and again, I same as you, right? On scene, I try to be that rock, that person for for them for their sake, right? I've had car crashes where I've had to hold people's hands in a mangled up car waiting for ambulances to get there because hey, there's nothing I can do for you, right? Other than just be here for you and talk to you. Um, I've had people thrown from a car covered in blood, you know, crying out, I'm sorry, to the person covered in blood, because ultimately they were they thought or felt like they were at fault for it. You know, in that particular situation, the ambulance scoops them up, takes them away. This person comes to me and you know, it's just is my family member gonna be okay? And what do you say? You know, they're gonna do the best they can, right? Like the medics are gonna take care of them the best they can, and they latch onto you and and and embrace you and try to get some kind of comfort from you on scene, and you

The Slow Drip Of Law Enforcement Trauma

SPEAKER_02 1:07:18

again you have to be this rock. Um, like for that one, you know, or a dead infant, and you go home and see your child, like I would go home so many times, really. I'd go home and I'd say two minutes, right? I'd just sit there and cry for two minutes, and when that timer's up, okay, I'm done. Right? Because I'm tough, I'm a cop, I gotta deal with this stuff. I gave myself the moment to work through the situation or the problem, and I don't need any more than that. Um and then I'd move on, and and uh there's one again, I'll try to be vague, but there's one particular instance which kind of is a good example of how our loved ones have no idea either how to deal with this, and I feel really bad for the people our loved ones, our wives, and the people in our life, because they're going through this too, but they have no idea what we're dealing with, so they're trying to work through it without knowing what's going on, and that's hard. But same thing, car crash, I get there, the person is very obviously no longer with us. And family's there, and they're trying to save this person. They're doing everything they can, right? And then I step in and and I try to do everything I can to help save this person, knowing that it's probably not gonna have a good ending. Um ultimately I have to tell this person on scene that their loved one's dead. Which we do all the time. Right. But for whatever reason, like this one, I just I couldn't unsee it and I've never been able to unsee it. Um and the kicker with this one is I immediately leave this. I'm late for my child's fourth birthday party at the park with both sides of my family there. So I have to go from this horrific death and dealing with this scene and talking to this family member and go to a celebration. So now I have to go from this extreme emotion on one side to another extreme emotion, right? Of happiness and joy for my child's sake. And I get there, and my wife is furious because I'm late, right? Yep, what are you doing? And she's giving me the stink eye, and you know, my dad and my father-in-law are there, and grandparents are there, and they're joking around, and they're like, Oh, you're giving people speeding tickets? And I just want to punch every one of them in the face, right? Um, because like we joke as real cops, you know, we don't give a lot of tickets out, we just have conversations with people and and we do real police work, so um just infuriated by that. But they don't know, so I can't be mad at them, right? And I can't explain things because it's my child's birthday, so I gotta bury this now inside. And and thankfully, one of the family members there is an officer for a different county, and he just kind of looks at me and nods his head because he knows, right? He can just tell. Um but that's just stuff over and over and over again that we deal with, and it's nonstop throughout your career, right? It's that drip, it just keeps coming and going. Um, I mean, I've had similar experiences, right? I think we all have just different kinds of experiences.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:33

Sure. Yeah, I mean, as you talkers, you just get this roller dex of calls and situations that go through your mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:40

And those, those, you know, those stick with you and they bother you, and eventually, right, it builds up. And then you have other things. Like I've had uh an incident where it's really gross, but I had a person's brain matter and skull on me all day. I didn't realize it. And I'm walking around eating a cheeseburger from McDonald's. Uh I get home, take my vest off, and I hear it clink on the ground, and I know exactly, oh, this is somebody's skull. They hadn't even seen it yet. I knew what it was. And I look down and pick it up with a piece of toilet paper and throw it in the trash can. And my wife's furious, like, and get it out of the house, right? But to me, I'm like, oh, it's just a piece of scroll.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:24

At least have the courtesy to throw it out in the dumps.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:25

Yeah, I now I know. Next time I'll throw it outside.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:28

You got somebody's skull on you, take it outside.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:31

Right. So we we can joke and laugh, but like, so you never know when these traumatic things are gonna catch up to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:37

Yeah. So having like sitting here listening to all this cop stuff, like what I have no idea what it's like to have a non-cop brain anymore. Like, what's what thoughts do you have?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:54

Yeah, I mean, I think of what Derek said earlier, this is not normal, but yet it is normal for you guys. And I think about how every officer I know can echo these same things. I have a lot of friends who are officers, family who are even officers or have served. And um like I've seen that coping, that natural defense to seeing what is not normal, you have to develop a coping towards it. And I

First Horrors On The Job And Numbing Out

SPEAKER_03 1:12:21

think there's two kinds of coping. There's a coping that'll lead to death, and there's a coping that'll lead to life. And as I've witnessed it, third party, someone removed from the situation, I see that coping. You guys either turn towards numbing yourself with alcohol, you turn towards um something that you have to overwhelm it with some kind of rush to feel anything, some kind of dopamine hit, you have to do something stronger yet to overwhelm it. Um, or, and this is how I cope personally as a non-officer, is you just shove it down deep. Like, don't go there. That's in a deep dark box, and we don't open that box. Um so what do you think, Derek? How have you coped, or how have you seen other brothers cope with it?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:06

Yeah, for me, I think unknowingly, I just shut my emotions off. Just became completely emotionless, um, which hurts, right? Like I I want that emotion, but I've done it for so long and shut things down for so long that I would chase those highs. It's like probably why I'm on the team, right? Like even on a call out, a lot of times I don't feel anything. I'm calm, there's no emotion in it. Sometimes it's more annoyance than it is any kind of an emotion, and that's what people want, right? If you call somebody out in that kind of a situation, you don't want somebody who's running off emotions. You want somebody who's thinking things through. But that works for you know, SWAT, the road, but at home it doesn't work that way.

unknown 1:13:56

Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:56

Our spouses, our loved ones, they want somebody who can be there and connect with them and be emotional. But like I genuinely feel bad for my wife because I am so emotionless or or was, I'm working on it. I mean, that was my defense mechanism. It was so bad. We'd go on vacation and you know, I'd go sit on the deck and I'd just stare out into space for the first three days, and she'd be like, Well, that's just Derek. That's my life now, this is what I have to live with. This is this is my husband, I can't leave him. So I'm just gonna have to deal with it, and then after you know, three days, it's almost like it would wear off, and the old me would start to come back, and in the last two day three days of vacation, I'd be fun again with my family, and then right back to work, emotionless. Um unfortunately, right? You have to at some point work through this stuff because that drip overwhelms you your whole career seeing all these things. You can't run from it. So, for like me, this has been just a few short months ago, really, but I couldn't explain what was happening to me. Um, I'd find myself just in my car. Thankfully, I didn't wasn't training anybody, this was just me by myself, but for an entire week I'd just disappear. I'd go find someplace and back into a corner in a field, and I'd just cry. Couldn't explain why. Uh every single traumatic event that I've gone through over eight years, I'd just replay them. Things that like didn't bother me that I'd laugh on scene or like joke around or in the moment I didn't think affected me at all were coming up. And some of the things that I knew affected me were coming up that I thought I had worked through I hadn't. And I just I couldn't get past it. Um trying to work through it myself. I remember being in my kitchen at the end of the week, just completely lost. And I was like, I I just want to quit. I can't do this, I can't keep putting myself and my family through this. Uh working the job and and going to these calls and seeing these things. You know, like suicide's not an option for me. It's not something that I would do to my family. And I didn't want to go through those things anymore. I just I didn't want to kill myself, I just wanted to escape it, you know. Um, so I just started praying and I was like, I I don't know. I don't know what the future is for me. I don't know. God, like, if you can take this from me, please, take it away from me. But if this is my cross to bear, like I'll bear it, you know, I'll hold that cross and I'll go to work tomorrow if that's what you want from me. I genuinely believe that this is a calling that that God brought me to this job. And I was just I was breaking down, you know, just leaving it out there for God. And I remember it's one of two times in my life where I feel like I've had a had a genuine, genuine connection with God. And it wasn't a voice, it wasn't like you and I talking, but like something in my soul, I could hear it clear as day. It was just like, man, this is what this is what Christ said in the garden, right? Like take it away from me if you can, but if not, that's fine. I'll I'll bear that cross. Right. So it was like a light switch that quick. My tears were dried up, and I realized, man, all that pain is gone. It's just completely gone. I had no anxiety, I had no questions or frustration. Like Christ was on that cross for me, he died for me, took that sin. He was resurrected. There's hope. I don't have to do this alone. There's someone who's so much greater than me out there that that's willing to help me through this and take that on for me. I don't have to do this by myself. And then the next part of that is I've tried now. Every time I deal with something traumatic, instantly go into prayer. Like, God, just take this from me. I'm okay right now, but I may not be six months from now. I may not be a year from now. Right. So just please just be there with me and help me get through this if I need it. Maggie said earlier about your wife, right? And and what she went through and how I showed you a photograph of somebody who went through something pretty traumatic, and there's a massive amount of blood loss. Kind of an amazing thing in that horrible moment, right? And I see this person and just in death, right? And I'm thinking, man, I wonder if this person is a Christian. You know, I don't I don't know. I hope. It's it's he's dead now, so I'm gonna pray for this family, right? Because I can still do that for them. So I'm praying for this family, and and I look over and I see this Bible verse sitting right on the table right next to me. Can you guess the Bible verse I'm gonna say? Revelation 21. 21, what is it, 21.4? I was like, this can't be, right? Like, if this isn't a God thing, I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:02

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:03

So I set it up hoping the family would see that, because like what peace that brings.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:07

Yeah. I think it's worth kind of like you went through so many different like areas there's like breaking down some of this because like man, I I'm like relating, you know, like step by step by step, and like, and you know, like I didn't know that about you, right? That a few months ago you're going through this, and like I, you know, just knowing Derek as an officer, like Derek's an officer that like I said, FTOing and an intricate part of our SWAT team, highly regarded. Are these young officers like coming to me like, oh man, Derek was teaching me this, and like, you know, I'm like, yeah, he's a good dude. Listen to him. Experienced officers, like dialed in in the midst of chaos. But yet you have these moments, and like immediately, like that took me to a thing. Like, man, got because guys don't talk about this stuff. And then when you're in the midst of it, you're like, is this okay? Is this normal? Like, there's something wrong. What in the world is going on with me right now? Like, I remember, I have no idea what year this was. It just like immediately popped in my mind. I was like, Whoa, I probably never told anybody this. Probably a few drinks deep. Um I remember some people over at my house, my wife and I lay down to go to bed. And like, I'm like wide awake. And this it was the strangest thing. I have no idea, can't comprehend, don't, don't even and still quite know the purpose of it. I sat up on the bed, and like a like an old school film, frame by frame by frame, all of these 50 plus death scenes. Just like I couldn't I couldn't stop it, just like went through my mind. I was just like I was just sitting there just like crying, and then it was over, and it was like what the hell was that? Why have I never told anybody that? Because like, I don't know, you don't want to show up at the shrink and be like, hey, there, oh yeah, this guy's need some medicine. And yeah, and so you and then you talk about like times in your career, and again, like I think it's okay to understand that some of these things are normal, right? Because when you go through them and no one's ever said that, like, hey, some of this crap's normal, you're like, bro, I don't those dudes that get skulls in their uniform and throw it in their trash can, I don't know what's wrong with them, but I must be different. It's like, no, you can be both. Trauma's still going to affect

When The Bucket Overflows

SPEAKER_01 1:21:40

us. And like, yeah, I think there was a time I was probably five years into my career. And it was, yeah, I didn't know how to, I didn't know if there was, I just didn't know how to comprehend all this craziness. Why in the world don't I get a decent job that pays real money? And I ain't got to deal with none of this crap. I walked right into my supervisor's office. Like I was I was pretty much like, turn my stuff in, be done. And yeah, I was like, what I said, you've been here, I think he's been there like 15 years at a time. I said, what in the world? He's a smart guy, he could go do whatever he wanted. I was like, what in the world are you steal cop for? I sat down, was like, explain it. Because I'm about done. I need to hear something. And man, it was like pretty simple, but super profound. He said, Man, he said, if not us, then who? And I was like, at first, I was like, really wanted something more profound than that, buddy. Like, good luck, get me get my resignation together. And then I started to think about that, and and I've seen as I've trained officers over the years, I've seen that three to five year mark get really difficult. And then sometimes maybe another three to five years later, kind of have a questioning, a serious, is this what I want to do? And uh that's interesting. Again, never shared this. I'm gonna share it publicly. My supervisors will be like, huh? You know, a year ago, maybe it was a little over a year ago, like I just it wasn't that I was unhappy in law enforcement. I've never stopped asking God, what is next? What's that look like? What is next? And I've never got an answer to that, so I keep chugging along. It's like, all right, I guess God, you still want me to be here. And so I started having some just like inklings of like maybe it's time to shift directions. I don't know. There was nothing unhappy about my, I was not unhappy. I I I I'm honestly doing everything I ever dreamed of in law enforcement right now in my career. I was like, but okay, I'm gonna try to be obedient to you. So what do you want? And this idea of a of a career shift um came to mind. I was like, all right, God, like just pray about it. This isn't a this came full, full, uh, full send on this. It was like closed doors that need to be closed, open doors that need to be open. And I'm I'm just I'm I'm I'm like, I'm I'm just trying to be completely surrendered. Yeah, it'd be hard to walk away from everything I love because now I do love my job. But if that's the direction you want me to go, okay. It's weird how God works. It's weird how God works. Derek speaks of God called me to this. I was made for this. I'm in the back of a bear cat, and we're getting rounds coming down range at us. A little ping ping. Again, fast forward. I I clear that scene. Um, and it just dawns on me, brother. That was the door. Like closed doors that need to be closed, open doors that need to be open. I drove home from that scene. It was like you were, it was this affirmation that like I just I guess I needed that. Matthew, you are doing exactly what I created you to do. You get to walk into these situations um with a different perspective than other people would. And it was so reassuring. And I don't know if I'll ever look back. It was so powerful. It's like, okay. Thank you, God, for my journey. Man, it's been the struggle. Man, it's been hard at times. Man, if I went through a lot of crap, I never, gosh, this human eyes should never see. Ears should never hear. It was just like, thank you, God, for finding me in the midst of my screw-ups and how I dealt with this trauma stuff. Um, and changing my lens and changing my perspective. You know, we could sit here for uh hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and share these stories, and I'm sure, you know, more stories will come out about our struggle with this area, but like I guess I remind myself, like, you know, again for me, I had this solid Christian foundation going into law enforcement. And then this picture of God and humanity and how this world works, like it just started getting these little spider line cracks in it and it started to fracture. Some of those things like are okay, right? Like I understood like when I go on scene to a call, especially if it's a you know, violence involved, a tactical problem, like you know, we'll make rational decisions based on the facts at hand. It keeps us alive. I s I early in my career, and I'm gonna talk about like the real effects of some of these things, right, that we don't talk about or we think are normal. And so these fractures start to happen. Let's just go back to the illustration of that water drip because I think that that works really good for my story. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. But then eventually that that that container becomes full, and then that water's got to go somewhere, and so it starts to drip into other areas of life. Um you know, I mentioned this before, and we'll, you know, don't necessarily have to sit on it for a while, but like, you know, for me that alcohol became one of those areas that like it dripped into. Um, you know, drink like as a young officer, like complete social drinker, like not like occasionally whatever, pick it up, put it down just as easy. Um Um, yeah, and like fast forward. Like again, I I'm literally like ashamed to admit this. Like, if you were just like, I don't have, I don't feel like I have many regrets in life. This is one of my deepest regrets, is like I was a pastor, like a thriving in my relationship with the Lord. And I like I remember like my first I had two different canines in my career. I remember my first canine, I got early in my career, I was just like super blessed, got it super early in my career. I remember like being at canine school, everybody's all like tatted up and rough around the edges because they've all been cuffs a lot longer than I had. And like Monday morning rolls around and it's like telling drunk stories from the weekend, and you know, and I remember thinking like I feel bad for these guys. Drip, drip, drip. I go into my second canine school, and uh there's no other way to say it, but that that I was that guy. I was drinking every night. Like, and you and I'll be honest, like it was just like I was like, I just accepted it as a reality because it's like, bro, we've seen so much shit. Like, this is just what you do, and it's like not even a bad thing. It's not a it's just it's just it helps you go to sleep at night. It it it it keeps you lively when you're not at work, whatever. Like, how did I figure it out? I drank a lot, like it was this really uh logistical solution. I had no idea. I literally one time I was like, God was just starting to like convict me in this area of like, hey, this might be a problem. I pulled out my credit card statement. I knew every time I went to the liquor store I was getting a handle of bourbon, and I literally just sat there and I googled how many shots are in a handle? How often do I told a buddy who I know who drinks a lot, he said, bro, you got a you got a problem. And I was like, Oh, yeah, I got a problem. And

Coping Gone Wrong: Alcohol, Anger, Withdrawal

SPEAKER_01 1:30:02

it just like it was that slippery slope that never hit me in the face until the very end. I was like, oh you're you're coping with all of this stuff. Like, I don't know if you want to say it's just an excuse, but like you're trying to deal with all these crazy things, even though on the outside, like you, you are the like I try to be the calmest guy on scene. I think a lot of officers would say that of me. But it changed me. What about taking anger home? Police divorce rate, like if the normal people divorce rate's 50%, police divorce rate super high. We've talked about this a little bit at work before, but like we got body cams strapped to our chest all the time now. We're like so gentle with these complete douchebags that are screaming and yelling and they're creating, you know, they're committing felonies in front of us, and we're calm and we're collected and we're trying to de-escalate them. We get home and our wife says something and we snap at her. Our kids don't pick up the crap off the floor. You'd think it just all chaos breaks loose, right? It takes years and years and years of wisdom to ever go, oh, I think the container is dripping over, and I didn't realize the hose was still on. And yeah, so it starts to infiltrate our lives as cops. You put a bunch of cops in the room, they all look the same, so we're like, well, this is just normal. But yeah, there's some, and so I go back to this redemptive story. I understood the crucifixion. I don't ever felt like I I never stopped believing in God. Like I said, my view of how he interacted with the world changed. If you'd asked me any day in the worst seasons of my time, if you died today, are you going to heaven? Yeah. Was I looking forward to it? No. But yeah. And so I understood the crucifixion, but I didn't understand the power of the resurrection. It was still Saturday for me. Jesus was He died for my sins, but he's still in a tomb. And so, like, what does that look like? And then my hope in heaven. What does it look like to move our faith from a crucified, crucified Jesus to a resurrected Jesus? I I think of it like this. Alright, so we or SWAT team guys, you get fancy technology. Makes other guys mad, but you get like the drug guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:55

I hear the drug guys resent that.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:00

Give them give them roughed up jeans and a tank top, they can do their drug job. We need technology. So we've got these views of life we're perceiving the world through. We've got our naked eye, right? But if it's dark out, the naked eye's not very good. So, next step, next cheapest step, flip white light on, flashlight, gun light, white light. Right? So let's just say we're walking through the dark. I can't see very well with my normal lens, my normal eyes. So I need to see something. I flip a light on. But now I can just kind of see this central area. Still around the edges, it's still fuzzy. But then I change the lens and now I throw some nods on. Now I'm running night vision. Still, it's a very different picture, right? Now everything illuminates, right? Maybe you're running white phosphorus or a green phosphorus, you're gonna get a white tint or a green tint. But now I still have this issue of like this the degrees in which my focal plane are shrink down. Maybe something else. I flip on thermals. Well, now I'm seeing things in heat and temperature, right? And so this going from a resurrected Jesus or from a crucified Jesus to a resurrected Jesus, it's like walking through the dark and dropping down night vision. It is a different lens in which to view trauma through. It is that all of this stuff around me that I see, that I hear, that I smell, I tell my wife, I don't watch anything scary or murder documentaries anymore because I see enough horrible things at work. She still likes to watch a good documentary about some serial killer or something. And I'll say you can sit here and eat your dinner and watch that, but if you're in that room, you'd throw up because it just the smells alone. When I change this lens, I go from naked eyesight to night vision, I get to perceive things differently. So no matter what is going on around, what I'm seeing in front of me, this blood, this death, this tragedy, this is Genesis 3. This is because of the fall. But I can drop nods down and I can see that this is not the end. This is not the end. Jesus resurrected from the dead, right? This is the pinnacle moment of Christian faith. Like that is with the most one of the most important things in the whole scripture because he defeated death, he defeated trauma, he defeated cancer. Has that fully played out yet? It's going to. And when we understand that Jesus is going to return and that he is going to fix the brokenness of Genesis 3, it is a whole different perspective. It is a whole different lens to go through our future careers, tomorrow, the next shift, the next month, the next year. It changes everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:22

Man, as you guys both share, um, I'm reminded of uh Isaiah 6, which is the the call of Isaiah to be a prophet. And uh I've always heard people preach on the first half of the passage, but not the second half of the passage. And so Isaiah has this encounter, throne room with the Lord. Um there's this scene where this angel takes a live coal and touches on her lips. Isaiah's like, woe is me. Like he just got done in chapter five saying, woe, woe, woe to all these um these people of Judah who are just screwing it up. It's not a good situation. And he says, Woe is me. And the they touch his lips, and then um the Lord says, you know, like who will go for us? Who will who will go for me? Who will we send? And Isaiah says, Here I am, send me. That's the part everybody preaches on, like, yeah, let's do this, you know. And then the call continues and it says, you know, you're gonna preach for me and no one's gonna listen. Like their ears are gonna be stopped, their hearts are gonna be cold, no one's gonna listen, but I'm gonna send you. And Isaiah's like, how long? Like, what's the end game here, God? And he says, till they go into exile and everybody's destroyed. It's a hard call. It's not an easy call. Um that's the call of an officer, too. It's not a hard, it's not an easy call, it's a hard call. Um, but what fueled it all for Isaiah was he had an encounter with the risen Christ. This cult came from an altar, right? Just like Christ was crucified for us, a lamb on an altar, like this cult came from an altar, and that's what touched Isaiah, that gave his lips what he needed to be able to speak on God's behalf. And that's what I hear as you guys are both framing your stories and how initial reactions to being an officer and it wasn't what you knew, and then trying to cope with it in different ways. And then there's this encounter that you had, Derek. There's this encounter that you had, Matt, with the risen Christ that starts to shift, starts to pull you into something different, into being a part of resurrection. If not us, then who? Christ in the garden, saying, if there's any other way, but not my will, yours be done. And that submission, that obedient part of being an obedient warrior, submits yourself to Christ. Um man, it's uh it's not just a call for officers, though, it's a call for all believers.

A Calling Reconfirmed Under Fire

SPEAKER_03 1:39:05

Come, die to yourself, and then you get to be a part of something bigger. Um, scripture describes Satan as a strong man, that Christ bound the strong man, and now we go in and we plunder his house. And like you get to do work, kingdom work. You get to plunder the enemy's house, go into dark places. Because evil loves the darkness. That's one of the big lies, too, as officers as you cope with this, that you keep it in the dark. It's safe there. It's like, no, you have to bring these trials, these traumas into the light. That's where truth encounters them, that's where healing happens, is in the light. The Lord looked on a fallen creation and said, I need someone to stand in the gap. To stand for justice. Who will go for me? Who will we send? And officers across the nation said, Here I am, send me. The end of Isaiah chapter six. Go there till they're in exile, till they're destroyed. It finishes on this, but there's a holy seed in the stump. Starting to talk about Jesus is described as the seed, as the root of David, the out of a stump where there looks like there's no life, there's gonna come something new. And so I feel like as you you talk about a different lens of seeing what you guys do, that's that lens of the resurrection. You see it through the lens that this stump is bearing fruit. It's gonna raise up into something bigger.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:00

I mean, it just reminds me like especially like in Paul's writings in the New Testament, like you even read scripture early, like that that we as Christians are supposed to emulate the crucifixion of Christ. That we are, you know, I tattooed on my arm, Matthew 16, 24, to set aside your selfish ambition to shoulder your cross and follow me. And it's like when we, you know, the non-believer, you just you just go through, you know, as an officer or something, like you just you just see all of these traumas and these trials and these tribulation, none of it, there's no cohesiveness to it, none of it makes any sense. It's just these repeating evil, evil, evil, evil. But when you can pick up the mission of Christ, like I'm gonna go and even you know, this guy beat the crap out of his wife, and I put him a handcuff, and as soon as I get him in the back of my car, what happens? We know the wife comes out and starts screaming and cussing at us for taking him to jail. I will bear that burden. I will put that on myself as my cross to be shouldered. I won't lash out at her. I'm gonna listen to him bitch and gripe the whole way to jail. I'm gonna carry this cross. That day by day I've got these opportunities to be crucified. And and we talk about these lenses, like this shift in perspective. I man, I just have a heart for officers. I it's my whole life, right? Most of my friends are cops, train new officers, try to be the best leader for officers I can be. And it's like, man, if I could just, if there is one lesson I've learned in my whole walk with Christ and my career in law enforcement, it's like, man, you've got to, there is nothing that is gonna bring hope to these things. Like you've got to know Jesus, and then like you have like a freaking MMA UFC fight. You have got to grapple and wrestle. Like you have got to dig into these truths at the cost of your life. Like you have got to start wrestling with this stuff because there is so much hope that can be gained from a proper perspective. And we can drop go from you know plain view to night vision. Like it is such a different lens to view these situations through. And it's like, man, I just I just want that so bad for guys because I know it it it how it changed my life. Like I remember, you know, Derek shared a scene with me the other night at work that he he walked through, and it was the first time he'd ever seen that. I was a senior officer on scene for this particular event. I'd seen it time and time again. Didn't bother me. But the difference was it was not that long after that I dropped the night vision down. I really understood the hope in Christ that this is a resurrected savior that we serve, that my hope is in heaven. I guarantee you I'd have smashed a bottle of bourbon that night. I shifted my lens to say this is a broken world. This stuff is always going to happen. I can't have my hope in the world. My hope is in Christ's return. My hope is in heaven. Walk through that scene. I'm in my patrol car, the supervisor over this situation, and I'm sending text to those guys. Hey man, I'm praying for you. A couple different Bible verses. Like, that was not me. It had not been that long since like this really came home. Changed everything. Like, I remember Derek shared this story with me. We don't necessarily need to go into it, but you know, not too long ago, and it was like it was very traumatic for him. It was the opposite for me. It was seeing it through a different lens, and it was like, I can't change this outcome, sure. But I'm gonna do I'm gonna bring hope into the situation. Like I'm gonna bring Jesus into the situation. And

Changing Lenses: From Cross To Resurrection

SPEAKER_01 1:45:40

I mean, it was a horrible, you know, an awful situation with a normal lens. With a changed lens, it was that those kids, they can see their mom again someday. This broken stuff, this blood all over the street, yeah. There's hope. It's a guy named Jesus, and that he is going to rewrite the end of the story, and it can be known, and it is known. And like we can place our hope in this resurrected Jesus, and that we can place our hope in heaven, and it changes everything, absolutely everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:30

What is the end of the story? Like, once you know the end and you know you're in the middle, it doesn't matter what's happening in the middle because you know how it turns out. And so let's talk about the end of the story. You mentioned that passage in Revelation 21. Do you want to read that? That you want to go there?

SPEAKER_02 1:46:52

Yeah. Revelation 21, 4. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, no sorrow, no crying. There'll be sh there there shall be no more pain, for the formal things have passed away.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:11

I love how it continues to us as in he who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. Like it's in process. And like with that different lens, you guys are bringing that process to light now that the kingdom would come here today.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:34

So we talk about we've talked about this in last week too. You talk about the kingdom to come. What does that look like? Because that is a profound thing to understand. Yeah. But like, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_03 1:47:44

Yeah. I mean, think Jesus' first words when he's stepping on his hand, he says, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And he quotes back to Isaiah and he says that the captive would be loosed, the blind would receive their sight. And so, like, in God's kingdom, there's not domestics. In God's kingdom, there's not sickness. And so when Jesus is walking the earth, what's he doing? He's healing sick. In God's kingdom, everyone's healthy. They're walking, they're jumping. And so he's he's causing paralyzed people to walk. Like he's bringing the kingdom. Because King Jesus has authority over those things. And then he turns to us at the end. He turns to the disciples right here at the end, when uh he's ready to ascend to heaven, and they're like, Okay, Lord, is this finally the time? Is this finally the time you're gonna bring your kingdom? You're like, you're gonna, and he's like, it's not for you to know the day or the hour, but you will receive power to bring the kingdom to bear. This is the start of Acts and the start of the church, and that's what we get to be a part of, cop and farmer. Like we get to bring the kingdom, so it gives us purpose to our work. It it's we're starting to fulfill Revelation 21 now. And like you guys are both dads, like when you're when your kids help you, um you invite them to contribute into it, and they contribute in the small ways they can and perfectly. And sometimes they're just there, but you're still the one who's fixing the truck, you're still the one who's changing the oil. Like we're invited into it to be a small part of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:28

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:30

Yeah, it makes me, I don't know if I've even fully recognized this in the past, but like as you talk about building the kingdom, it's like, all right, what is that what are some what are what does that 100% practically look like as a cop? And like, you know, very briefly mention it, but like had this horrible family trauma tragedy as a kid, and um I carried a a casket that I mean, caskets shouldn't be. Made that small. There's a car crash. I think you know, even like right now, there's a mother coming to mind that I yeah, tell her that her daughter is not coming home. She's dead. And it was like, I was just thinking about this. You said it was like, in that moment, I can be with her. And like just, it doesn't, it doesn't heal the situation, a horrible situation. But like sometimes it's even without words, can bring just a fragment of the kingdom to her situation. Maybe it's just I sat there silently with my hand on her and prayed. I I don't even like we have these opportunities to build God's kingdom to be just like that's a great illustration. Like God's working all this out on a macrocosm, right? History's already known. It's just little gaps that need filled in in scripture for us to understand. Like just like the kid fixing the truck, uh fixing the truck, but they get to go and get you the wrench and bring it over to you. And it's like, yeah, we get these opportunities in law enforcement, medics, military, like to go and build a little bit of God's kingdom.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:19

And isn't it better as fathers to have your child change the oil with you? And doesn't that draw you closer together with your child? And is that not what the Lord is doing with you as you're bringing the kingdom in your workplace? It's this whole picture that we don't fight for victory, we fight from victory. The victory's won, we get to be a part of it, though, now. And so there's a confidence in that. Like it's not all on my shoulders. He's already got it, it's already written. But there's also like a like a pride in that. Like I get to be a part of this. Like when when Christ comes back to set all things right, like he's he's in a robe dipped in blood on a white horse, right? And all the saints are with him. Like we're we're a part of that, but he's the one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:13

What a privilege to be a part of that. Yeah. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:18

I think what's really hard for me about this Revelation 21 picture, like I read it and I'm like, yes, no more cancer. No more tears. Like, how great a day will that be, man? Like, we will celebrate like no one celebrated before. Like, that'll be awesome. But what's hard about it is Revelation 20, right before. And this is that wrestling. We started in Genesis and we're ending in Revelation. This wrestling of how can a good God remove trauma, suffering, and evil without destroying us. And Revelation 20 is that final sentencing, the great white throne judgment. Um those who said, God, I don't want you, he says, All right, your will be done. Evil is not something that's just out there. Evil's in here, in me. And as I get closer and closer to Christ, the more I hate my own evil, the the more I hate not that I would lust, but that I would want to lust. That's the problem, is my heart. It's not

Bring It To Light: Coping That Leads To Life

SPEAKER_03 1:53:42

that people would steal, but that they would want to steal, and that they need to be given a new heart. What greater thing to see? What greater thing to experience for yourself than to be given a new heart? Um I asked the question early on in our discussion, you know, is God more glorified by the existence of trauma or by the absence of trauma? And I firmly believe he's more glorified because of this. What is our greatest revelation of who God is? It's the crucifixion, it's that naked savior, suffocating to death. Um, Isaiah would describe it vividly in Isaiah 53. This is like 700 years before Jesus, and he would say, He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and that by his wounds we are healed. Like our sorrows are placed on him. And so, this revelation of if you want to know what God is like, you look to Jesus, like all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in him, scripture would say. And so the reason that there's more to this story than just trauma and there's hope is because we have the crucifixion and the resurrection. We have trauma and we have hope. They came together in a moment and in a person, and by his wounds, by his trauma, we are healed. God's doing something in trauma. And the buckets might be full for you guys, but he's not wasting it. And that's what we read Revelation 21, and we're like, yeah, let's get there. Why do you wait? Why the heck are you so slow, God? I think of um in Peter, he writes, um, he says God is not slow to keep his promises, as we would understand slowness, but he desires that all would repent. That he's slow because he's doing something in this trauma. It exists for a season, for a purpose, and he's not wasting it. I think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego before the fiery furnace, right? They're brought into captivity. The very thing Isaiah was called to tell was going to happen, they're experiencing now, decades later, and the king says, You're gonna bow to me, and they say, Nah, we can't do that. And they say, Look, our God can save us, and he will save us. But even if he doesn't save us, we're not gonna bow to you. He can, he's able, he will. They know the end of the story. They're saying, even if that end of the story is different, right? Or is he not gonna save us right now, we're not gonna bow. And so what happens? They're thrown into the fiery furnace, right? The the men, the warriors that were thrown them in were killed. It was so hot they had heated it up. And there was a fourth man who met them in the fire. Why does God delay? Why doesn't he stop trauma now? One of the reasons, because in trauma is where you meet the Lord. In the fiery furnace, you encounter the Lord. In what you guys live through day after day after day, you encounter the Lord in a way someone outside of that can't experience. And there's a shift when you surrender instead of coping in the dark, instead of doing it your own way, and you start to pour out your heart to Christ, and you lay yourself before an empty tomb. Man, instead of coming home to that bourbon, an empty bottle of bourbon, you come home to the empty tomb and you throw yourself on your face, and you just if you lay there for two, three hours before you can finally doze off and let your wife find you there in the morning, you know, but you're experiencing what God is experiencing. He's invited you into it. You're meeting him there in the fire, and he's doing something. He's not about your happiness or your comfort, he's about your holiness. And if Jesus really is the greatest in all the universe, then the greatest desire God could have for you is for you to be like Jesus, to go through trauma and come out resurrected. Like holiness is being like Jesus. And so he desires your holiness. And so, man, as you guys endure trauma, just know that's leading you to the Father's heart. That's turning you to be like Jesus. There's no greater gift he could give you for them than for you to be like Christ. And if that road means trauma, and if there was a kindler, more gentler way for him to do it, he would have chosen that way. But every other way would have fallen short. He's doing something in the trauma. There's hope.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:22

Man, Evan, I just thank you for those words. Like you know, you weren't speaking to the person listening to this, like you're speaking to me, man. This is good to hear and like we can't experience the resurrection if we haven't been to the crucifixion. I just want to close in prayer. God, you know where everyone is at. What's hearing this right now? Men and women who've seen the trauma and the tragedy from your point of view as you see it. Well, would you just encounter each one of us right where we are? God, just give us Jesus.

Kingdom Work On Scene: Small Acts, Big Story

SPEAKER_01 2:01:15

We are a people that longs for hope, and we generally have no hope. I know for me, Lord, it took years. Just keep chipping away on us. Working on us. God, put put put additional resources and people in our lives to just keep shaping us and molding us to wake up to this reality, to deeply know this reality, the core of who we are. God, that we get to serve a resurrected Jesus, that you have conquered life. You have destroyed death and sin and cancer and homicides and car crashes. God, would you make that reality known to us? God, would you slowly shift down that new lens to view the world through? God, that on the next scene we go to, we we can be in the moment and get in our vehicle and go, but that is not the end of the story. Evil does not win. Heal us, God.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:52

We carry burdens, we carry wounds.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:04

I know, Lord, that Jesus even had the scars. And so I recognize, God, that we're still gonna carry the scars. But God, some of us have been walking around with open wounds for years. Heal those. God, uh people all over this country, God, who serve you, who who have said, here I am, send me, and yet the evil has seemed to triumph more than the good. God, would you renew us the transforming of our minds? God, that we wouldn't go to these we wouldn't go to substances, we wouldn't go to anger, we wouldn't go to and the list goes on, God, but that we would turn to you. I know this journey won't just happen in a moment, God. Work on us. Wrestle us so that you might win, grapple with us. We're we're we're made out of like a like like a green police dog that just wants to act like a straight maniac sometimes. God I just pray, God, that you take the time to work on us and to teach us, to come alongside of us, to partner with us. God, so that a year from now we are not the same as we are today. God, that we can start to turn this trauma that we've seen as we've gazed upon the crucifixion. And we can start walking down to the tomb. And Lord, as that stone is rolled away and we see the resurrected Jesus, God, may we have hope. And as we long, Lord, for your return, God may our eyes not be focused before right before us, but God, may our eyes be affixed on you, that you are coming to make all things new. In the name of Jesus, we pray these things. God, we beg for these things. God, we've got, as you know, you see it, we've got cops putting guns to their head, military guys putting guns to their head, God. Would you miraculously come into their life, God, and heal them and just show them yourself. We're not asking for any more than that, God. Give us you.

SPEAKER_04 2:06:21

And that is everything that we could ever desire. Give us you. In your name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:32

Well, I hope you you guys got something from this. Um, we're just getting started, right? This is a new endeavor for us. We're not content creators, we're not podcasters, we're cops trying to figure all this stuff out. Um, but I've got a favor to ask you. The reality is that there are men across this country, medics, fire, police, military, that they need to dive into these things because they're struggling right now with some of these very issues and more. I can make the content, but to get it in the hands of the people that need it, that's up to you. That's your job. Um, I would highly, highly encourage you, if you can think of some people right now that maybe it's even a stretch of faith for you. Man, send them a link. Hey, just take a look at this. Um, whatever that might look like, like this is gonna be a grassroots organic law enforcement movement. That's that's it. The algorithm is not gonna be pushing this stuff out. But since I did mention the algorithm, I do want to explain a reality of that that I didn't understand until I start trying to dive into these issues. So by you subscribing, by you writing comments, by you liking things, um, the reality is is that that's what the machine looks for. I'm not a dude that comments much or likes or subscribes to very much stuff at all. I completely understand that. But the reality is that, like, if you think that this is beneficial content, um, if you can go down and just write a two-word review or a two-sentence review, subscribe to it. Obviously, that's gonna get you additional content. Um yeah, we're gonna we've got tons and tons and tons of content planned. Some of it's already filmed and and ready to rock. Um, but it's gonna be up to you guys to get this stuff out to the people that need it. Thank you.