Bleeding Daylight

Sarah Geringer has been filling diaries since the age of 11 and it was only a handful of years later, at the age of 16, that she realised that her passion for writing was more than a personal pastime. While raising a family put her calling of writing on the backburner for some years, she’s now a published author, podcaster, blogger and speaker. She has overcome a series of traumas in her life and is now helping others to do the same.   https://www.sarahgeringer.com https://www.facebook.com/sarahgeringercreates https://www.instagram.com/sgeringer https://www.twitter.com/sarahgeringer

Amber Jones is a peer psychoeducator who is an advocate for families and individuals in need of hope. She’s the founder of GraceStory Ministries, connecting people with education, resources, and community, equipping them for the journey of restoration. She draws from her own story of childhood trauma and her journey to wholeness in order to inspire others to take their own first, intentional steps towards healing.   http://gracestoryministries.com http://instagram.com/my_grace_story http://facebook.com/gracestoryministries

Ginny Dent Brant grew up around the halls of power in the White House, rubbing shoulders with those in the highest office from both sides of politics. More recently she has written a book about overcoming cancer and how we can avoid or overcome many common illnesses. Unleash Your God-Given Healing tells the story of her journey through the diagnosis and then healing from cancer.   www.ginnybrant.com  https://www.facebook.com/ginny.d.brant  

Alcohol ruled every piece of Sherry Hoppen’s life for ten years. As part of dealing with her addiction, she found herself on an incredible journey that you'll hear about in this episode. Sherry authored the book Sober Cycle and has an online community named She Surrenders which is helping others beat addictions of all kinds.     http://shesurrenders.com   http://facebook.com/shesurrenderssherry  http://instagram.com/shesurrenders_sherry 

Seth Emery is a writer, musician, graphic designer, podcaster and a whole lot more. He has lived in various places around the world but these days calls Adelaide, South Australia home. His book, Picture the Story asks, if God's story is called "Good News" what’s so good about it? What does it have to do with us, today?   Connect with Seth Emery: http://sethemery.com  http://instagram.com/sethemery  http://theninedesign.com.au  http://gathered.church 

Neil Matthews is a podcaster who has a genuine interest in people. He spends a lot of time trying to put himself in other people’s shoes to discover who they are, and what’s behind their beliefs and the things they do. While most of the time he’s listening to other people’s stories, he has a story of his own that he uses to encourage others towards recovery.   https://www.opspodcast.com/ https://www.facebook.com/opspodcastshow https://www.instagram.com/opspodcastshow/ https://twitter.com/opspodcastshow 

Neil Tomba is the Senior Pastor of Northwest Bible Church and an avid cyclist. Years ago, Neil began dreaming about combining two of his greatest passions: having conversations about Jesus and spending time in the great outdoors. In June 2019, Neil cycled across the United States where, along the way, he engaged in conversations with individuals from all walks of life. It wasn’t just a one way conversation. He wanted to hear the hearts of the people he met. The journey was captured by a film team and has been turned into a book. https://www.neiltomba.com/ http://instagram.com/neiltomba https://www.facebook.com/NeilTomba/ https://twitter.com/neiltomba  

If you’re someone who believes there is a God, where do you find him? Is it in the big moments, or within the silence or the small things? Paul Granger is committed to seeing God in the 'everyday' and to helping others see him there too. He spends a lot of time asking the question, “Where Did You See God?” Paul is a writer and podcaster. He currently serves with Youth With A Mission and has a focus on shepherding others as they seek to "love God and love others".   http://wheredidyouseeGod.com https://www.facebook.com/wheredidyouseeGod https://www.instagram.com/wheredidyouseegod/   

What would inspire you to walk 1,400 miles over just a few months? For Barry Adkins, it was the tragedy of losing his son to alcohol poisoning. That tragedy has kept him searching for the ‘good thing’ that is to come out of the bad. Barry has warned tens of thousands of people about the dangers of binge drinking. Barry tells the story of his journey and the reason behind it in his book, Kevin’s Last Walk.    www.kevinslastwalk.com facebook.com/kevinslastwalk twitter.com/kevinslastwalk

Kristin Beale is the author of three books, a weekly comic strip, and an upcoming TV show based on one of her books. She has completed nine marathons and is a national level fencer. Kristin has always led a very active life when she was in her mid-teens. One moment changed her life forever and many would describe it as a defining moment but again, and again, she has refused to be defined by that moment in time.     www.kristinbeale.com  http://instagram.com/greater.things.comics  http://instagram.com/kristin.gupta   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVgwq5o00b0 

Cody Wieler spent years battling with food obsession, constantly getting on and off of diets, binging and restricting, all leading to punishing workouts. After years of struggling to obtain and maintain his dream body, he was struck by a realisation that was to change his life forever. His podcast, Strong for Your Tasks is now helping others to that same realisation. He has also written a book of the same name.   http://instagram.com/codywieler  http://codywieler.com  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08NS97NYS/     

Marnie Swedberg went from being someone who struggled to read while she was at school, to now having read thousands of books and written more than a dozen herself. She is an international leadership mentor, the host of her own radio talk show, a media expert and a keynote speaker for organizations around the world. She has trained, coached and mentored over 15,000 leaders from 35 countries.   http://marnie.com http://facebook.com/SpeakerMarnie https://www.instagram.com/mentormarnie/ https://www.youtube.com/c/godlywomenworldwide

Chris Staron is an award-winning filmmaker, novelist, improv-comedian, and the producer and host of the Truce Podcast, which dives deep into history to explore how we got here and how we can do better. He's an author and the writer, director and producer of the films Bringing up Bobby and Between the Walls. On Bleeding Daylight he shares his journey of leaving a faith based on anger to one marked by compassion and love.   www.trucepodcast.com  www.twitter.com/trucepodcast  www.facebook.com/trucepodcast 

Jenny Toh studied Law in England, had a legal career spanning almost three decades in Malaysia and Singapore working for a range of employers including a global oil and gas company as well as global banks. Personally, life was good, with a great family and close friends, but something was still missing. Jenny is the director of River Life Coaching where she coaches individuals to align their career and life goals with their values and strengths.   https://www.riverlifecoaching.com  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-toh-cpc-acc  https://www.facebook.com/riverlifecoaching  https://www.instagram.com/riverlifecoaching  https://www.positiveintelligence.com 

Laura Padgett faced the pointing fingers of those who considered her unworthy. In her younger years, she was excluded and experienced a very difficult upbringing. Now she’s opening the door to others who have faced discrimination and exclusion. She’s an Author, Speaker, Dancer, and Podcaster who shares stories of inspiration and transformation.   https://lauralpadgett.com https://www.facebook.com/LauraLPadgettAuthorSpeakerDancer https://www.instagram.com/laurapadgettauthor https://twitter.com/lauraleepadgett

Where do you turn when your life has been routinely punctuated by abuse and even your friends have ripped you off? Who do you trust? Staci Diffendaffer has replaced hurt with healing. Right from a very early age, she experienced a tremendous amount of pain and trauma. The events that caused that pain and trauma shaped her thinking and caused her to form harmful beliefs about herself and about others. Severe financial loss and serious health issues caused further heartache. Her book, Unconditioned Love: Healing Hearts and Minds in a Time of Conflict and Division, tells the story of her trauma and her healing.   http://ownyourvictory.com http://bit.ly/Unconditioned-Love http://linkedin.com/in/staci-diffendaffer https://www.instagram.com/stacidiffendaffer

Tony Green has known what most people would consider success. He reached incredible heights in the corporate world, earning significant wealth and respect, but it all came crashing down and Tony was left to build his life again. These days, life looks very different. His book, Triumphant Surrender is a best seller that talks about a very countercultural idea of what success means.   http://www.triumphantsurrender.com/   https://www.facebook.com/Triumphant-Surrender-The-Book-by-Tony-Green-107487784539654   +1 504-384-3888   tony.green@triumphantsurrender.com 

None of us like to be constantly put down and criticised, yet our harshest critic is often our own internal dialogue. The words we speak to ourselves can hold us back or even cripple us emotionally. John Stange is helping people discover a better way. He is the lead pastor of Core Creek Community Church in Pennsylvania, as well as being an adjunct professor at Cairn University. He hosts three podcasts, The Chapter-a-Day Audio Bible, Daily Devotions with Pastor John, and Dwell on These Things.   http://DesireJesus.com  https://www.instagram.com/pastorjohnstange/  https://twitter.com/pastorstange 

What if you’re not who you’ve always thought you were? What if you discovered that you’re someone entirely different? Sharon Hughes believes that’s not only her story, she would suggest that it’s very likely to be your story too. This episode could change the way you think about yourself, forever. Sharon Hughes is the founder of Confidence Academy, the host of Called to Confidence podcast, a confidence and Self-worth expert, and Critical Incident Stress Debriefer. Her first book, The Girl in the Garage: 3 Steps to Letting Go of Your Past became an Amazon number 1 new release.   http://sharonhughes.net  https://www.facebook.com/CalledtoConfidence  https://www.instagram.com/sharonhughesofficial/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-hughes-speaker/ 

Mike Hatch spends much of his time equipping men to be all they can be. He’s the National Relationship Generator with an organization called CLC, or Christ Led Communities. In a time of uncertainty and confusion, he’s making a difference in the lives of countless men. Mike is also a podcaster. During our conversation, you’ll hear how to get a free copy of his new book, which tells about his own journey towards empowered manhood.   http://clchq.org  mhatch@clchq.org  https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikehatch02  http://empoweredmanhood.com   http://instagram.com/mhatch0202  

Kirk McCarley has so far lead a fascinating life, with a number of careers, many of them at the same time. A major health event caused him to reassess his life direction and drew him into his current main vocation. Known as The Seed Sower Coach, Kirk has more than 30 years of executive leadership experience in both the public and private sectors. He’s been married for over 40 years, has two children and two grandchildren.   https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirk-mccarley-1bbba950/ https://theseedsowercoach.com/ https://www.facebook.com/KirkMcCarleyTheSeedSowerCoach/ kirk@theseedsowercoach.com Phone: +1 314-677-8779      

Jerry Dugan spent his childhood moving not only from state to state but from country to country. Unfortunately, it wasn't an idyllic life. He grew up with massive expectations hanging over his head, and issues within his family made growing up a very rocky road. These days, he hosts a podcast named Beyond the Rut, and he focuses on helping others be the best they can be.   https://beyondtherut.com https://www.facebook.com/Beyondtherut  https://www.instagram.com/beyondtherut/ https://twitter.com/beyondtherut 

What does it mean to be in the presence of God? Is it a meaningless religious phrase or a reality? My guest today talks about an encounter that transformed his life. Kevin White is a pastor and author. Some years ago, he was nearly broke, had no job, and yet began generously putting food on the table for other families. That sparked him to found an organisation that feeds over 500 families in his area. He is the Founder/Executive Director of Global Hope India, a mission organization providing access to the gospel to Indian Nationals. He's now traveled to India over fifty times, hosting a thousand people on mission trips.   http://kevinwhite.us https://www.amazon.com/Audacious-Generosity-Experience-Receive-Possible/dp/1544516142  

After reaching rock-bottom, Damon Covert knew something had to change. This is his story of how change happened and how he’s helping others find healthy life change. Everywhere we look, sexualized images that once would have been hidden from view and now are readily available online, whether we want to see them or not. Damon allowed society's take on sex and sexuality to shape who he was. It almost destroyed him. His story is now one of hope.     https://www.principle8ministries.org     https://www.facebook.com/Principle8 https://www.instagram.com/damoncovert/       (This transcript is intended as a guide only. It may not be 100% correct.)   Emily Olsen  Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.   Rodney Olsen  Thanks for listening. You can follow Bleeding Daylight and connect to our social media channels by following the links at bleedingdaylight.net If you’ve been encouraged by episodes of Bleeding Daylight, please encourage others by sharing episodes and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts.   After reaching rock-bottom, today’s guest knew something had to change. Today we’ll hear the story of how change happened for him and how he’s helping others find healthy life change.   It's everywhere we look. Sexualized images that once would have been hidden from view and now are readily available online, whether we want to see them or not. More than that they're on our televisions, on billboards, in advertising in our shopping malls, and so many other places that we've become desensitized to how much something that was once private, is being pushed into the public sphere. Damon Covert is someone who allowed society's new take on sex and sexuality to shape who he was. It almost destroyed him. He's my guest on Bleeding Daylight today, and together, we'll explore a very different kind of addiction. Damon, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.   Damon Covert  Thank you, Rodney, it's a pleasure to be here.   Rodney Olsen  You describe yourself as a grateful recovering addict and that immediately makes us think of drink or drugs but your addiction was very different. Tell me what it was that gripped you.   Damon Covert  I was introduced to pornography when I was only about eight or nine years old. Now this is BC This is before computers before cell phones, at least before personal computers. And I grew up or rather got older in the 80s. And so you know, if you wanted pornography, you had to go out and find it. I wasn't even actively looking. I was just with some friends. And again, it was after a Cub Scout meeting of all things, which was, which was kind of crazy. Because, you know, in scouting, they teach about, you know, morality, and being gentlemanly, and so forth. And there was nothing gentlemanly about what I was introduced to in that attic that night. You know, I didn't even fully understand what I was looking at. as a as a child of only eight or nine, these magazines were actually fairly explicit. They were not, you know, this wasn't just nudity there were there was a bit more graphic nature to it. And I didn't have an immediate craving for more of that, that would that would come later in my adolescence. And my exposure to pornography actually was was kind of it wasn't terribly overwhelming until I got into my my adolescence, my teen years, when, you know, friends were exploring this sort of thing. And it developed slowly at first. But the introduction was very early. At an impressionable age,   Rodney Olsen  We hear more and more especially in this digital age, that the time that young people are introduced to pornography, or at least first see pornography is getting younger and younger, that it seems that it was pretty much the case back then and maybe not as widespread. But for you as an eight or nine year old, you're starting to see things that you really don't understand. So what was it that brought you back to it? Or was it something that well, that's what I've seen, and, and I'll move away from it. And you were drawn back in your adolescence,   Damon Covert  I think it was just like any addiction. I think this is why it's so easy for people to get hooked on anything. It could be shopping, gambling, it could be video games, I think it was just a way for me to medicate my emotional pain. You know, I really didn't understand what I was looking at. But it did, it did create a certain reaction to my brain. And and actually, we've come to understand, since that the science behind pornography is virtually identical. In terms of what it does in your brain, to drug addiction. I've seen brain scans of people who have just taken heroin. And compare those with a brain scan of someone who's viewing pornography, the same areas, the same pleasure centers of your brain are lit up when you're when those two activities are going on. So it is it is a biochemical thing. But you know, again, it's it's just interesting that you don't have to actually physically take a drug to get that same high in your brain. I was not necessarily the most popular kid in school, I wanted to be well liked. I wanted to be thought of as as a fun person to be around. I typically didn't feel like I fit in very well. And we're also hearing that a lot these days with younger people, you know, where they don't feel like they fit in. So they start to assume certain things about their, their identity and so forth. And it was just a way to medicate my emotional pain.   Rodney Olsen  So that emotional pain, what was going on for you at the time? Was it just those struggles that we all face through adolescence and wanting to be liked by people as we go through those high school years? Or was there more to it at that stage?   Damon Covert  I think there was much more to it. And I do think that a lot of addiction is rooted in early trauma. I think it had to do mostly with my family of origin. I had a loving family. I grew up in a nominally Christian home and we really didn't go to church a lot, maybe on Easter. You know, my mom sent my brother and myself to vacation Bible school to get us out of the house for a couple weeks during the summer. And you know, that really was it. I didn't have a great foundation spiritually. But my home life was a little tense. I learned to walk on eggshells because I never really could fully predict what side of the bed my mom might wake up on. And so I learned to kind of toe the line, I knew my parents loved me. But I couldn't always feel like I deserve that love. And that sort of shaped my my view of God to growing up, I wanted to have a little more control over my life didn't feel like I could have that openly. So I think it was channeled into addictive behavior. And when I think we see this with with other addictions, as well, but it certainly was, was just a way of exercising a degree of control, or at least the feeling that I was in some kind of control over some aspect of my life. And so I think it was more to do with the the early trauma of dealing with parental anger and so forth. You know, I was never physically abused, I have no recollection of being sexually abused, although many people that are addicted to pornography and struggle with sexual addiction are, in fact, emotionally, physically and or sexually abused. To, interestingly enough, the emotional abuse is, is a higher incidence, it's over 90% of people that struggle with sexual addiction, are dealing with some sort of emotional abuse, versus 70, or 80%, of physical or sexual abuse,   Rodney Olsen  You're talking there about having some kind of control in your life, being able to control something because everything else seemed out of control. I'm interested in the whole idea of addiction in this sexual addiction that you found yourself in, along with addiction to drugs or alcohol, that they seem to start as being a way of someone having some kind of control. But how quickly did that start to control you? How quickly did the tables turn for you?   Damon Covert  Yeah, that's a great question, Rodney. And I think it probably happened a lot earlier than I realized. And I think that's how it knew that is in the addict mind, is that we tend to think that it's all under control. It's not a problem, until it's a problem, it's not a problem until somebody finds out or you get caught. So I think it very quickly, especially me, in my adolescence, it very quickly escalated, daily need to partake of this, this addiction. Again, it wasn't like you could just pick up your phone these days, I actually feel sorry, for a lot of the you know, a lot of people that struggle with this, because it is so easy to access this material these days, you don't even need to go by anything, you will probably already have the phone, and you probably already have an internet connection. And so it's just a matter of grabbing that piece of technology and beaming this stuff into your brain. But even if I wasn't able to seek out and physically find pornography to look at, again, this is the early 80s, there were no personal computers hooked up to an internet, my friend had a Commodore 64. And that was, you know, the hot computer at that time. There was also the the physical gratification that goes along with that was something that quickly took over my life, we're told it's kind of a normal thing for for adolescents to do. I prefer the word common, I think we use the word normal far too often. I think that, you know, it quickly spiraled for me, where I was, you know, I was acting out in some way, shape or form almost every day, and unable to go even even a couple of days, without using my drug of choice in some way, shape or form.   Rodney Olsen  You're mentioning that it's very common. Society would like to tell us that this means that it's normal. And of course, it becomes more and more normalized as we go on. And I think probably around the 80s, and especially into the 90s. And after that it became even more normal, where even in our television shows if there wasn't something pornographic in there. There was mention of it, there was a lot of mentioning just some fairly standard comedies on TV where they're constantly talking about use of pornography as if it's a very normal thing. Do you think that this has been one of those things that has supposedly normalized it in our society and stopped people from getting help when they need it?   Damon Covert  Absolutely. It's sort of a chicken versus the egg conundrum. Which came first? Is it art imitating life? Or is it life imitating art? Or are we now just sort of stuck in this cycle of life imitating art imitating life imitating art? And and I think that it definitely has been normalized. And we've seen that across the board. And unfortunately, it's it's a slow progression as well, we're seeing more and more deviation from what used to be normal, normal no longer means much anymore, because we have overuse that word. There's a commonality in terms of our internal struggles and the way we deal with things as human beings. In the United States. We have an estimate of about 30 million Americans who are struggling with some form of sexual addiction, you know, it's 68% of our population, I honestly do the numbers a lot higher, because, you know, it's a very touchy subject, nobody wants to really admit that they have the sort of problem. But I do think that absolutely the the media have created this the sort of standard that it's perfectly normal to, to view pornography and act out on a on a regular basis, you know, alone or with others. And that's just how it is. Somehow celibacy is fatal. You know, I've never met anyone who died of celibacy. And you won't, because, you know, when I was in college, I was taught in psychology class that, you know, sex was a basic human need, you know, you had food, water, shelter, and sex. And that's just not true. It's just not true. We have a sexual element to our personalities, God created us as sexual beings. But there is a stewardship that should go along with that I never really took seriously. I mean, I did initially because I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to be pure. I was anything but but you know, I, since I technically had not lost my virginity, yet, I still thought of myself as a pure person. And honestly, I was weird even back then for that, yes, I didn't grow up in the, in the, the new Victorian 1950s in America, where you didn't say the word pregnant on television, and people slept in separate beds on TV. You know, I grew up watching, I Love Lucy and Dick Van Dyke and all the reruns from, you know, the 50s, and so forth, where you didn't see, you know, husband and wife, even sleeping in the same bed now, you know, somebody goes out to a bar, and they meet somebody on a TV show, and the next scene, they're in bed together. So it is it is definitely a problem where this is normalized for our kids. This is normalized for young adults who are trying to discover, you know, what it means to be alive here in these modern times.   Rodney Olsen  And you're talking about the tricks that we play in our own minds. They're about thinking, Well, I haven't actually slept with anyone. So therefore, I'm still pure. I'm still sexually abstaining. And yet we see that there are these tricks that we play. And there, of course, was the famous one some years back where one of your presidents said I did not have sexual relations with that woman, because he decided what was going to be under that heading and what wasn't?   Damon Covert  Yeah, I had a feeling you were headed there Rodney. And I was I was going right there, too. I do. I do have to blame our one of our former presidents, but it's not just him. You know, it's it's been like that we've been trying to redefine things for so long. You know, if we don't like the way a word is used, we'll just redefine what it means. And we're seeing that more and more and more. And, and it's just to suit a certain narrative. So that we can feel like, you know, everything's okay. It's a control thing. I think we have people that are there. Basically, we're addicted to self, we want to feel better than we feel. If we don't feel accepted, if we don't feel loved. We're going to redefine what love means. And actually, I mean, that's the the the other point I'd like to make is that too often, I mean, we are trying to equate love and sex. Sex is sex and love is love. There's a certain movement where you know, you'll see this, the words Love is love, and that that's true. But sex is sex. You know, sex is not equal Love, love is greater than sex. Going back to the books, we read the shows, we watch the music, you know, the words love and sex are used interchangeably. And I think it's just because we have been for so long, we've been redefining what words mean, we're, we're redefining things where they now have no meaning. And we're seeing that go. In the United States where we're seeing that go to an extreme. We're just assigning the gender really isn't even a thing. And I know that's a very touchy topic. But, you know, we've we've gone and taken some steps here in the United States, and it still hasn't played out completely, but we are D gendering our legislation. And I do think too, and a lot of ways these gender issues, these are addictive thought patterns. You know, this is a way of exercising control a, here's how I want to be seen, here's how I want to be, you know, addressed. Here's how I want to physically dress, here's what I want my body to look like, and we just make these changes, whether it's, you know, some sort of implants to make us look more attractive. Or if it's, if it's just more radical modification of bodies. There's there's there's a whole rabbit trail of things that can come out of this, this idea that you know, our identity our sexual identity is paramount in our lives.   Rodney Olsen  I'm interested that you bring up the the whole point of the love is love campaign that we've seen, which is designed to say well, anything goes because They use love as as an attraction rather than defining it as that self giving love that that we might understand it to be. So when I say love is love, I have to agree. But first you've got to determine what the terms mean that you're actually talking about.   Damon Covert  The Greeks actually have as you probably know, there are at least six or seven different words for love. It's it's sort of like the American Eskimo or illusion, people's, you know, words for snow, they have all of these different types of snow. And they have a special word for each one. And, you know, in in the Greek language, you know, people are maybe familiar with the term agape love, which is sort of that all encompassing, accepting altruistic love, but then you know, you have philia, which is a love of friendship. And again, there, there's an interesting, we're not going to touch on a really touchy topic here. But when we talk about pedophilia, for example, and when you tell somebody you have a sexual addiction, I think their mind in a lot of cases wants to go to the worst possible place. They want to assume that you're some sort of pedophile that you know, you have a problem with sexual attraction to children. I praise God that my situation didn't get to that point. But it is a progression. So it is something to be very, very careful about because, again, the mind wants something different all the time. And the media will feed you whatever filth you want, they will provide that for you ad nauseum. I don't like the word pedophilia, only because I don't think that really fits the definition. a pedophile is a Laker of children. I think that we should if we're going to create a word for that that type of aberrant behavior or attitude, it should be a little more accurate. This is we're talking about erotic love, or physical love. You know, the Greek word arrows. You know, again, it's a way of softening that word. Well, I just like kids, you know, when when Penn State University in my home state of Pennsylvania, a number of years ago, there was the Jerry Sandusky scandal. And Jerry Sandusky, for example. He just said, Well, you know, I just I like kids. I love kids. But yeah, not in the right way. Jerry, I'm sorry, you know that there's, there's no point at which a child should be subjected to the sexual advances of an adult. And I think most people would agree with that. But we are gradually heading toward as you said, anything goes? The logic could be well, that's just my sexual expression. You don't have the right to tell me that that's not okay. I think right now, the majority of people would say, absolutely not, this is totally off limits, and never should be okay. But I think we are going to see a Fabian progression, start to blur those lines. And we do see that, where I'm where I'm broadcasting from right now, in the state of Maryland, we have a law that says if it is cultural, that a minor can be married to a much older adult with parental consent. So if it is cultural, you know, out of specific religious belief. And we have a 14 year old girl whose parents are okay with this 45 year old man being her husband, that's legal. And again, as you said, it's we're headed toward a situation where anything goes where there's this this concept of pansexuality, you know, anybody anything anytime, as so long as I can feel better about me. And that's really what addiction is all about.   Rodney Olsen  We were talking about the fact that you became hooked in your adolescence. But where did it go from there? Where did it become such a problem for you?   Damon Covert  You know, when you're young, and you're single, and you're unattached, and you think, well, this is no big deal. You know, first of all, sounds like all my friends are doing the same sorts of things. It's not a problem. But it becomes a problem when you're especially when you're impacting another person directly. Now, I think there's there's a concept in a lot of people's minds that pornography is a victimless crime. It's not. Because you know, we have we can demonstrate the direct connection between human trafficking and pornography, and the the so called sex trades and pornography. Where it became a problem for me was relationally. One of the one of the things about a sexual addict is typically when they will want to find someone who's willing to to be with them and kind of satisfy their physical needs or desires. A lot of times, immediately after that there's a rejection because of the shame But the addict feels, and they will often push that person away. And this would this was my problem, too, I was keeping people at arm's length, I was desperate and hungry for intimacy. And the physical intimacy did not provide what I wanted. I was not I do not feel necessarily accepted, simply because I was with someone physically. And so I kept trying to go back to that. And a lot of times that, you know, there is a cycle where you'll go to someone you know, is going to say yes to whatever it is you want to do. But immediately after, there's almost always a rejection, well, look at the time I've got to go. And, you know, we see that played out in the media, too, that there is there is some truth to it. I mean, that's the the really attractive thing about any lie is a grain of truth, that rings, you know, with, with other people in resonates with them and say, Oh, yeah, I've experienced that, where it really hit home for me, I wish I could say that this was not part of my story. Out of my addiction, and, and out of a lack of caution. One of the young ladies that I got involved with got pregnant. You know, we were panicked, we were scared, and we were young, it was a terrible time for either one of us to try to start a family. And because we didn't know what else to do, we had an abortion. I am every bit as responsible as the young lady involved, I still deal with the feelings about that. I mean, I think about that almost every day of my life. And it's easily by far the worst thing I ever did. And again, here, here's society, saying this really isn't a big deal. You know, we don't even call it a baby anymore. We're not we're not, you know, terminating a baby, it's a pregnancy, we're just terminating the pregnancy, the condition of being pregnant. That was my first real rock bottom moment, where I thought, Oh, my goodness, you know, this disease that I have, has driven me to the point where I have taken someone's life. In terms of the other ways it affected me. I carried it into my marriage, I you know, I eventually met a wonderful woman got married. And, you know, we were pretty happy at first or so I thought I still had my my secret sin, you know, ever since I bought a computer and was hooked up to the internet, I could access that. Anytime I had a little privacy. And that has, you know, I was going on for a long time. And, again, it wasn't a problem until it was a problem that kept fueling my my desire for that intimacy that I was searching for, which again, was never gonna be satisfied by pornography, or by physically acting out, you know, so this was going on, the entire time I was I was married, I would be okay, for a couple days, maybe, or I would try to quit. And maybe I'd make it a couple of weeks sort of white knuckling my way through recovery. And I wasn't involved in a recovery program at the time. So I was just doing it on my own, which by the way, never works. But eventually, because of the other stresses and strains on my marriage, I had emotional affairs, a couple of these in a short period of time. And then my wife found out she asked the right questions, and I was honest with her, and things hit the fan. And I really felt like, you know, my marriage was over, my family was over. And, you know, this was this was the next rock bottom for me. But by the grace of God, my wife took me back. And we've worked things out. And here we are, you know, 15 plus years on the far side of this stuff. Our marriage is not perfect, but it's good. And we work on it, you know, we actually have true intimacy, I can talk to my wife about some of my issues, and, and I have accountability and so forth.   Rodney Olsen  I'm interested, first of all about that term of an emotional affair, because this comes back to the whole idea that we can justify certain things Hey, look, I didn't go very far with it. It was just a sort of a connection for those that that perhaps don't understand what we're talking about. What would you classify as an emotional affair?   Damon Covert  I would say it's any relationship that you wouldn't want your spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend to know about. We have these relationships, whether it's someone at work, or someone we know socially, or an online relationship. So I think anything that you would want to keep a secret, when truth is our secrets keep us I was as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, as they say, I just always worried that one of those rocking chairs was going to come down on my tail. It's any kind of relationship that you would not want your significant other to know about. I termed these emotional affairs because they did stop short of sex. But there was a physical element. You know, there was a physical affection element to these relationships, but just because they didn't actually involve intercourse. That doesn't make it right. We have to put up boundaries in our lives to be safe. You know, because Because it's it's very easy to get into a conversation and feeling an emotional connection with someone. And again, if you are an addict mindset, you can find a little touchstone with just about anybody. But it's just very dangerous. And it doesn't end well Trust me.   Rodney Olsen  So you've come to your own rock bottom, what was it that turned things around for you? How did you start to claw your way back to where you should have been?   Damon Covert  I can't take a lot of credit for that. I think that in a lot of times, a lot of situations like this, we have to be broken, very, very few people will wake up and just change because, okay, you know, I realized I'm in a bad way. For me, and let me just speak from my experience, I had to have those Wake Up Calls, you know, that was I had to suffer the consequences. And again, this is something we like, we want to have our, you know, our cake and eat it too. We don't want to have the consequences of our actions. And so I had to feel that sting. And I had to realize that, you know, the pain of continuing in my current way of thinking, My current mode of operation is greater than the pain of dealing with my stuff. And so after the disclosure of these emotional affairs, and the fallout from all of that, there was a long road, the spiritual connection really was, was what started that for me, I began to realize that I could not help myself, I needed a power greater than myself. And until that point, the God of my understanding was me. Again, I grew up in a in a nominally Christian home, I had heard the name of Jesus, I knew, you know that God loved me. But I didn't really comprehend that. I didn't really get that until I realized, I have nowhere else to go, and God will still take me back. I was the Prodigal Son, you know, I had been given all these great things, and I squandered them. And yet, my father not only took me back, but ran out to meet me. That was the point for me where it turned around, I realized that I was isolated, and shows isolation, as a way of protecting myself and my lifestyle. But I got plugged in to a church. And in my case, I'm a musician. So plugging into our worship team was was a logical step. And I served in any capacity, I told the worship leader, I said, I'll do whatever you whatever you need, you know, I ran the soundboard. I wasn't on platform for a while. I just did whatever they needed. And that helped me and I met some real friends, I met people that I can actually talk to. And I remember very clearly a number of years later, you know, finally opening up to one of my buddies on the worship team and telling him I had a long way to go in terms of my sexual purity. I remember that night with crystal clarity. And that was the beginning for me. And then our church started a Celebrate Recovery ministry. I started attending that because I knew they needed a worship leader for their their program. And I thought I'd go help those people, only to find out I was those people. And I needed to be there for me. For the last several years I've been I've been involved in some capacity with Celebrate Recovery. And then I heard about another fellowship that was geared towards sexual addiction. I started attending that as another layer of accountability. And, you know, I found a sponsor and people that understood my specific issues, although I have found and what I love about CR is that it is basically everything, you know, I mean, you can you have shopaholics there, you have gambling addicts, you have people who struggle with drugs and alcohol, you have people who struggle with codependency and sexual issues, it's across the board, we can get hooked on anything, to try to medicate that emotional pain   Rodney Olsen  Before we talk about the this ministry that you've begun. And I want to find out about that, and how we can hook people into that. But I want to go back to some of the things that you were saying before you were talking about pornography and those that it affects. And it's not just those who are consuming pornography, but those who are involved in it in the first place. And I heard a statistic somewhere that it's around 70 to 80% of the people that we see in those images have been forced there that have been trafficked there in some way. And, and I'd suggest that their number would probably be even higher.   Damon Covert  I'm sure it is Rodney, and you cannot prove consentuality even if there's some affidavit on the website that says everybody's 18 is here of their own free will. There's just no way of knowing that for sure. I don't want to be part of that problem. I got better for myself, and you have to want to get better for yourself. You have to be, I guess more miserable. You know, again, realizing that that point of your own pain is greater to continue in what you're doing then to make a change and start owning up to your stuff but You know, socially and culturally, there there is a greater mandate to not be part of the problem. I was definitely part of the problem. And I think you're right, I think that the the numbers are probably much higher. I actually had the privilege and blessing of hearing a woman speak her name is harmony Grillo, she was pimped out as a dancer by one of her former boyfriends. But she got out of that got away from this guy and went to school. Now she's got a master's degree, I think she might have two master's degrees. And she actually has her own ministry in her own organization that helps women get out of the sex trades. Over 80% of people that are working in the adult industry, women in particular, say they would rather not be some of the like, they don't have any financial choice. This is just, you know, the only only marketable skill they think they have. They also get into these situations where it's it's a promise of some some degree of fame and notoriety. I actually sat on a plane with a young lady. I was visiting my brother in Atlanta. God has a sense of humor, he puts the sex addict next to the aspiring playboy model. This young lady was probably 20 college age. I just felt like God was saying, you know, you should talk to this young lady, but it was not in a creepy way. It was just Hey, let's there's something going on here. Let's find out what what her story is. And so I started talking to her and I found out she was actually flying to Atlanta to do a swimsuit, shoot. This is how it starts, it starts out as Okay, well, we're going to bring you in, we're going to take some some pictures of you and your bathing suit next to a car and the setting, I think for some sort of advertisement. But then hey, what if we did this? And what if we did that? And hey, if we gave you a little bit more money, or let's let's have a couple drinks, or have some some, you know, have some drugs and try something else. And people get duped into this fraud, coercion and force? And yes, absolutely. I think the numbers are shockingly and terribly high. And it needs to stop. But we have to stop the demand. And the demand is within each one of us on some level. Even if you're just buying a dimestore novel, book, something that has graphic descriptions of you know, these these sexual conquests with these guys in a loincloth and tearing some lady's dress on the cover. This is porn. This is pornography. I had a pastor friend, retired pastor challenged me said, Well, how do you define pornography? I said, Well, you know, I had to think about it, because the old definition was you knew it when you saw it. Unfortunately, we don't know it when we see it anymore. So I would say that we should redefine pornography. Anything that triggers you to sexual lust is pornographic. Whether it's a book, you're reading a magazine, you're looking at a video, you're watching the music, you're listening to the way someone is talking to you or the way you're talking to somebody else. All of these things can be pornographic, it does not have to be an image. It does not have to be a video, we have to stop that demand in our hearts. We have to stop looking to fill ourselves up by taking from somebody else   Rodney Olsen  And stop redefining things. Stop calling something like 'ethical porn', when there's no way that it can be. We've got to stop redefining it to make ourselves feel comfortable, I guess.   Damon Covert  Absolutely. Yeah. And actually, there's a there's a fantastic but disturbing TED Talk. Lady talks about the so called ethical porn and some of these issues. And that the titles, the most popular titles, and the things that people search for are absolutely shocking. It's you know, whether or not that's actually what's being depicted, or whether it's just this is a scene we're setting for you. It is very disturbing. But again, it's disturbing, because this is somehow in some way it is relating back to an unresolved trauma, or unresolved issues in your past that caused you to seek out certain things. It is common, but it's not normal. There are other ways to process this, instead of just giving in and saying, I'm going to look at this, that or the other thing, I'm going to seek this stuff out and as you pointed out, it's you don't have to seek it out. It will find you and your phone and your TV, your TV's watching you. I don't think people realize this. But you know, George Orwell was right. He just didn't get the timeline quite right. You know, we're well past 1984. But we have black screens hanging on our walls listening to us watching us. Your TV has a camera, your phone has a camera. My computer has a camera, my iPad has a camera. There are microphones and there are things going on where I will have a conversation with my wife about, I don't know, paper towels or something. Sure enough, the next time I'm on social media, I get an ad for paper towels. So if we are, again, sort of letting these sort of things come out of our mouths, certain words, certain phrases, things like that. Then our phone is feeding us what we want. AI is behind all of that stuff, you can have an argument with your spouse, or your your boyfriend or your girlfriend, and it, you know, he may not even be specific to sex. But now, big brother knows your relationships a little rocky, Hey, remember this old girlfriend, you know, remember this thing that maybe you haven't seen this before? You know, take a look at this. And unfortunately, it's meant to divide. It's meant to undermine the the safety and security of our relationships and our families.   Rodney Olsen  It takes a lot of courage to come out to the world and say, this is where I was, these are the issues that I faced. But you've gone beyond that. And you've started up an opportunity for others who are caught in these addictions, to actually make a change in their own lives. Tell me about that.   Damon Covert  This actually was born out of my own recovery. And again, I'll give Celebrate Recovery, a little plug here, because that was that those were the rooms that I started to get well in and continue to work with other men and women toward getting better. And actually, the ministry is called principle eight. And it is based on the eighth principle of Celebrate Recovery, which mimics the 12 step of you know, and any other a program, whether it's, you know, Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous or Overeaters Anonymous or what have you. And that is to share the message, I consider myself a hope dealer. For me, Jesus is the hope, but I want to make the introduction, I used to be a certain way, and now I'm not. And the difference for me was my higher power, the highest power that I can can think of, and that's, that's Jesus Christ. So I want to share that message. But a lot of people are skeptical of the church, they've been hurt by the church, they've been hurt by somebody in the church, you know, they think of religion versus relationship with God. And, you know, maybe they grew up in a certain type of Christian church or, or they just have certain baggage attached with the way someone treated them. So they won't necessarily come to a church, they won't necessarily come to a recovery meeting that's held in the church. I know when I was in my active addiction, I thought, Man, I'm going to walk through the the threshold of that church and I'm going to burst into flames, God is going to smite me right there, I thought I had to get cleaned up. So I was good enough to present to God. And that's not the case. God says, Come to me, I will get you cleaned up. I want to be able to take this message out to college campuses, where we have hookup and date rape culture, and wild promiscuity. I want to take this into jails where you know, not everybody is there for a sexual offense. But there There certainly is a great deal of difficulty behind bars, and certainly, people medicating their emotional pain, sexually speaking, I think we need to start talking about this in church, you know, some pastors are brave enough to actually bring these things up. But it's usually one Sunday, a month, or maybe an occasional allusion to pornography or something like that. I'm actually really proud of my home church pastor, because he does bring this up on a regular basis. And we're very recovery friendly. Because I think recovery is God's plan. It's the same sort of thing. Look, you can't do this, I can turn it over, let's work on this together and get better. But I want to be able to take this message out to coffee houses, campgrounds, basically any place where I can gently ambush somebody with a message. And I do that through music, I write original recovery based and faith based songs. And somewhere in that language, maybe something's going to resonate with somebody, and they may not even fully understand why. But it's an introduction to a conversation. And a little explanation, then after the fact, might might help them, you know, want to seek out certain resources. And we're developing our own curriculum. But we also recognize that there's a lot of great work that's already been done. And we can refer people out to different organizations and different resources to help them on their journey.   Rodney Olsen  I'm sure there are some people who would feel that you're just another one of those Christians trying to tell others how to live. But in the meantime, I'm sure that there are so many people that you come into contact with who are saying, this is something that I need, I need this to break free from what is holding me back, as you said before, it started out as me wanting control. And now this thing controls me. I want out. So there must be a number of people that you've met with that are just so thankful that you were there for them.   Damon Covert  Well, it is a blessing to hear that somehow your story is helping somebody else. Because I have had people come up and say, You told my story or at least a part of and we say in the rooms of recovery, that if you you know come here long enough and you listen to enough testimonies, eventually you're going to hear your story, or at least something very much like it. You know, there is that again. It may Be not normal, but there is a commonality that exists. And, you know, just hearing that and knowing that you are not the only person who is struggling with this right now, you know, when we think about pornography, even in terms of whether it's a gender specific problem, it's not. It is a male and female problem. Sometimes it manifests in different ways, with men and women, but it is a it is a human problem. And acknowledging our commonality, our common struggles are common, you know, we suffer no temptation, except that which is common demand, it says right in the Scripture, and that is the truth that we do have these issues. We don't know how to solve them. But yes, talking to people and saying, Man, I really appreciate that you actually came out. And I mean, I started out by sharing a very, very detailed testimony in front of 150 strangers at a men's conference at my church, and I was terrified. But I was met with acceptance and gratitude. And it was a beautiful thing, to be able to share these deep, dark secrets and not be kept by them anymore. It was like, like nothing else, you know, it's just being accepted for who I was. And that's what that's what I was shown the love of God that way. You know what I want to show the love of God other people that way, regardless of what you done, no matter how far down that that spectrum, you slid. And again, it's not about comparison, everybody's rock bottom is going to be a little different. But boy, I would have loved a wake up call earlier, the alarm was going off, I just, I just kept hitting snooze, I wasn't listening,   Rodney Olsen  I know that you've come to that point where you can share what you've been through. But I'm sure that there are people listening right now who say, Look, I'm not at that point, I need to reach out. But this needs to remain something private, until I'm ready to share it is there hope for people like that,   Damon Covert  I wouldn't just encourage them to find one safe person that they can talk to. And that can be difficult. You know, it might not be your pastor, it might not be. It's probably not your spouse or your partner right now. Because again, they they are on the receiving end of this. And we have to be very sensitive that we have heard other people that there is there is absolutely hope. There are lots of great programs, many of them are geared toward anonymity, it is just a firm understanding and requirement when you walk through the door. The people you see the things that you hear, they stay in that room. And so you know, there, there are safe places. But even your most trusted friend might not be the best person because it might be your so called drinking buddy that you always, you know, hung around with and gotten into trouble with. So you need to find someone who looks like they have what you've got and then spend some time with that person, you know, find out if they're they're the real deal. Do they really walk the walk? Or are they just another, you know, person dressing up and shining up for Sunday.   Rodney Olsen  If people want to find out a little bit more about principle eight ministries or to contact you where's the best place to find you?   Damon Covert  Start with our website. It's www.principal8ministries.org. There are some resources there to help you get started on your recovery journey. Really, the vision for the ministry is to be able to go wherever God calls and whatever way God provides. So it is a vision driven, mobile, global multimedia ministry. And we exist to engage, encourage, equip, and empower people who are struggling with or affected by sexual addiction. That's the 15 second elevator speech for you right there. So yeah, check out www.principal8ministries.org And you can find out more about what we do and how we do it.   Rodney Olsen  And I'll put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net, so that you'll be able to find the details there. But Damon, it's been great talking to you. We've covered a lot of ground. I want to thank you for your openness, for your honesty in sharing about this issue. And I'm hoping that it's going to bring a lot of help, and a lot of healing to some of our listeners today. Thank you for your time on Bleeding Daylight.   Damon Covert  Amen, Rodney. Thank you so much. It's been a blessing.   Emily Olsen  Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight. Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others. For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net  

Samantha Jackel was raised in an Australian country town, the fourth child to alcoholic parents. Instead of finding love at home she encountered manipulation and abuse. She suffered a traumatic and abusive childhood, but even in the midst of the trauma, there were moments that held out a hope for the future. Her autobiography, My Purple Pants, tells about her road to transformation. In 2014, she was named as Mother of the Year in her home state of Victoria.   http://mypurplepants.com/ http://mypurplepants.com/product/book/ https://www.facebook.com/mypurplepants    (This transcript is intended as a guide only. It may not be 100% correct.)   Emily Olsen  Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.   Rodney Olsen  Thanks for listening. You can follow Bleeding Daylight and connect to our social media channels by following the links at bleedingdaylight.net Please share Bleeding Daylight episodes and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts.   Today’s guest was raised in a country town, the fourth child to alcoholic parents. Instead of finding love at home she encountered manipulation and abuse. Today we’ll hear her story of finding hope and healing.   Samantha Jackel suffered a traumatic and abusive childhood, but even in the midst of the trauma, there were moments that held out a hope for the future. Her autobiography, My Purple Pants, tells about her road to transformation. In 2014, she was named as Mother of the Year in her home state of Victoria in Australia. It's a real honor to have her join me on Bleeding Daylight. Samantha, thank you so much for your time.   Samantha Jackel  It's a pleasure, Rodney, thanks for having me.   Rodney Olsen  Let's go back to your earliest memories. Tell me about your very early family life.   Samantha Jackel  Look, my earliest memories would be of my mother and father arguing constantly and hiding in a bedroom with my hands over my head trying to drown out the noise and escape to another place and I would have been around four when I think that's around that age, when I had those experiences of just wanting to escape my screaming mom and dad, my father was an alcoholic. So he would often come home in a very aggressive, abusive state. And because I was the youngest of my siblings, I was home with my mom. And I would watch them interact. And even though I was so little, I still felt this incredible fear as my father would enter the house. So they would be my very first memories of my childhood.   Rodney Olsen  And who made up your family at that stage.   Samantha Jackel  Yeah, so I have a brother and two other sisters, and there was quite a large gap. So my brother is 10 years older than me. And then my two sisters are eight and six years older than me. And I was kind of conceived because my mother believed that if she had another child, and if it was a boy, that that little boy would save the marriage that was falling apart. And I think from the day I was born, mum rejected me. She really wanted a boy and she made that known to me, right throughout my life, that if I was a boy, I was I would have saved the marriage that her life would have been different.   Rodney Olsen  That's a really hard burden to carry for a young child. And what was the other siblings? Like at this stage? How would they coping with the things that were going on in the family,   Samantha Jackel  My brother moved out very young, and my other two sisters, they hung around for as long as they had to, and then they moved out as well. I mean, it was an uncomfortable setting. My mum did leave my father when I was quite young. So when I was around six, she moved us from a country town on one side of Victoria to the other side of Victoria to another country town, and just kind of moved straight in with another guy and my oldest siblings found that very difficult because it was mashing two families together. And it certainly wasn't The Brady Bunch or what you imagine, you know, from, from television that coming together, they the two families did not mesh together very well. So my siblings moved out of home as soon as they could.   Rodney Olsen  And your stepfather? What was he like?   Samantha Jackel  Yeah, he was a lovely man, a gentlemen, not really prepared for what he was going to be taking on with, you know, with my family. But I have amazing memories of him fond memories of my stepfather. He was always incredibly kind to me very loving, and very accepting of me. Unfortunately, my mother as, as they spent more and more time together, my mother turned to alcohol because she had this void in her life. So my father, my stepfather, really tried to avoid her sorry, he would go to bed very early before she started ranting and would be out of the house very early in the mornings. And I guess at that point, the rants were left to me to handle.   Rodney Olsen  And at this stage, you're seeing that relationships between adults are always fractured, which is not a great base to build from, is it?   Samantha Jackel  No. And absolutely, you know, I did have a friend that I used to go to her house all the time, a Christian friend from school, and I would notice her parents not arguing or yelling, it was kind of a really weird space to be in to see her parents interacting differently. And it felt good. So when I would go home, and what my norm was, you know, I started as a kid wondering, you know, Why are my parents like this? And why is her parents like that? and wanting more and more in my own heart, my parents to be more like her parents.   Rodney Olsen  You mentioned that right from the time that you were born because you weren't a boy. There was this resentment towards you. How did that play out in the subsequent years?   Samantha Jackel  I think it started off at a very young age. My mom was a very manipulative lady, and she had manipulated the situation. So I learned much later on in life that she called me Samantha because my father couldn't pronounce the word. He would say 'Samanfa', he couldn't get the 'th' and so he actually shortened my name to Sarman, s a m a n, because he couldn't get that 'th' out. But I was told that it was because he was in denial that I was a girl. And he couldn't bring himself to acknowledging that I was a girl. So he would call me Saman. And so from a very young age, you know, my mom used the fact that I was a girl to manipulate me to emotionally blackmail me, you know, she would say, you know, if you're a boy, your father would have loved us more, and you want to save the marriage. And I just grew up with that. So I actually found that it was much later in life, like in my 20s, that I realized that it wasn't my fault that that marriage broke down. My brother who was a I grew up believing that I destroyed the marriage because I wasn't a boy. And because she had so many webs of manipulation and deception in our family. They all believed her too. So it wasn't until we were in our 20s, when we sat down and talk that we realize that what had been said and how stupid it was, you know, our eyes were kind of open, hang on, you know, a child's not going to destroy the marriage. Now, just because you were a girl, that it was already destroyed. There was already problems that wasn't you that caused the problems.   Rodney Olsen  And again, we see this pattern so often in in all sorts of abuse, whether it be emotional abuse, or physical abuse, or whatever, that the victim is often blamed. And we see there's blame for something that the victim has no control over, you had no control over. Whether you would be born as a boy or a girl. And yet you're being blamed for that. This seems to be the way of manipulation of so many abusers.   Samantha Jackel  That's right. And then what happens is, you become an incredibly guilty, so then you you are constantly working out of this place of guilt. So I became an incredible people pleaser, I would do anything my mother asked and protect her because I felt so guilty that I had destroyed her life, my mom and then would take it to a new level. And so I you know, I would do anything at all to protect her to look after her lie, I would tell her stories. That emotional abuse then with my mother turned into a sexual abuse, which we don't often hear about, but it is actually way more common than we know. And then outworked in that. And again, I would protect my mom, you know that she was a good mom that she loved me that she showed me love. Even though I ruined her marriage, she still loved me. And she still was taking care of me. And I didn't deserve that, that he she was giving me everything she had, even though I was the worst child in the world. And I'm talking about an eight year old, you know, a seven year old processing this and thinking through it and really truly believing that my place in my life was to make my mum feel better.   Rodney Olsen  At what age did this sexual abuse from your mother begin?   Samantha Jackel  I'm not really sure when it began, and I'm not really sure the exact time it finished, I can just remember, it didn't happen anymore. And that would have been probably around the age of early teens where I suddenly realized our mum isn't asking me to come into her bedroom at night, or I'm not getting undressed in front of her. But I actually can't pinpoint exactly when I just know it kind of disappeared, because you got to understand, in some ways that was my normal. The only time I thought it was abnormal is when I would go to my friend's house and her parents, I would say to her, do you sleep with your mom? And she would be like, no, there would be times I think I'll wonder why she doesn't. But again, my mother would lay it on really heavy on me the fact that, you know, I owed her my life because I destroyed her marriage and I had destroyed her life by being a female. So, you know, I needed to look after her and she would manipulate me you know, she would keep me up late at night and say, you'll be the one that wheels me off the cliff. When I get old. You'll be the one that destroys my life. You're the one that's gonna throw me in the home and, and throw away the key and as a little kid, you know, I'd be there begging her No, mom, I'd never do that for you. I love you. I know that I hurt you. You know, when I was born, I hurt you and I am not a boy. But I tried to be a boy and and I was you know as quite a tomboy or tried to be to place her.   Rodney Olsen  I mentioned in the introduction that even during this traumatic childhood, there were moments that held hope out to you. Maybe you can tell me about one or two of those instances where you start to see a glimmer of hope and obviously one of them was visiting your friend and noticing that. Uh huh. There is something that's different, but I know that there were a couple of others.   Samantha Jackel  My friend Heidi, she was incredible and her family and they really didn't know what was going on in my home. But they introduced me to church and to God and to a whole different world. So on Sunday, they would drive down, we lived in a housing complex, it was full of a lot of domestic violence. And so it was kind of brave for them to come down sometimes into our area that would come down or pick me up and take me off to church or Sunday school, and then they would take me off to youth group when I got older. And so I knew there was a god. And I knew there was a love out there that came from God. And I had accepted Jesus, you know, God showed up in some incredible ways for me, even though it didn't take away from the abuse. And I think the time that stands out, in my mind the most words when I was 13, and, and life was really, really bad at this point, when mom was keeping me up to midnight, shouting at me and making me choose between her and my stepfather. And if I didn't choose the right one, she was going to commit suicide and, and so one day, I was just desperate. And I had saved up some money. And I had ridden my bike down the street and try it on these beautiful pair of pants, and they were purple. And I thought to myself, I'm going to buy them which normally I'd give it any money I had to my mother. So I felt very guilty that I was going to spend it on myself. And I tried these pants on and they were way more than my $6. So I lay by them thinking that maybe I'd be able to get the money or perhaps mum would do something and buy them for me and I rode my bike home. And our street, like I said, was full of domestic violence. So there was always yelling or cars burning off, there's always noise in our street. And this day, I was out the back of our yard swinging on a swing and the door was banged on. And my mom screamed at me, you know, to get the door. So I ran through the house to the front door, and no one was there. And the street was dead quiet. There was not a car inside, there was no kids playing there was no parents yelling, it was just dead quiet. I looked down. And right there was this paper bag, and on it had my name and I opened it up. And there was the pair of purple pants I had tried on in the morning. And I just remember feeling this incredible, like love is something I can't describe or articulate. I've jumped on my bike and I ride straight back down to the store. And I asked the woman you know, can you tell me? I came in I lay by these? Can you tell me who picked them up? And she looked at me and she said you did you came back in and pick them up? And I said No, I didn't. And she said, Yes, she did. And I walked out of there, not understanding what had happened. But understanding that there must be a God that loved me so so much that he would give me a pair of purple pants. And then many years later, I went back and I visited all those church friends. And I asked them, did you ever buy me these pants or not one of them did, I still to this day have no idea who paid for those pads. So if it was an angel that was like, look like me, that I know at that specific time that just showed me this incredible love of a father for a daughter of this God that was so big, and it didn't take away from the abuse, and the abuse didn't just disappear, but it gave me this sense that someone loved me so deeply. Something loved me so deeply. Why more deeply than my mother did. And my stepfather. At that stage.   Rodney Olsen  You mentioned that your siblings moved away from home as soon as they could. When did that start to happen for you? When did you start to look towards leaving that home?   Samantha Jackel  I was the opposite. I didn't want to leave the home because I thought that if I left the home, what right? Would I have to leave home? What right? Would I have to leave my mother? I owed her my life. So why would I leave her? You know, that would be incredibly selfish. And it wasn't until I was 18. And I had gone off to a three month Bible course. And through that time mom would constantly write me letters and tell me what a dreadful child I was because I had left her and how dare I do this. And I had been supported by a pastor to go out and do that three month course, because he knew something wasn't right at home. And I got back from that course and moved back in with my mom and it got really chaotic. And that pastor and his wife saw that how chaotic it was and often needed move in with them. And I said yes. And then I'd say no. And then I'd say yes and would plan a date and I would tell my mom, and then she would tell me you know that she was going to kill herself. She was going to I now have a half sister. She was going to kill my half sister. She was going to kill my stepfather if I moved out. So I'd ring the pastor and say I can't move in I'd make up all kinds of excuses. And then one day, it got to a point where I ran around to their home, my pastor and his wife in tears, banged on their door and told them that I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't live with her. And they basically gave me an ultimatum and said, you know, if you don't move in on Monday, the offer's off the table, we're not going to offer our home to you. So you either have to move in, or you're not. And that was probably the hardest thing I've ever heard the toughest love I've ever been shine. But it put me in a position where I had to make that decision. And I did on that Monday, I packed up my room or my what I had, I only had a few clothes. And I moved in with my pastor and his wife. It was amazing. You know, it was hard. My mother actually then would ring him with a pastor and abuse him. And he took a lot that family took out a lot taking me in. But it was a step to freedom. It was a step getting out of her shadow, it was a step from getting out of her control,   Rodney Olsen  You've moved from this abusive situation into a much more loving situation and we'd like to think that everything just goes in the right direction but it's not always the way. What happened at that point.   Samantha Jackel  Look, I think I moved to Melbourne, I moved out of that country town and as far away as I could from my mother, I moved in with another family up here I attended a church in the inner city of Prahran. Got involved in church met a guy in church, fell in love. Now I had promised myself as a young child that anyone I kissed I was going to marry because I felt like that was the only sacred part of my body was my lips. That's the problem is I still haven't dealt with anything from my past, I've just now changed, I basically taken on a whole new personality. No one knew where I came from, never talked about my past, I was just a country girl probably lied a little bit about where I came from a rich family in the country or something like that, to different people. And I was never, I never lied to hurt them, but to cover up my past. So I was just so devastated and embarrassed. I didn't want anyone to know what it looked like. Eventually, that guy that I was dating, asked me to marry him. And I said yes. And he did Kiss me. And then as our engagement progressed, he started seeing cracks in my personality. And he wanted to meet my folks. And I was, I did not want him to meet my family. He was a bit confused about that. And while he did meet my mom, and it was a horrendous kind of introduction. She wasn't on her best behavior at all. And I remember traveling from the country back to Melbourne with him in silence, not knowing what to say to him. And from that point, our relationship started to deteriorate. And he didn't know why. And he tried everything he could. So he called off the engagement and said, Sam, you know, I don't think we can get married, you know, I don't think I can marry you. And he was from a broken family. So he did not want to enter into another, you know, into a marriage that could possibly break. He wanted it to be forever. So we kind of broke off her engagement stayed friends, and eventually, our friendship turned into a sexual relationship just once. And we told our leadership, and after that I actually told him that I was pregnant, he decided he would marry me. And then three weeks before our wedding day, I told him I miscarried our baby. And he still felt that he needed to honor his promise to marry me. And so we got married three months after I told him I was pregnant,   Rodney Olsen  You've learned from your mom that you need to carry some sort of facade so that people will like you and you carry this now into a marriage relationship. This must be an incredible burden that you're continuing to carry.   Samantha Jackel  Yeah. And I had learned from my mom the very art of manipulating and lying, I solely believe she didn't necessarily want to hurt anyone. But she didn't know how to do life herself. And I had learned the same art how to manipulate, not to hurt anyone else. But to save myself to put up a good front for myself. And so to carry that into a marriage, that was how, you know, I would sit up to early hours of the morning screaming at Peter telling him all kinds of things running out of the house at you know, midnight 2am and not coming back to early hours and then apologizing and then would go through it the next night. He didn't know what was going on. You know, he had no idea how to handle me at times he thought he was going to have to get me assessed because he just didn't know what to do with me and and then I realized that perhaps if I could tell him the truth of our marriage, that would make things better. So, I was about nine months in and I rang our leadership of the church and said, I needed to talk to them and then rang Peter and said, Would you meet with me to talk with the leadership of our church, and he didn't know why. And he thought it was another game I was playing. And so we met with our leadership, I met with our leadership of our church first, and I said to them, I actually was never pregnant. And I would never miscarried a baby, it was a lie. And they were stunned, as you could imagine. And then Peter came in. And I then told him the same Peter, I was never pregnant. I never miscarried your baby, I just wanted you to marry me, he literally just got up in that meeting, and stormed straight out the door. And I really didn't see him and for another nine months, and the church didn't know what to do with me, you know, it was 1988, that he they have a young girl like 21 year old now, that had lied not only to her husband, but to the whole entire church, you know, that she lied, that she was pregnant, and then that she had miscarried, they didn't know what to do with me. So they suggested that I go and visit another church, and maybe get another group of friends and leave Peter at the church to heal. And so that's basically what happened. And I found myself very alone in our apartment, not knowing what to do with nobody.   Rodney Olsen  And at the same time, that being able to tell the truth was the right thing to do. You've grown up not telling the truth, and you've been able to protect yourself. And suddenly, when you tell the truth, the world starts to collapse around you, you must have started to have doubts about this truth telling thing.   Samantha Jackel  It was so confusing, I didn't understand. And I didn't understand what the big deal was, you know, I really had no concept, that Peter was hurt, like, why are you hurt? Like, I don't understand why this hurt you. I had no concept of all how big the lie was, and what the consequences of that lie was going to be. If I had even thought that he was gonna leave me, I would not have told him, You know, I would probably have carried it on. But in the same, it was kind of this feeling that now that I had told the truth, you know, instead of him riding along on a white horse to save me, not only did he desert me, but the whole church deserted me and I couldn't run home. I was could never tell my mother that my marriage had failed. So I was stuck, stuck by myself to try to work it out.   Rodney Olsen  So you starting to repeat patterns that happened right from your early childhood, those early childhood memories were of all those arguments, and then your dad eventually leaving, and you're seeing the whole pattern play out over again. What was that doing to you internally,   Samantha Jackel  I didn't see the pattern was only many years later, I saw that pattern. In fact, I would sit out as nothing like my mother Back then, I would have said that my allies are very different. I was in complete denial that I was anything like her. But I think more I was just in this incredible pain. And it was a pain I'd never felt. See through my childhood, everything seemed normal, you know, even though I'd be in anguish at night, and I'd climb into bed crying and sobbing because of what mum was doing, or I would beat myself up. Because what she was doing, it was a pain that I didn't understand what this pain was different. It was like, here, I was thinking that I had a church family and that life was different. And suddenly I lost everything. And I was alone. I always had my mum there when I was a kid. So the pain was very different. This was a real isolation, just a yearning to be accepted and loved. And realizing that I probably was never going to be accepted or loved in this world.   Rodney Olsen  How did things start to turn around for you at that point? Okay,   Samantha Jackel  it took a long time. I remember getting a call from Peter and him saying he wanted to come and see me and we made a time. And he came around and I thought he was actually going to hit me. I thought he's just gonna come in and he's gonna just beat me up. I hadn't seen him. I hadn't spoken to him. Now, in all of this, his father was this incredibly gentle man. And every week his father would put a check under the door of our flat for me to be able to pay my bills, because Peter had just wiped his hands clean of me. I just thought he's found out maybe that he's dad's been supporting me and he's going to go through the roof. What is he going to say? And he came back and he knocked on the door and I had a girl living with me at the time and he said, You need to kick her out. And I'm moving back in. I don't know what's going to happen. But the Lord has spoken to me and he had had this conversation with a leader base. The leader said You have no right to divorce Sam. And he didn't like that at the time. But then he was led to Joshua. And in Joshua, it talks about Joshua making a treaty with the Gibeonites under deception. And the Lord made Joshua honor that. And so Peter was like, okay, Lord, I'll honor my vow to Sam, but I don't know what that's gonna look like. So I really don't love her. He moved back into our unit and slept in the spare bedroom, and I slept in the main room, we lived together. And that's really what it was, was living together, there was no communication between us, I was holding down a part time job was just three hours a day, I'd get home from that. And I would just go ballistic and him and scream at him and tell him, you know, he was useless. And I didn't love him being in the house, I hated him being in the house, and he was invading my privacy. And one day, I got home from work. And I just remember feeling this tense, anger towards him, like I could kill him. And I had shaking hands, and they were hot. And I thought I could just kill this guy, and walking into his bedroom. And he was praying for me. And I thought that was just ludicrous. Like, why would you be praying for me, and just going off at him walking out of his room and slamming the door shut and going into the kitchen. And Peter came in. And he had had just enough, he had a gut full like, of my slinging matches with him. And he just came in. And he's, he says, and he writes is in my book, that all he could think of is rebuking me in Jesus name, because he didn't know what else to do. So he just came into the kitchen I was facing the other way. So it was to my back. And he said, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. And I remember at that point, feeling like something was gonna burst out of me. And I remember turning around in this incredible voice, I could hear the voice but not control and tell him in not so many kind words where to go. And that was it for him. He said, there was this relief that came over him, because he suddenly realized there's a spiritual element to what's going on here. And that I can deal with. And from there, we kind of sat down and talk that we come down, he sat down and chatted to me and said, Sam, I actually think that you need deliverance, I think that you have some really deep wounds, and the enemy has come in and taken advantage of those deep wounds. And I think that's what the problem here is. And I still hadn't shared with him about what happened in my childhood. So he was still completely in the dark about my mom and my dad, other than he had met them and thought they were weird. But other than that, he didn't really understand the depth of the abuse.   Rodney Olsen  So going from something that seemed to be just following a pattern that came out of your family of origin. Even though Peter didn't know about this stage, he realized that there was something going on there from this weird family that he had made. Yeah, to now realizing that there's something deeper going on, there's something spiritual going on. How quickly Did you accept what he was saying? Or were you still saying no, no, I'm okay.   Samantha Jackel  Look, I listened to him. And it took a little while for me to understand what he was saying. And he asked me some questions. He said, Sam, have you ever been abused? All through my childhood? I was asked the same question that they always targeted my stepfather. Does your stepfather touch you in inappropriate ways? You know, and I would always defend in a way, you know, I love the guy, he would never do that. But no one ever asked about mom. So there was no questions about mom, so I never had to talk about it with Peter. When he started asking me, I said, well known, you know, my stepfather didn't harm me at all, or my stepbrothers nor my siblings never did. And he said, Have you ever been abused? Has anyone touched you in appropriately and now we had a babysitter, a girl babysitter that did it sexually abused me as well. And so I told him about that. And then from that, I started telling him about what would go on in the bedroom with my mom, you know, that started snowballing. And I'd tell him about all of the things that happened. It was like I had permission to talk. And I guess at that very point, because he had come back, I I trusted him enough that he wasn't going to leave again, that was at this feeling that he wasn't going to just run out on me again. And I'm not sure if that was just God, covering me for that moment. So I just I started telling him things that had to happen. And one of the things that happened was when I was young, I had so much pain in my heart that I remember screaming out at the top of my voice, God, if you love me, and if you get me out of this situation, I'm going to follow you for the rest of my life, Satan or the devil, if you get me out of this situation, then I will commit my whole entire life to you. I don't care who gets me out of this situation, just get me out. So I was telling Peter that and he says, he's just looking at me wide eyed and saying, Sam, we need to pray for you. We need, you need to pray for you, you know, you need to start learning scripture. And so he started making me memorize scripture. And it was so hard, you know, it was like falling on deaf ears. I just couldn't remember I'd read it. And then I'd forget it. Luke 10:19. You know, I was trying to where it says that I have authority to walk on snakes and, and I'd be trying to read it, and it would just fall apart. And I'd be like, what does that scripture say again, and he would be like, you just read it. And I'd be like, I don't know what it said. And so he realized, you know that there was a lot at play here. So we worked for around three weeks, training me up and getting me to learn scripture, understand scripture, understand God more, understand what Jesus actually did for me on the cross. And then from there, he's began to pray for me.   Rodney Olsen  And I guess at this stage, a burden is starting to lift even though you're not quite there, you're finally able to tell the truth. And finally telling the truth is actually having a more positive effect. What was the result of that praying for you? How did that begin to turn things around,   Samantha Jackel  Look it completely turned things around. But it wasn't a one prayer one day, you know, it wasn't like I got a prayer. And then life was beautiful again. But Peter did pray when over three days, and I was delivered of many different spirits, actually, that had permission to come into my life that I had allowed to enter in. And I knew I had through different ways of different prayers, or asking the enemy to help me at different times. So we went through that, and after that, I actually felt empty. I felt like I had to articulate but it was like I had been completely cleaned out. And suddenly, I didn't even know who I was. All the games had played for the entire time of my life. 22. Now I am, I suddenly had no idea who I was, I didn't know what I liked what I didn't like what I thought was humorous, what I didn't think was humorous, how to love. And so after that period of prayer, I went into counseling, it was through those many, many counseling sessions that went on for a few years of rebuilding and understanding who I was, and who I was in God, it was a Christian counselor, a beautiful, beautiful, older lady. She just walked me through, you know, my childhood, what happened, and it was an incredible place to feel safe, to be able to tell her everything. And to have her just gently work me through that and allow me to process what was going on, but also enable me to be in a safe place to be who God created me to be, you know, to understand who I was, you know, what I did enjoy what I did think was funny, and what I didn't think was funny, or, you know, even the point of how I spoke, I changed with whatever my mother wanted me to change. So she wanted me to be a boy than I put on a tom boy voice, you know, and I would play the game really well with her. So it was undoing all of those years of training as a kid, and discovering who I was, while Peter was patiently waiting, and watching and walking with me through that.   Rodney Olsen  Now someone listening might think, well, that's great. This counseling has helped you to break old habits, and break old patterns, and to start to build up new patterns. But there is something deeper in that isn't there. There's something as you mentioned, that he discovered that there's something spiritual going on, that needed to happen spiritually, rather than just resetting patterns.   Samantha Jackel  The first thing we had to deal with was the spiritual stuff, which was deliverance, I had deliverance. So I had to be set free of all kinds of things, you know, of guilt, a spirit of guilt, I had all these different things that I needed to deal with. And then I had to also release forgiveness to people. And I think it was until I started to realize that Jesus had forgiven me by going to the cross that I had to then also forgive those others. And that was a real tough one, you know. I mean, the deliverance in itself was amazing because I had a spirit of hatred and that Spirit had outworked itself, by me self harming. I didn't necessarily hate other people, but I hated myself. And so I would begin to self harm and Peter would come home sometimes and find me in a cupboard with a black eye or he might find my body scratched up and he didn't understand what was going on at the time. Until he began to pray. And he realized, and when he started scratching around that I had this spirit of self hatred that had come in. And it was something I could never control, I would try to control and maybe some of your listeners have felt this way you, you feel like you've want to get it under control, but it's out of your control, you're unable not to do it. And for me, that was a spirit. And once that left, I was set free, and suddenly I had control of my actions. And suddenly, I didn't want to actually hurt myself, then the Lord then began to come into that area and heal it. And suddenly, I could actually see myself in a new light and begin to love who God had created.   Rodney Olsen  It's one thing to learn how to forgive others as as you did. I'm wondering about accepting that forgiveness, because you mentioned that you didn't even understand way back when you had told that lie about being pregnant. You didn't even understand how that could have hurt Peter. And yet, here he is, he's he's forgiving you for that and helping you to find new life. What was it like for that side of forgiveness for you?   Samantha Jackel  It was hard to accept that, that forgiveness, because of the guilt, you know, you felt guilty that you had done that to someone when your eyes when my eyes were open, when the blinders came off, I suddenly realized all i devastated you, you know, I, I gutted. And it took me a long time to actually come to a place of being able to accept His forgiveness. And again, the more I understood, Jesus, and his forgiveness for me was the more I could then accept forgiveness, and forgive myself, I think, often we don't forgive ourselves for the things we do now there are consequences to our sin or the consequences to the things we do wrong. And there are consequences to what I did wrong. No, I did have to go back and apologize to the leaders of the church and, and I had to live with the fact that some people for many years didn't trust me, you know, I didn't have any runs on the board. And so it took a while for people to trust me, that was just the consequences of my sin. But the Lord renewed me and I could live with those consequences. And I didn't blame myself because of that forgiveness that I had from, you know, it sounds cliche, but I really felt the forgiveness of Christ. And out of that I could forgive others. But I could also receive forgiveness, where I didn't come under that guilt and shame of what I did   Rodney Olsen  You've forgiven a lot of people during this time but that doesn't always mean that things are smoothed over or that things go well, what was your relationship like with your mother after that time of forgiveness?   Samantha Jackel  I truly thought I forgive my mom. And she had now started to show signs of alcohol induced dementia. You know, I truly thought that I was at this place of being able to love my mother, and I have forgiven her for what she had done to me. And then just one day, I remember sitting beside my mom, and I felt the Holy Spirit, I felt this, this word in my mind, share Jesus with your mom. I then just felt this anger, like and I'll be honest, I thought she deserves to burn in hell. I had to leave that leave her. And I went home and it just kept going over, you know, you're meant to love her. But I want her to burn in hell, I don't want it to be in heaven. That was the last place she doesn't deserve that. And I so I kind of pushed it to the side. And then I would go back in the visitor and this again, it's the Holy Spirit right? In my mind, share me with your mother. And I would be like, no way am I doing this? Eventually, I went to counseling, I got advice about I talked to Peter and I was just angry, like, No, I don't want to I the interesting thing here is that I think God is such a gentleman, and he doesn't push us into things that we can't handle or that we're not ready for. So it wasn't like the minute that I said no to her that God gave up on me. But he just gently kept reminding me, you know, keep putting it in my mind. You know, I'd tell her about me, sir. And so one day I was sitting next to her and and at this point, she wasn't really communicating much and she was kind of sometimes she would remember things sometimes she wouldn't. And so I said to her mom, I just want to share with you about Jesus. You know, if you don't love Jesus, you won't be going to heaven. I made it really simple. And I was holding her hand and said if you want to know Jesus Mom, I can pray with you right now you to squeeze my hand and I will share you know I'll say a prayer with you and you know, then you're going to meet Jesus one day and and you're going to have peace in your heart and your life will be the way he wanted it to be. You know, you're going to be dancing with him in heaven. Anyway, she squeezed my hand. And I remember just this overwhelming sense that I was about to lead my mom through a prayer of a prayer of salvation. And as I was praying for her to stop this incredible weight off my shoulders, I've suddenly realized that now I have forgiven you. Now, I have this overwhelming love that the Father has for you. And I truly do forgive you for what you've done. done to me. And, and you know, from that point on, there was this amazing feeling in my heart that I was free, I was free from all that past. And it doesn't mean I forgot anything, I didn't forget anything from my past. But I was free from the pain of the past. And you know, one of my beautiful thoughts are when the Lord calls me home, I will actually be able to embrace my mother, in a relationship that was always meant to be mother and daughter, and that will both be dancing before the throne room of God.   Rodney Olsen  I wonder if there are people listening right now who a yearning for that kind of freedom from the past from past hurts, and perhaps would want to get in touch with you or to read your book, where is the easiest place to find your book or to get in touch with you,   Samantha Jackel  Probably on my website, which is www.mypurplepants.com, I have an email up there, and people are more than welcome to email me and I am the only one that reads those emails. And you can buy my book up there, either hard copy, or you can get it on Kindle. The link is on my web page or connect with me through Facebook. And that can be through My Purple Pants, on Facebook or personally. But I'm happy to connect with whoever needs a hand because I know to have someone walk with you. And it is a hard road to walk with someone that's been abused. It's not a one week walk or a day commitment. It is a lifetime commitment to walking with someone. And I understand that. And I am happy to walk with people through their journey and, and encourage them and help them along the way. And most importantly, pray for them. You know, I have a book. And whenever I go to speak, or I'm contacted by someone, I always write their names in my book. And I bring that book before the Lord and pray over them, pray for their lives, that God would transform them heal them. And they would know what it's like to have the joy of the Lord as being their strength.   Rodney Olsen  And I will put links so that people can find you find your website, Facebook, and your email address as well as being able to buy that book. That's all going to be in the show notes at bleeding daylight dotnet. I want to fast forward just before we finish up, I want to fast forward to what life is like for you these days. How is life traveling for you?   Samantha Jackel  Yeah, life is amazing. Peter and I have been married 33 years in October this year. We have five adult children who all loved Jesus, which is just a blessing in itself. We're pastors of a church here in Melbourne in Carnegie, we are just a family of believers that just have seen God transform a life and my kids know my story of my story, of course, and our story is a couple. And I believe you know that there's so much blessing in that decision Peter made to come back to me that he was a righteous man. Remember, he was only 23 back then. And he made this righteous decision to come back and honor his wedding vows. And through that there's been such blessing and I believe our kids are the product of that blessing. And so life is great. It doesn't mean we don't have hard times. That doesn't that doesn't mean we don't have battles every now and then. But we have seen certainly seen the goodness of God over our lives, our marriage and over our children.   Rodney Olsen  Samantha, it has been such a delight to hear your story to hear about the transformation that has happened in your life and that is available for others. As I mentioned, if people want to get in touch, I will put details in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net. But thank you so much for your time.   Samantha Jackel  Thanks for allowing me to share my story.   Emily Olsen  Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight. Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others. For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net  

If you’re battling addiction, or know someone who is, today’s episode is not only the story of Craig Brown and his recovery, there are some really practical steps to move towards healing and wholeness. Craig Brown's life became marred by pain, shame and distraction. Now in his book, Stop Hiding, Start Healing, he uses his own experience and talks about more than 20 years of helping others discover how to be free from the pain and shame of their past.   https://www.stophidingstarthealingbook.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Hiding-Start-Healing-Discover/dp/B08PJPWLGT https://www.facebook.com/craigbrownstophidingstarthealing  https://www.facebook.com/craig.brown2       (This transcript is intended as a guide only. It may not be 100% correct.)   Emily Olsen  Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.   Rodney Olsen  Thanks for listening. You can follow Bleeding Daylight and connect to our social media channels by following the links at bleedingdaylight.net Please share Bleeding Daylight episodes and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts.   If you’re battling addiction, or know someone who is, today’s episode is not only the story of my guest and his recovery, there are some really practical steps to move towards healing and wholeness. He was the son of a minister, but he struggled to connect with his father. Instead, Craig Brown's life became marred by pain, shame and distraction. Now in his book, Stop Hiding, Start Healing, he uses his own experience and talks about more than 20 years of helping others discover how to be free from the pain and shame of their past. It's my honor to welcome him to bleeding daylight. Craig, thank you so much for your time.   Craig Brown  Rodney, thank you great being with you.   Rodney Olsen  That early search for identity is often so vital in setting us up for success in life. And your search was difficult. Tell me about those early years for you.   Craig Brown  I grew up in the church, my father was a minister. I have two older sisters. And the three of us always had to be on we had to make Father Brown looked at. I'm sure you've heard about preachers, kids and their reputations depending on the denomination. But I lived up to mine, it was a very difficult role. For me to play starting in my again, when I was born, all the way up through my youth and young adult life and into my adult life. Everything about our family was about making our father look good. What I saw from the pulpit was not what I experienced behind closed doors. My dad had his own demons that he had to struggle with, we saw a lot of anger. My parents marriage was never, we never really witnessed true nurturing love between the two of them. And as a youngster, when we would be blamed for a lot of things that were not our fault, our Father tended to rage out and take it out on myself and my sisters. And as a result, yeah, as we all do, when we're younger, we develop coping mechanisms and coping skills to deal with the hurt, the shame, the pain, the abandonment and I developed those early on. I mean, when the pain and the shame presented itself, and I, you know, I found that escape route. I kept that for most of my life, until I became honest and took responsibility and started dealing with that later on in life. My mother was the typical pastor's wife enable her, make her husband look good, make sure the family was on. And that was just unfair pressure put on young people that you know, like, like us, as a result that was just searching, you know, my father, and I didn't really have a relationship, I can count on one hand, the number of things he and I did father and son, and I'd have fingers leftover, he just didn't seem to be invested in my life or interested in my life. My identity was their identity, his identity, and I didn't have one till much later on in life. And as a result, I just suffered from that, instead of buckling down and proving that I could do something with my life, I took the easy route. And that is searching for, you know, something that would accept me and something I could participate in. Unfortunately, I made very, very poor decisions, and ended up in the drug world and the drug life and a life of destruction.   Rodney Olsen  So your father is effectively teaching you about this double life, because you're seeing him one way in the church and a different way at home. And you're learning that too, because you're you're trying to deal with what's going on at home. But at church, you're the perfect little saint. So this must cause conflict right from the beginning within yourself. It did.   Craig Brown  Oh, yeah, it's very confusing. Now, I must say, the life of the church was I loved it, dealing with, you know, with all the adults and getting the attention. I really, truly enjoyed growing up that environment. And that's one thing. But, you know, from a spiritual discipline, and finding out about, you know, God's love, Grace, mercy, I'm sure it was there, and the seeds were planted. It wasn't till much later in life, that that fruit began to bloom and I became, you know, a much different person. I just look back at that. And, you know, it's easy for me to say on this end, that I wouldn't change a thing. And I wouldn't, because it's what you know, everything I am today is a result of that pain, my deepest pain. You're right, it was trying to find that identity and trying to find that mission, trying to find that purpose. And it was hard to do in that dysfunctional environment. And I deal with this all the time in ministry, and that is when we're growing up, we think our families, the perfect family, we don't know any better, until well, afterwards, we look back and realize, Wow, man, how did I survive that? And that's essentially what I the attitude I had.   Rodney Olsen  And I've spoken to a lot of my guests about this. In our growing up years. We just know what we know. We know that family life, and it's a matter of eventually realizing this isn't normal. So when did that Penny drop for you that The the way you grew up was not normal.   Craig Brown  I would say it certainly wasn't in the midst of my pit of hell experience because that's I was totally in bondage to that. I would say it was well after that, when I had a major epiphany and life change, and I began to inventory my past and embrace my past and deal with my past, that I was able to kind of the scales coming off my eyes, and I realized what I experienced was not normal. As a result, I've got to process that I've got to do with my my father in his role, my mother, her role, our family role, and what that meant to me and the effect it had on me.   Rodney Olsen  You mentioned that you ended up in the world of drugs, and you certainly did very heavily. But I'm wondering how this church boy ends up there, because it doesn't happen all at once. What was the road that took you from being this well behaved child at church and trying to do that at home, even though you weren't getting that connection you were seeking? How did you start that slippery slope towards where it ended up?     The party welcomes everybody, you don't need a membership card, you know, to show ID, you know, it just welcomes everybody in generally, it's those that have no self control, no self discipline, very lack of self worth, low self esteem, just looking to search and searching to fill the void. That is in our life. You see if our family if our family structure if our relationships, if we're if there's not that nurturing, love, support, care, identity, we're going to find it somewhere else, we will find it somewhere. For me, I had a lot of pain and a lot of loss. And I just wanted to medicate that. And as a result, entering into the drug world, it was wide open, and I walked in. It wasn't like I was like, you know, I think I'll go do drugs today. Or I think you know, I just think I'll make a mess of my life today. It's not like that. It's just a progression. And it's one step after the after another. Rodney, here's the thing about addiction, or here's, or drug use, or anything that we use to hide or medicate the pain, we make a decision to. Right, we make a decision. We get so deep into it, that we can't make a decision not to do it. It sounds very simple. But it truly It begins with that first choice. And mine multiplied and I ended up there. But here's the thing, Rodney. Yeah, I look at as I'm in the pit of hell, based on what I my youth and what I am, where I grew up, and how I grew up. Sure. I was looking around going what am I doing here? What am I How did I end up here. But at the same time, it's so engrained in my life and says, and has such a bondage on my life, that I knew no better. And I just continued on that lifestyle until I got to that defining moment in my life where I realized that I can't do this anymore.   Rodney Olsen  And of course, it's not just drugs that can hold us down. There's a whole range of issues. And I want to talk about some of those in a little while too. But you didn't just get involved in drugs in in taking them but you went a lot further into that drug culture, didn't you?     I did. I started drinking in high school just to parties and things like that. And right now is a really good athlete. I should have played college basketball, but I had very little or low self confidence. Everybody else was telling me how good I was. But I didn't believe it. And I really didn't have any support from home. I can count on maybe after four years of playing varsity basketball. My parents, I think came to two games. I mean, I just didn't I had nothing at home. So I should have I should have gone on to play college basketball, but I didn't. But I graduated from high school and I went to college. And it was at college where here's the thing, Rodney, when we're suffering in that family environment, we cannot wait to get out. We cannot wait to be set free. And I did I walked out of the house and I went off to that campus and I rarely went to class I drank I got involved and you know, just that lifestyle. I dropped out of college and came back home. And I started working and the bar business bar and restaurant. And I took a job at a bar in Washington DC and unbeknownst to me, it was owned by the largest cocaine dealer on the east coast  and he was working that drug trade out of that establishment as a 19 or 20 year old Rodney, I've died and gone to heaven. This is just amazing. Cocaine I'm sure you're aware, and the 80s in Washington, DC and all throughout the area and and the country for that matter. Cocaine was everywhere dominated every party scene is dominated every scene where alcohol and everything else is involved, and everybody had it. I wasn't a heavy user before then. But I sure was once I got there. And then I did low level drunk stuff on on the side and stuff like that. His drug business, that was just a major operation, all the who's who would come into this establishment, there was music people, local television, people, athletes, when you have no direction, or mission or purpose in life, and your whole life is the party was just in that in a place. And I operated in that environment. For years. That whole lifestyle dominated my life. And again, as I mentioned earlier, and as you referenced, Rodney, I'm looking, I'm in the middle of this mess, this just pit of hell. And I'm just, you know, I'm asking, I'm partying, but at the same time, I'm saying, How in the world that I get here, because I was in such depression, darkness, denial, pain, shame, guilt, and I just medicated it. I just kept medicating it instead, and I hid.   Rodney Olsen  How was it that you actually came to the point where you decided I'm not going to try and medicate anymore? This is not where life should be going.   Craig Brown  At that time, I did exactly what was the title of my book, stop hiding, start healing. I got to a point, Rodney, and the first chapter of my book is when the pain is greater than your fear. My pain level was at such an elevated level. Again, it was around 1985, I had this epiphany. And here's the kicker of it. From a spiritual standpoint, what we don't realize is that God's hand is on us at all times, at all times. And I didn't realize it at the time, even though I grew up at the church, because I had no relationship with God I, I was so far from it. The pain in my life was so great that I got to a point where I was no longer afraid to make some life changes. And I said to myself, Craig, you're either going to end up dead, Rodney, I had car accidents, I was in the hospital for throwing up blood, you would have thought one of these situations would have gotten my attention. And it didn't. But it led up to this defining moment, where all of that was multiplied. And the pain level was so great, that I realized that if I didn't stop, I was going to end up dead, or continue on this life of destruction, depression, and darkness. And I just made a decision to extricate myself from that pit of hell, from using drugs and alcohol to medicate my pain. And over the course of weeks and months, I was able to stop using drugs and stop drinking. You know, as they say, in recovery, I got clean, I got sober. And my whole life began to change, everything began to change. Honestly, honesty crept in, responsibility crept in. And I was able to change that pit of hell lifestyle, and enter into a period of my life, where I was able to live a healthier lifestyle. But I was still miserable.   Rodney Olsen  So it started with a decision. And we need to start here with that decision. But I imagine for people who have an addiction of some sort, whatever it may be, it's very hard for you to make a decision and then to hold to it, because the addiction keeps calling to you and dragging you back in all the time.   Craig Brown  Yes, yes. Now, I've invested 22 years of my life, serving in Christ centered recovery, helping people and serving and caring for people who experienced or are experiencing exactly what I went through. And it is difficult, but here's the thing. It can happen in your life. Those who are struggling, those who are dealing with addiction, those who are dealing with pornography, shame, guilt, drugs, alcohol, food, codependency, divorce, abortion, whatever it is, that is wreaking havoc on your life, and causing that pain and that shame and that guilt. The good news is You can be set free, when the pain is greater than your fear. folks that are dealing with struggles and issues and life struggles, it's hard to make that decision, it's hard to step out and admit, it's hard to step out and be honest about the struggle because of a number of different things. One, embarrassment, the shame. I mentioned shame a lot, Rodney, because shame comes from the parallel. And it is meant to keep really good people from finding the resources to get well and be set free. Shame is number one, guilt and pain and all the other categories, all the other issues and struggles are there as well. But shame is number one. If the person can get to the point where that pain is greater than the fear, that shame will begin to lessen. They'll enter into an environment where you find safe people, you find people you trust, because people that struggle generally have dysfunctional people, surrounding them, and people that are trying to fix them. And that's not healthy. And it's not what they need. They need people with empathy, people that will listen, people that have been to the pit of hell and back that are there to care for them. Now that can be in a number of different forums, Rodney, whether it's rehab or Christ centered recovery or recovery or AA, find that place where people understand you. And that'll be your first step, you have to admit, first, this My life is unmanageable. And I cannot do this anymore. And I've got to be set free. And that's the defining moment that happened in my life. And it can be the defining moment for your listeners as well.   Rodney Olsen  I'm really interested in you coming back to Faith. Because in your early years, your experience of faith was that you live one way in front of people and a different way behind the scenes. And you must have had those doubts that can this even be real, because my dad's a minister, he's meant to have it all together when it comes to these things of faith. And yet, I don't experience that. So how did your walk back to Faith actually happen?     I'm never Rodney going to discount my experience in the church at my youth, because the Bible is very clear that seeds are planted. And they may sit there for a very long time, before they come to life. Even though I didn't take it in, even though I didn't comprehend it. The denomination I grew up in, it was really tradition. It was more, you know, tradition in the prayer book, this and that. I never ever experienced or learned about a personal relationship with God through Jesus, his son, nothing was really explained to me about that the Bible tells us the only way to the Father is through Jesus, his son. I never knew anything about that, you know, I operated in that church environment, you know, at a very young age. And I do I believe the seeds were planted. As I mentioned earlier, God's hand is on all of us. It's there. And it's a matter of us opening up our heart and saying, God, come in and take over my life, heal me and set me free. And that's essentially what I did. But it wasn't until I was clean for about six or seven years. I hadn't been using drugs I hadn't been drinking. But as I mentioned, I was still miserable. There's a couple of defining moments that I've, I've shared, but the the defining moment was when I received that phone call. My sister called and said, dad's dying, and we need to get to the hospital. Here's a man that I had very little relationship. Now. I loved him. He's my dad. Right? But I had a very challenging relationship with Him. And we weren't the closest. So I am led to his bedside in the intensive care unit, and my father is dying. Here I am. I've been in the pinna, hell, I've made nothing of my life. I felt like a complete failure. And I'm standing there and my whole life came right before my eyes, and I'm looking at my dad struggling to breathe. And I'm sitting here as his son, and I've done nothing with my life. And it just was a reminder to me of how powerless I am and what a failure were the decisions I've made in my life. That led me up to that day. And Rodney that The defining moment in my life, and that is this, when the pain is greater than your fear, you have an opportunity to be set free and change. I realized that here, this man is going to die. And neither of us were able to have the relationship that I longed for. And so the very next day, Rodney, I just cried out to God, I say, God, I've heard of you, I know what you can do. Because I've heard about the testimonies of what you've done in people's lives. I need you to come in and take over my life, because my pain is greater than my fear, I am miserable, take over my life, come in and set me free. From everything I've done in my life, forgive me. And Rodney, it was a miraculous experience, because that lasted for about an hour. And then when I got up, after crying out and praying, which I'd never been instructed to do, and know me, nobody told me how, my life was completely different from that second.   Rodney Olsen  Tell me how it became different. What was that feeling? Because a lot of people will say that they come to that point of accepting Christ and they don't necessarily feel different, but they know that something has changed. And yet other people have an experience by the sounds of it like you have had where there is something physically that is happening, there is something tangible, tell me about that.     The Bible is very clear about when you do you say, God, Jesus, come into my life and take over my life. Now, again, it you've heard it, it's been shared many different ways. Be my Lord and Savior, take over be your lead my life Forgive me, offering forgiveness, confessing. It's very simple. It's so simple. But we make it so complicated. You know, the Bible is very clear, Jesus, come, come set me free. Come take over my life. Be Lord over my life, my pain, my shame, my guilt, my past, my purpose, my mission, all of it, Lord, take it and he did. And so yes, for me, a lot of people think that they make that decision, oh, life's just great. Now, you have to begin to do the work. And what does that mean? It just means you now have the power, the same power that rose Jesus from the grave, you have now received, and it's called the Holy Spirit. So the Spirit begins to live in your soul. The spirit is in your life, your heart, and he wanted to take over your mind. For me. It was miraculous. When I stood up after that hour. My whole perspective on life changed the burden, Rodney, the burden of the pit of hell drug life, the pit of hell pain, the youth of abandonment, the use of blame and shame, everything the burden was lifted immediately. It was miraculous, I don't have enough time to be your guest today to share how deep my pain was. Okay? That was absolutely instantaneous. I, at that moment, began to be honest with myself, I began to confess everything that I had, and believe me, Rodney, this is not a one way thing, where I'm the victim, I was not a victim. I made poor decisions and poor choices. Okay, that led me to where I was, I began to be honest with myself. I then devoured scripture, that day was when my recovery started. And that's when I began to immerse myself in every single principle that God has in this life manual called a Bible, and I apply them to my life. I've been doing that for now, Rodney, for 28 years, my life continues to be on track. Now, I've had some major challenges. Since that day, I've had major, major challenges that I've had to work through that day. But the difference is, I have a power and a strength and a different mindset to get me through it now, versus what I had in the old me.   Rodney Olsen  And what I find interesting is that you say at this stage, you had stopped taking drugs for quite some years. And so you're completely clean for some years, but still miserable. And you say this is the day that your recovery started, the world will often see recovery as being free of drugs. And yet we know that that's not always the case in your recovery started on this day on wondering how soon after you were set free and started that recovering, did you start helping others?     Let me touch on that for a minute Rodney, and that's recovery versus Christ centered recovery, there is a difference. And that is this Rodney recovery began, like AA began back in the 1930s 40s. And it was faith based, they made no apology for the fact that God has a higher power. Now that's been watered down some over the years. But Rodney, there's only one that can fix, he'll change and restore. And that is the Lord God the Father, he's the only one that is able to do that in our life. And so a lot of people enter into recovery with a myopic track to get clean and sober. And that's good. Now there's nothing that that's absolutely should be the goal. But it's not. The end goal is see sobriety and abstinence are the byproduct of doing the work. That's recovery. Now the difference between recovery and Christ centered recovery, and that is this. And this is where relapse, this happens. Often slips happen, often it happens in in all life. Don't get me wrong. Oftentimes, people get into recovery to get clean and sober. And that's but they neglect the catalyst for what got them there. The pain, the shame, the guilt, the the abandonment, the abuse, maybe there was trauma, or physical sexual abuse, emotional abuse that they experienced. And yes, they're clean and sober. But yet, they're still miserable. And that's what happened to me. I was seven years out, great, I was off, no drugs, no drinking of any kind. I was living a healthy lifestyle, but there was something missing. And I was still miserable. So I get to the place where I realized, why am I still miserable? Well, in recovery, it's all about especially Christ centered recovery, it's all going back to discover the root of my sadness, the root of my grief, my shame, my guilt, my pain. And the Bible's very, very clear about that in Scripture, search my heart of God, change my mind, Oh, God. And when you change the mind and the thinking, and then it relates to the heart and healing the heart, you can be on a track of recovery, sobriety, abstinence, and what I call freedom, and be set free, and avoids slips relapse, when you have worked the steps and the principles and apply the principles to your life. And the other thing about recovery is, it's all about developing self awareness. And that's what recovery is all about self awareness, but also not avoiding the warning signs. And also being able to identify the triggers in your life. All of us are triggered every single day, they're everywhere, right. And for people in recovery, you've got to know what they are. If you're struggling with pornography, well, you got you know very well that if you click on that ad, or click on that link, or click it, that's a trigger, that's going to take you that's going to take you right back if you're not careful, or I can just have one drink, or I can just smoke that dope or whatever, you've got to be extremely mindful of your warning signs and triggers in your life. And you're able to do that in recovery, recovery, especially Christ centered recovery is able to uncover, pull back the layers, deal with the things deal with the challenges and the painful things in our life. And once you're able to embrace that and do that, you have a guide and a power, and God that's able to help you.   Rodney Olsen  And you've been helping other people to break free from a whole range of issues. You've touched on a few there. It's not just drugs, as you say. There's a whole range of issues that we can be freed from that cause pain, and misery and especially shame within our lives. Tell me, what's the experience, like when you see someone else come out the other side and be released and become free from whatever it is that's been holding them?   Craig Brown   Oh Rodney, it's amazing. I've been serving for 22 years and Christ centered recovery. Our ministry has helped 1000s of people. And Rodney there are 1000s of testimonies of people. And now people that come to our ministry. They're either Christian believers and non believers or they're, you know, all different walks of life. It's not that you have to have to subscribe to that. I mean, it's totally your choice. God gave us a choice accept me or don't you know, it's dope. Yeah, it's your choice. But anybody can come all are welcome. All are loved unconditionally, all are supported and accepted for who they are, no matter who they are. And they come in there and they sit in that environment where the Scripture and the gospel is being shared and the 12 steps of recovery. It's just absolutely powerful to see someone come in. First of all, it takes a ton of courage, Rodney for some of the steps into a Recovery Environment. That's where I say if the pain is greater than your fear of being known, if the pain is greater than your fear of embarrassment, you're ready to come in. And a lot of people walk through that door with a lot of courage on that first night. And, and I'm a firm believer that healing takes place, and circles. And we offer a lot of small groups, where men can be with other men and women can be with other women, in a safe environment, where nothing, there's no condemnation, what is shared there stays there, fellowship is developed, relationships are developed, accountability is established. And healing begins to take place over weeks and the coming months. So I see Rodney firsthand, the life change, and just going from dysfunction, going from brokenness, to wholeness and brokenness, to happiness. And it's just, it's just what's keep it keeps me going. And it's, it's wonderful to see people be set free, and marriages heal relationships with show their kids healed, relationships, restored, amends being made, hearts being healed, it's just miraculous. It's wonderful to see. And it, it's what keeps me going,   Rodney Olsen  I'm sure that there are people that are going through their own moments of hell, who are thinking, I wish I could be a part of a group like that. But obviously, we're talking to people all around the world. How do we actually find a group like that for ourselves? If, if we're in that situation, how do we find that group of loving people to surround ourselves with to go through this kind of Christ centered recovery,     Our society, as you know, Rodney, it doesn't take it takes seconds to go to Google or some other search engine and put in Christ centered recovery in the search bar, or recovery near me or find a recovery meeting. Now, just a word of caution. Again, I can only speak for the ministry I've been a part of, and I am confident that we're recovery, your shared recovery is done to help others and the motivation is to help other people. But I also tell people to have a really good filter, and very good discernment as to where you are going to go. First of all, there's no perfect church, and there's no perfect environment. But there are environments and churches that have really good structure that have really good guidelines and accountability, and have a really good platform and an offering and a place and a beacon of hope. I don't know if you're familiar with Celebrate Recovery. But that's the ministry that we started 22 years ago at our church and the ministry we've been a part of, and there are celebrate recoveries all over the world. And all you could all you need to do is go on the website, and you can put in Celebrate Recovery, and your listeners could find one, hopefully near them. There's another organization I'm really support. And that's new life ministries, new life ministries, and that's led by Steve Arterburn, a pioneer in Christ centered recovery here in the United States. And he has ministries and networks all over the world as well, your local church or you know, again, a meetings, other meetings that could be that are nearby, it's taking that first step. And you may have to visit a few places, your listeners may have to visit a few places to find that there may be state offerings or resources or county resources or other resources. But there's also Christian counselors and therapists that are available as well. It's about research. And but here's the thing, Rodney, I am more than happy to be a resource for your listeners, if they have any questions whatsoever. They have an open invitation to reach out to me through email or on my Facebook page to send me a direct message or through your website if you'd like it, I would be more than happy and honored to help anybody that was searching, if I could be of a resource to them.   Rodney Olsen  And of course, it brings us full circle to talking about your book as well. Stop Hiding, Start Healing and we're not just here to sell a book. But when you have a resource like that that's available that is going to help to bring healing. We can't help but recommend it to people and so where can people find this book that you've written.     One, you just go to Amazon in the search bar put in Stop Hiding, Start Healing. Put in Craig Brown, Stop Hiding Start Healing  so you can go directly to Amazon or you can go to my website, stophidingstarthealingbook.com, you can purchase the book at either of those.   Rodney Olsen  I know, we've mainly been talking to people who may be going through their own difficulty, their own shame. But I'm also aware that there will be people listening right now who have loved ones who are going through difficult times, whether it be addiction or whatever it might be. How do we actually come alongside those that we love? When they're not ready to make the step? How do we love them? How do we bring them to that point?   Craig Brown  That's a great question. No, I'm so glad you brought that up. Because it's one of the areas of my ministry that brings most heartbreak at times, because you look in the eyes of a mother or father, or a spouse, or a family member or a friend, and you just see the sadness and the grief, because they have tried and tried and tried to get their loved one to get help. But Rodney, it's so important to realize, and parents especially and family members, you must realize that it's not your fault, that that individual who is struggling, made a decision on their own, to put their life in that situation. So many times parents want to take that role of a rescuer. First of all, we have to admit that person is dealing with a very, very troubling lifestyle. And as much as we want to rescue because as parents or loved ones, we all want to rescue, we all want to help. And unfortunately, the hardest part, you have to allow that person to suffer, you have to allow them to get to the point where they realize that their pain is greater than their fear, and they have to get out, or their life is completely unmanageable. And they have to get help, that can be done in a number of different ways. There are organizations and other resources that can help families with intervention. And oftentimes, it takes the average person that is struggling to be confronted something like 57 times before they get agree to go get help. It's just an arduous process for family members and loved ones to help someone that struggling. A lot of times I have to tell people just to get out of the way, get out of the way. They're on a track, right now they are so in denial, they won't listen to anybody. They'll blame family, they'll blame everybody, for their troubles I did years ago, families need to find the right resources that are available. But it's up to that person to have to make the decision to want to go get help. If they don't think they need help. There's nothing anyone can do other than pray for them, support them, encourage them, and be there for them. until they get to that point where they realize they have to go get well.   Rodney Olsen  We're a long way away from that young boy who had such a difficult lifestyle growing up and that difficult relationship with his father. What is life really like for you now for you and for your family? What is your relationship like with your own sons?   Craig Brown  That's a great question. Great, great question. First of all, I've got an amazing wife, we are will be celebrating 28 years of marriage next month. I'm so grateful that I got over that I extricate myself from that total mess of a life before I met my wife and I didn't bring it into the marriage or into my family. We have three sons that are absolutely amazing. I made it a point early on that my relationship with them would be in stark contrast to what I experienced myself with my dad. But I have been brutally honest with my sons. I shared with them. my testimony I shared with them, the struggles that I went through, I shared with them. My being brutally transparent, not sharing details per se, but sharing my pain, shame, guilt, everything that I went through as a catalyst to be there for them as their mentor and their guide and their father who absolutely adores them, who always has their back. You know, I am there to support them in every endeavor. I'm also there to hold them accountable and to be a spiritual leader for them. You know that it started with them. My role as a spiritual leader and I been there for that, Rodney, I still have a bunch of defects I continue to work on, I still, you know, continue in my own recovery, I still continue to work extremely hard to getting better at who I am. And as a result, they know my defects and they're very and, you know, I am not perfect as an I've told them that my dad apologized to me once in my entire life. Like I've lost count of the number of times where I have had to confess, or share or ask forgiveness from my son's for my attitude or approach or what have you. But like for me, right now I am in an amazing season of life, Rodney, and it's all due to the grace of God, it truly, truly is. If you knew me, back then Rodney, and saw me today, you would be absolutely amazed. It's such a difference that the Lord has made in my life and will continue until I'm all used up to care, be there love guide others that have been where I've been. And I'll do that until the last day,   Rodney Olsen  Craig, what I love about your story is that it's not just your story. But it's the story of 1000s that you've been able to help with God's help, obviously. And that's part of the story that is in Stop Hiding Start Healing  the book that you've written, and that's going to be a help for many, many more people, I'm sure it's going to be a help for those who are going through their own difficulties as well as those who love those who are caught in addiction or, or whatever it may be. So if people want to get a hold of that you mentioned before where they can find it, I will put links in the show notes at bleeding daylight dotnet, so that people can find the book, but also connect with you, Craig, it has been a delight to talk to you. Thank you so much for being so open and honest in sharing your story.   Craig Brown  Rodney, thank you, I just want to commend you. You have a wonderful, wonderful platform. And it's such a beacon of hope to others. And I just pray the Lord's blessings over you and your mission and purpose and all you're doing to help others that may be struggling. And I just encourage your listeners if they are in a tough place in their life, to speak out. Find the right help. And again, allow the Lord in should you so choose to set you free. Thank you my friend. I really enjoyed being with you today. Thank you   Emily Olsen  Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight. Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others. For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net        

Where is God when trouble strikes? Where is he when things go horribly wrong? How can a God of love allow the suffering that many of us face? Sarah Nelson has had to seek those answers for herself and her family. Out of that experience, she's written the devotional book titled, A Perfect Storm. Sarah is today’s guest on Bleeding Daylight.   https://sarahnelsonblog.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Storm-Devotions-During-Crisis/dp/B08VY76WXF https://www.facebook.com/sarah.millernelson https://twitter.com/SarahNelsonBlog https://www.instagram.com/sarahnelsonblog   (This transcript is intended as a guide only. It may not be 100% correct.)   Emily Olsen  Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.   Rodney Olsen Thank you for your company. You can follow Bleeding Daylight wherever you listen to podcasts and never miss an episode. Please encourage others by sharing Bleeding Daylight episodes through our social media channels.   What do you do when the busyness of normal family life is shattered by a medical emergency that threatens to change your world forever? That’s the story of today’s guest. We’ll meet her in a moment.    It's one of the oldest questions ever asked, where is God when trouble strikes? Where is he when things go horribly wrong? How can a God of love allow the suffering that many of us face? Today's guest has had to seek those answers for herself and her family. Out of that experience, she's written the devotional book titled, A Perfect Storm. It's my very great honor to welcome Sarah Nelson to Bleeding Daylight. Thanks for your time.   Sarah Nelson  Thank you so much for having me.   Rodney Olsen  We're going to explore a very real crisis that you faced as a family but before that tell me what was life like for you and your family before everything suddenly changed.   Sarah Nelson  It was fairly normal. We were a family with three young children ages seven, five and two. So I was very busy. I was managing a business, as well as managing my children. And we had just moved across country. So we were busy, but things were kind of getting back to what I call a normal routine after having three children. So anyone who has young children right now knows what that normal balancing act looks like but my children were healthy, we were healthy. We had really no medical issues that we knew of, and everything was going really well,   Rodney Olsen  Something more than just one of those natural ups and downs happened for you. Maybe you can take us through that.   Sarah Nelson  Sure. We were on a family ski trip. It was the first time we were skiing as a family of five in Park City, Utah, beautiful place, and the second day that we were there, I noticed changes in my daughter, we rushed her into the hospital and we realized that our two year old baby girl who was completely healthy, no pre existing conditions was suffering from a stroke on the left side of her brain. And she quickly debilitated and lost the use of her right side of her body and was paralyzed on her right side and lost her ability to speak. And we were in the hospital for two weeks in Salt Lake City. She was in a rehabilitation hospital for over a month in Dallas, and our lives were turned upside down.   Rodney Olsen  I can imagine and I'm wondering about the doctors at the time when they are looking for what is causing these differences in your daughter did their minds immediately go toward a stroke? This is something that we would normally imagine happening in someone much older.     Actually they did. They were able to assess her quickly and identify what was happening right away. That morning. I actually saw a difference in her face. When she smiled. She only smiled a half smile. Later that afternoon. She was not responding to me are talking back to me as she did. Fortunately, she was a chatty two year old. So I noticed something that was off. And then by the time we got her into the hospital, the doctor showed me that her grip on her right hand was weakening. And she was dipping her leg on her right side was dipping as she walked. And the doctor looked at me right away in the pediatric emergency room. And he said, I'm sorry, but I fear your daughter is having a stroke. And immediately, they went into testing, CAT scans, MRIs, and they were able to identify it right away.   Rodney Olsen  What goes through your mind in a time like this? A perfectly healthy two year old, you've got two other children that are there with you on the holiday that need to be taken care of at the same time. What goes through your mind?     The first thing we thought was we didn't know a two year old who is completely healthy could suffer from a stroke. It's typically something you hear about an elderly people as well as maybe here and there. Sometimes you hear of someone who is in their 30s or 40s. But never a child. It's not something that my husband and I had heard of before. There's really sort of this vacuum in your mind because you're trying to process the information that you're being given. It takes a while to try to come to grips with what is actually taking place.   Rodney Olsen  And how does that balance work in your mind? You're obviously concerned for the here and now and what's going to happen to this beautiful child of yours. Was there a balance between that and then wondering what is the long term prognosis, what does this mean long term?     Yes, in fact, I was thinking that in the emergency room as they whisked her away to do an MRI, and I was standing in the hallway, realizing that she may never walk again. I might have to use sign language. There were no guarantees. What we learned was every stroke is different and every patient recovery is different. And we were watching her abilities deteriorate in front of our eyes and I imagined her possibly in a wheelchair for the rest of her life or walking with a walker. I had no idea moving forward what our life was going to look like the rug of normality literally had been pulled out from under us and are normal had completely changed?   Rodney Olsen  When did you start to get a grip on what might actually happen? When the doctor start giving you a prognosis for what's going to happen toward the future?     Well, they gave us a little bit of insight, like I said, in the emergency room, but once she was in the pediatric, ICU Intensive Care Unit, they began to lay out the issues that we may face in the hospital there for the two weeks, while we were in Salt Lake City. And again, they told us that she would never fully recover 100% of what she lost. And they could give no guarantees if she would ever walk or talk again, they said, once again, children have a good chance of recovery, because the neurons in their brain are growing so quickly. But they could give no guarantees. And he said, a full recovery for a child like this would be to regain up to 80% of what they lost. And that a true full recovery was not possible.   Rodney Olsen  So it's difficult enough for you and your husband to deal with this. But how did you talk about it with the other two children?     Well, my husband did a great job. As I mentioned, we were skiing, unfortunately, we were with family. And so I stayed with our daughter Adalee in the hospital, he helped manage the other two children and drove back and forth to the lodge to take care of them to talk to them. And we were just very honest and open to let them know what was going on. So by the time they were able to come to the hospital to visit her, they accepted her differences. We just told them that we weren't sure we prepare them that she was moving around in a wheelchair in the hospital. And they loved her and they embraced her and it was very sweet to watch them just accept her for the condition that she was in.   Rodney Olsen  And what about the wider family that you were there with at the time and, and obviously other family members in different places? What was their response to this terrible tragedy happening within your family,     Everyone was in complete shock and because we were 1,000 miles away, we live in Texas. My family is in Texas, my husband's family was in Houston at the time. They were in shock. And they were in dismay, because they couldn't come up to help us because there were only a certain number of people who could be up there in the hospital. And it was hard ache for them because they couldn't come to help. But what they did was they began to pray for us and pray for our daughter and they called on their churches and their prayer groups and their friends to start praying for us and for our daughter  and we began to have many, many people praying on our behalf and praying for her recovery.   Rodney Olsen  We often hear at times like this, where something happens to people of faith, that there are such a network of churches that suddenly get the message and start to pray. Were you aware of that happening around you?     I was at the time I was aware of it. We had our home church in Waco, Texas praying for us. My parents had their churches in Dallas and Houston, praying for us as well and I have family in Illinois, Indiana, California. They reached out to their prayer groups and their churches and they began to pray in a way where people were praying for our daughter who didn't even know her and we ended up having thousands of people praying on her behalf. And I call it our army of prayer warriors because when we were in the hospital, we felt those prayers sustain us.   Rodney Olsen  You're feeling that sustaining power of prayer as you're going through this. But there must have been those doubts, there must have been some of those questions that I mentioned in the introduction of how can God allow these? How did you start to process that I was     Standing in the pediatric ICU, the doctors had just given me the rundown. And the prognosis of what I mentioned earlier that she would not have a true full recovery that she would only be able to regain up to 80% of what she lost. And my husband had was not there yet that morning, because he was taking care of the children. I was by myself standing over her as she laid there asleep in her hospital bed. And I just prayed. I said, Lord, I'm willing to accept your will for her life. But right now, I pray for a full recovery over my daughter. I know you have the power to do that. I said so Lord, I pray that she will talk. I pray that she will walk. I pray she will run. And I gave her to you right now. And I pray that she will be a normal kid and have a normal life. And I just handed off to the Lord because I knew that only he could do what I was asking. And then I had to focus on taking care of her. Whatever that look like if I had to take care of her, because she was in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. That was my mission to do that at the time. And I felt that resolve as a parent, but I did have to hand it off to the Lord. And that was the first step in just moving forward in what was to come.   Rodney Olsen  And what was to come from that point on, what were the things that then started to lay out in front of you,   Sarah Nelson  As people were praying for us, her process of recovery begin to stabilize. So we saw her stabilize, she began to learn to sit up again, it was as if she were a six month old trying to go through therapy. For two weeks, we walked through the process of checking all of the different things that may have gone wrong. Fortunately, everything checked out well. And the doctors called her situation a perfect storm. And where it's all these components coming together, they couldn't necessarily find the cause of the stroke. But it could have been different components coming together at just the right time to cause this crisis. And so we took that as good news, because that meant that there wasn't a blood disease or an organ issue. And so we just continue to move forward. And then once she was admitted into the rehabilitation center in Dallas, where she was an inpatient for a month, where she did intensive therapy. Her process was out of the gate a jumpstart. We were there one day, and she went from not being able to walk, got up in her first therapy session and began to run. I actually had to step out to go to the doctor during that time. And my parents were there because they were helping me Unfortunately, it was in my hometown of Dallas. So they were able to go with the to the therapy session with her I had come down with strep throat, and had to go to a different doctor while she was in her therapy session, and I left with my dad carrying her down the hospital hallway to begin her first therapy session physical therapy session to strengthen her leg. My goal at the time, was that by the time we left the inpatient rehabilitation center, I at least wanted to and hoped it to be able to stabilize her on a walker, so that she can begin the journey of walking again. So as I watched my dad carry her down the hallway, I went to the doctor was treated, came back two hours later, my dad had put it on video so that I have it on video to watch. But my daughter was standing next to my father and had begun to run back and forth during therapy. And I knew in that moment that God had given her a miracle a jumpstart in healing. And her stay in the rehabilitation center was only four weeks her original, estimated stay was eight to 12 weeks. But the doctors didn't know what to do with her they had never, or they acted as if they had never seen a child recover so quickly. And so they could only justify her being an inpatient for a month. And during that time, she ran, she got occupational therapy for her arm, she had speech therapy. And by the time she left that hospital, she was able to talk, walk and run and live life as a normal child.   Rodney Olsen  It's an absolutely remarkable turnaround. And no doubt people of faith would say, well, it's largely down to the fact that 1000s of people at this stage are praying for this girl, some who, as you say, don't even know her. There's a remarkable turnaround. But was that the the completion of the therapy once she got home? Was there an ongoing therapy that she needed to be part of?     Yes, when we got home, she underwent two and a half years, almost three years of occupational therapy and physical therapy. And for her right arm, her right leg, her hands, just to continue to build the strength and the right side of her body. And so that was a daily process multiple times a week, our schedule was very different from our schedule beforehand. But in that process of recovery, it was amazing to watch how God makes our bodies in this incredible, remarkable way to be able to recover things that we lose and how we exercise our mind and our body, especially for a child because they're growing so quickly. I do believe that God designed our bodies to be able to bounce back and which is kind of another form of healing.   Rodney Olsen  So you have this two year old at the time who has been through this trauma. This was back in 2014. where many years on from there now. How is she these days?     She's great. She's a third grader. She's nine years old. She's the life of the party. She is a true joy. Very social, has lots of friends, and she gets to live a normal life. This year, we have realized there are some reading issues that we have to address. But you would never know, looking at her that she has been through anything like she has been through.   Rodney Olsen  Does she have any recollection of those early days? I mean, most of us would not remember what we were doing when we were two years old. But is there any recollection of that? Or is it more the therapy that came after that went on for a couple of years?     She doesn't remember having a stroke or being in the hospital. Although it was very traumatic for her so for a while, she got upset when we had to go to the hospital for checkups. But she really remembers therapy, you know, her whole preschool years, were just therapy three times a week. And so she remembers that she talks about her situation matter of factly, because that's what therapists do. Each day you have therapy, they talk to you about what you're doing well, and what we need to work on. She takes a daily aspirin. So she remembers how to take care of herself in ways that maybe other people don't have to do. And she's actually very responsible about it, because that's all she's known. But we try to be very upbeat, and Matter of fact, but not to dwell on it.   Rodney Olsen  So there's this amazing turnaround, and you've got your your beautiful daughter back. But of course, there are many people that go through all sorts of crises that it doesn't turn out so well. And you decided that you wanted to speak for those people as well. And so you've written this devotional book, tell me when did the thought of this idea come to you?     Well, I began writing updates on a CaringBridge blog while she was in rehabilitation in the hospital, because we knew there were so many people praying for us, that I wanted to start updating them on the progress she was making. I felt a responsibility very, very early on that that was meant to be shared and so I was updating everyone on this blog, because I wanted them to know, we see your prayers being answered, this is God working, and he is teaching us lessons in this process. And I began to feel the responsibility of that. During that time. You know, I would never think that I can speak for someone whose child has not recovered or for someone who's lost a child. But during that time, I began to feel led to share a testimony based on Psalm 118:24. This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it, about how God had prepared me for this moment to deal with this crisis. And initially, I did not want to share it. But God gave me a sign to share it. I prayed over that. I released it on the blog, I had no idea why he wanted me to share this testimony. And when I got home, a friend of mine who I'd had known was pregnant with her fourth child in December, walked up to me. I was back home. I'd seen her for the first time I had no idea what was going on back home because I had just been in this complete vacuum during the time and I saw she was in her third trimester. I walked up to her. She walked up to me. I said, Oh, Shelly, how are you doing? I'm so excited to see you. What are you having? And she looked at me and she said, Well, I'm having a girl, but she's not going to live. And my heart broke. Here. I had just come out of the hospital where my child had lived, I had no words to offer her. I just looked at her. And I said I'm so sorry. And I felt so ill equipped to say anything that could be of hope or encouragement, I felt so ill equipped. And she looked at me and she said, Sarah, I read your blog on Psalm 118:24. For a while at least it was in the hospital. And it ministered to me and she said God changed my perspective through your situation. And I was stunned, totally stunned, and humbled because I knew that that did not come from me that came from the Holy Spirit. And part of this journey as we have began to write things down. It, it came to the fact that I did feel we were supposed to write this in devotional format, and Shelley is actually a guest featured in this devotional in devotionals, 24 and 25. And she shares her story. And it really is able to minister to those who have lost a child or lost a loved one during a crisis. And it's about how God cares for the brokenhearted and how he ministers to those who have lost.   Rodney Olsen  I sometimes feel that when we're asking those deeper questions about why things happen, we need to keep it in the perspective that this life isn't all there is. Is that something that really came home to you during this time?     Yes, it came home to me as I was standing in the emergency room, contemplating on the fact that my daughter may never walk or talk again. And as I was standing there, I would look down this dark corridor behind me, I could hear the noise of the doctors and my husband Mark talking through the scenarios, talking through the test and the blood work. And I just had a moment to stop and pause. And I, as I stood there, I felt the Lord speak to me, because the rug of normality, like I had said, had been pulled out from under us, and I was envisioning of the possibility of what life may look like. And I felt the Lord stop me. And I felt his presence. And I felt him say, Sarah, I am Here I am God, I am constant, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And he spoke so many lessons to me in that moment, and I felt his piece kind of fall over my shoulders as if he was draping a cloak around my shoulders. And it helped the ball of stress in my stomach, it didn't make it go away. Because as a mother, I don't believe it's made to go away. But it did sustain the stress that I felt. In that moment, I realized how temporary this life is, the her body may be broken. But how quickly that would pass because I knew that one day, in eternity, she would be whole again. And in that moment, he gave me such an eternal perspective, a perspective that this life goes by so fast, and that our focus should be on eternal purpose.   Rodney Olsen  It's an interesting perspective to bring out of this. And we mentioned at the start how you had this so called normal life of running after three active children, and you were on this holiday. And that seemed to be life as normal. I'm wondering how much life has normal has changed? What are the different perspectives that God has now brought to bear? What are the differences in your normal today,     We have a greater understanding of our relationship with the Lord and how he interacts with us in our crisis in our in our darkest circumstances. But we are also very aware of, of what people are going through with children who are in the hospital, who are suffering from disease, who are suffering from this kind of crisis, you have a greater understanding, a greater depth of emotional awareness of what those people are feeling and going through. And we've been able to minister and reach out to people who are going through similar circumstances. And my heart also has a greater understanding for children who are in wheelchairs for children who are stabilized on walkers, for parents who have a special needs child. And even though my daughter is not categorized as a special needs child, I've watched and been so close in the hospital, and understand the day to day schedule and demands that they have on their life. And so it opened our eyes to deeper feeling deeper understanding and in that we've been able to turn around and reach out and minister to those going through similar situations.   Rodney Olsen  Have you had a response from some of the people that have read it who are going through those sorts of difficult times?     Yes, I have. It's the response has been incredible. People can identify even if they have a different circumstance, people can identify going through pain and sadness and crisis, because unfortunately, that is a part of life. And so when people see how God interacts in a very tangible way, in a very practical way, it really helps them to apply scripture to their own lives. And the scripture that I actually used in this devotional is the scripture that was given to me on note cards on a three ring binder, by the people in our Sunday morning class at our church, they gifted me with this scripture, and each of the Scriptures I've included in this devotional because those are the scriptures that God use to breathe his peace and breathe the lessons of him being there for us during that time.   Rodney Olsen  And what are some of the responses that people have made those that have had the opportunity to read through that day by day journal? What has been the response coming back? What are some of the stories that you've heard?     I think the main thing that people say is, I identify so much, because I know a child who is going through cancer, or my daughter just was diagnosed with this rare disease. That is the response that I get the most, especially people with children, people who are dealing with a family member going through cancer, even though That's different people have just related so much, just through hearing a story and understanding the pain of a loved one or the pain of a parent, the agony that a parent goes through watching that family member or loved one suffer. And so the main thing that I hear is identify so much with us. And it meant so much to me, because we're walking through a similar crisis.   Rodney Olsen  I know that at the time, the scriptures that you had, knowing that people were praying for you, you had this real sense that God was holding you up. Have you had responses like that from some of the people that have read through the devotional that that has given them that same sort of sense that that God is walking through this with them?     Yes, in fact, one of the readers reached out to me via Facebook, and they had just lost a family member. And that family member had gone through sickness. And she just reached out to me to say, as we're walking through this grief, this journey and this devotion, and the scriptures have given us strength, to understand the reality of life, but that how God intervenes on our behalf, and he how He intercedes for us, through His Holy Spirit. And, and really, they understand how scripture comes to life, because scripture is breathed by the Holy Spirit is breathed by God. And so even if it's applied to a different scenario, or circumstance, the Holy Spirit ministers to everyone on such an individual level through that scripture, and so yes, the person who reached out to me had just lost a loved one and was able to work through their grief while reading the scriptures through this devotional.   Rodney Olsen  I know that many people who are facing crisis, who are already people of faith would want to have something like this in their hand to help them through at this time to read those scriptures that have helped you so much. I'm wondering, have there been people who have been further away from God who have thought, I just need something that they've been able to pick up this book and start to relate to God in a different way?     Yes, in fact, I had someone recently gift, this devotional to several people who are really searching, and they're in the process of reading it, or they've heard an interview or a podcast, and they are beginning to respond and ask questions. And the first devotional is on salvation. So if there is someone who has never had a relationship with the Lord before, or maybe never even been taught about what our relationship with Christ is, we start off with the basics of salvation, to describe who Jesus is and what he offers us through His sacrifice and through His resurrection. And so yes, I am starting to see a response people asking questions, people reaching out to those who have gifted the devotional to them. And it is it is incredible, because I have just prayed over this, that whoever reads this, if they don't already know Christ, that they would come to him after reading this journey.   Rodney Olsen  So I'm wondering if you have a copy of the book handy, and maybe there's a devotional in there that has been extra special for you? And maybe you could read us a little of what's in there today?     Absolutely. I think the one that is really the most special to me, is devotion. Three, it says God never leaves us. And the Scripture is Deuteronomy 31:6, Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of the for the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. And the reason this is so special is because this is the foundation of the purpose for this devotional. And it's the first message God laid on my heart because it's the first thing he spoke to me in this crisis to say, I am God, and I am always with you and I am constant. And regardless of what happens on this earth, I will never change. And it just talks about the story. It said, the pediatric ER doctor looked at me and said, I'm worried about your daughter, I think she is having a stroke. Immediately, doctors and nurses flooded the room and began drawing blood, poking Adelee for IVs and prepping her for a CAT scan. It was apparent at least brain had been affected and her ability to talk had been impaired while the other symptoms were progressing. Adult he was losing the ability to use the entire right side of her body as well as her ability to speak. The next step was to answer a multitude of questions in the middle of the whirlwind. I stood in the emergency room hallway looking into the dark, empty corridor. Moments earlier my daughter had been lying on the bed and the room adjacent to where I was standing. My heart felt like a heading bowling ball pressing down my chest and my stomach was a ball of knots pulling in opposite directions. Time stood still That moment I felt the Holy Spirit fall over me as I heard a voice over my head, state the Word of God, I heard the Lord say to me, I will never leave you nor forsake you, Sarah, I am here. I am God, and I am constant. And that is the thing. And the message that I want to make sure that listeners hear is that when you're going through a crisis, God wants to be there for you. And he wants you to feel his presence.   Rodney Olsen  And that reading just took us right there into that situation. And we can start to feel some of the anguish that you're feeling. But also at the same time, there's that immediate comforter. And I wonder, if you look back to the Syrah before this incident happened, would you ever have believed that your faith would be strong enough to carry you through that you'd be where you are now and being able to minister to other people.     I don't think we can ever foresee the circumstances. The Lord had been preparing me with Psalm 118:24. For two years, I began to quote that every day, this is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. And I begin to quote it, because we had had a lot of things going on. And I just needed to make sure that I maintained a positive attitude and joy in the Lord, regardless of what happened to that day. Because sometimes the blessings even on our normal day can feel overwhelming, especially when you have three small children. But the Lord prepared me and disciplined me with that scripture so that once I was in a situation where something happened, that was a crisis. And that was something that was truly awful. The Lord helped me to remain in a perspective, where regardless of what happens, even though my daughter may never be the same, he is my joy. And it's a day that the Lord has made, and I will still rejoice that he is God, because he does not change. And that just sustained me. When that happened, you know, I looked back over the last two years of being disciplined in that scripture and thought, Wow, it's incredible how God will go before us and prepare us. And looking back, it's amazing to see how God works in that way.   Rodney Olsen  When these large events happen in our lives, they continue to define us in a couple of ways. Sometimes, they will define us in a way that we cannot get past that. And it's going to hold us back for the rest of our lives until we're prepared to do business and bring some change. Or they can define us as a way that launches us into something else. And I see that that's what's happened for you that this has defined you to a large degree, to be someone who is continuing to minister to other people. And I guess that's the legacy that this event has taken place. Maybe you can help us to fast forward to where things are now. Explain what normal looks like in your household today.   Sarah Nelson  Ah wellI love that question. First of all, because you're right. The purpose of this devotional is to let people know God wants to be there for you during crisis. But it's also the point. And this is where Shelley comes in. And her testimony is we can allow the Lord to minister to us, which he wants to He wants us to receive that peace and comfort. But then when we learn how to receive that, there are things that we can do then to turn and look outward into the lives of other people to then minister to them. And that is what the Lord, I think wants us to do and and sometimes calls us to do. And so that is how this has taken shape. And as you mentioned, it is the legacy of this devotional and of the stories of two families intertwined, that we are now able to see how God ministered to us, and how he ministered to Shelley and her family to know that we can then turn and look outwardly to minister to those who are going through a crisis. And that is the whole point of this. But today, a normal in my house is very, very busy. Our children are now 14, 12 and nine, and they are active. They're busy. My husband is an entrepreneur, I have a part time job on the staff at our church, using my background in business, to minister to people and so we are literally jumping from one thing to the next. But this has also taken priority, that together as a family, we've had the opportunity to stand up and share what God has done in our life.   Rodney Olsen  And as you continue to do that through this wonderful devotional I'm sure that there are people listening right now who say that is something that I need in my life right now because I've been through a difficult time or, as you say, to be able to gift this book to someone else who if they know that someone is going through a difficult time that they would like to gift it to them. If people are trying to get themselves a copy of a perfect storm wish should they go?   Sarah Nelson  They can go on Amazon, and they can get the ebook or they can get a paperback copy amazon.com You can type in A Perfect Storm: Devotions During a Crisis. You can also go to my blog, sarahnelsonblog.com and there is a link where you can buy it on Amazon there as well.   Rodney Olsen  And of course, we will put links to both Amazon to get the book, also to your blog, on the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net. So the people can track that down very easily. Sarah, it has been wonderful to talk to you to hear how God has used this very difficult circumstance to bring good for so many more people. I just want to thank you for being open with your story. And thank you for being prepared to hear God's voice in putting this devotional together for others. Thanks for your time today.   Sarah Nelson  Thank you for having me.   Emily Olsen  Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight. Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others. For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net  

His parents were told they should abandon him. They didn’t listen and Dorsey Ross has been ignoring every limitation ever since. Dorsey Ross was born with a severe congenital disability. Now, in his mid-40s, Dorsey has proved the doctors wrong but life still has been full of challenges. He's been told that so many of the milestones that most of us take for granted would be impossible for him. He's refused to listen.   https://dorseyrossministries.com https://www.facebook.com/DROCKROSS https://anchor.fm/dorseyrossshow 

John Simmons battled an invisible addiction that plunged him into debt and deep depression. He was living a life that was totally out of control and the very thing that was pushing him closer and closer to destruction was the thing he thought would solve the issues he was facing. It was a downward spiral that almost cost him his life. Things are very different now. These days, John is bringing hope into the lives of others through his ministry, Testimony House.   http://testimonyhouse.org/ https://www.youtube.com/c/TestimonyHouse  https://www.facebook.com/testimonyhouses/ https://www.instagram.com/testimonyhouse/     (This transcript is intended as a guide only. It may not be 100% correct.)   Emily Olsen  Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.   Rodney Olsen  Thanks for listening. You can follow Bleeding Daylight wherever you find podcasts and never miss an episode. Please connect with Bleeding Daylight on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and please share this and other episodes with others.   Today’s guest battled an invisible addiction that plunged him into debt and deep depression. We’ll hear about his remarkable transformation in just a few moments.   My guest today was living a life that was totally out of control and sinking him further and further into debt. His problem was that the very thing that was pushing him closer and closer to destruction was the thing he thought would solve the issues he was facing. It was a downward spiral that almost cost him his life. Things are very different now. These days, John Simmons is bringing hope into the lives of others through his ministry, Testimony House. It's a privilege to speak to him today to hear more about his story, John, thank you for joining me on Bleeding Daylight.   John Simmons  Thanks, Rodney, for having me on the program. So excited to share my testimony today with you.   Rodney Olsen  We're going to talk about what it was that threatened to wreck your life completely but before we do, tell me what life was like beforehand.   John Simmons  Before I got wrecked? Well, I grew up here in St. Louis, Missouri, in the States and normal life, two parents, until I was 12 years old, my dad passed away. And that was the genesis of my destructive life, essentially, because I had been attending church I had some nice, godly friends, I had thought I had accepted Jesus into my heart. But I prayed the night before my father died that I wanted to not go to school the next day, because I had a project to and it wasn't finished. And so I woke up the next morning, and it was 9am. And school started at eight. School was out of session, and I wasn't there. And I was so excited. But then a few moments later, my mom walked in and she said, we lost your dad last night. And for 20 years, Rodney, I thought that I had prayed. And I'd always heard a church when I was a little boy, I God answers prayers in a way that's unusual, or more than you can ask or think or imagine. And I'd heard these sorts of things. And so I put those things that I'd heard together and thought that I prayed for a day off school, and instead the God that I was praying to had killed my dad for me, and I was just so devastated. I was like, well, that's how you answer prayers, I'm never gonna pray to you again. And that was, that was life before I started gambling, I just sort of live in my own way away from God.   Rodney Olsen  That's a very heavy burden for you to have to carry to feel that your prayers had actually killed your father. And even the fact that it then tainted your picture of God to say that, well, he will go out and kill someone. For me. That's another burden that you're having to carry. Was your dad. Ill for a long time before that, or was this totally unexpected?   John Simmons  All this was sudden he had a massive heart attack and passed away the we had had floodwaters and before our basement was flooded, he was downstairs trying to deal with we had about three inches of water in our basement, and he was trying to get it out and deal with it. And he had just 3am just had a heart attack and die whenever the last thing I said to him was would you take the dog out? You know, and so it's just no one knew what was coming.   Rodney Olsen  And you mentioned there that the problem that really caused all the issues that you were facing was that gambling. So between that 12 year old boy and the time he started gambling, how much time was there? When was it that you started to go down this track of gambling,   John Simmons  I started gambling when I was 18 years old on line, we had a poker website called bet us calm or something like that. And it had just poker tournaments. And I was led there by my brother who I was living with at the time. And he said, You know what, they play these $5 tournaments. And so I remember getting online, and playing $5 tournaments with him and a couple other friends who we knew he had more recreational money. But I had actually started working a bunch of part time jobs, I loved having money in my pocket. It was, I mean, the love of money was in my heart deep from an early age. By the time I was 18 years old, I was working three part time jobs. And so I was working 40 to 60 hours a week, as soon as I turned 17 different jobs around where I lived. And so I started to accumulate some actual money in my bank account at a young age. And since I didn't have any rent to pay, and I had no bills, I started just put my money online. Eventually, I graduated from $5 tournaments, to $100 buy ins to cash games, which are a lot different than poker tournaments, if no one's familiar, you know, a tournament is one set buy in and you go in and you play for you know until you're out of chips or till the time is over. And you know, going in how much money you might win or lose. A cash game is a lot different. You go in with your money and at anytime you can reload and put more of your money on the table. You can lose all of your money in a moment's notice. And there's no set limits of how much you can win or lose.   Rodney Olsen  Was this something that you started to get good at as you started to understand how it all worked? Was it something that made you think, Hey, this is something that I could do more full time?   John Simmons  Yeah, I absolutely thought I was the world's best poker player. There's no doubt about that the origin of why I thought I could do this stems from ESPN. And they had started running these programs called the World Series of Poker and it was highlighting these poker tournaments that took place in Las Vegas. And this man in 2002 named Chris Moneymaker What an awesome name right? And he had bought into a tournament like it About a $40 online tournament and want to see in this tournament that cost $10,000 to enter, and he won that tournament. So he won't, he turned $40 into $2 million. And I was like, Well, I have $40, I can go do that. And so I bought every book I could on Poker. So I was trying my best to do as good as I could. The problem that I found out Rodney, and this is, is that no matter how good you are, when you're in addiction, you have no off switch. And that was the issue for me is the reason that I lost so much money, the reason that I couldn't stop and I went on for so long, and it became such a burden to my life is because no matter how much I won that day, I would go back the next day, and I would continue until it was all all gone.   Rodney Olsen  And I'm sure that even then you had this idea that there were some losers out there who wouldn't know what they were doing. And they would gamble their money away. But you were clued up, you were reading up and and you must have felt, you know what my turn is going to come because I'm getting educated about this. And I know what I'm doing.   John Simmons  Yeah, I thought that there was any moment I was due to hit one of these jackpots that they offered or win a big tournament or get a place in the next tournament. And I really thought that the suckers at the table that I would win from some days had nothing to do with me, and that I actually wasn't part of their world. You know, I didn't see myself as someone who was behind the eight ball, so to speak, in terms of my skill level or my winning level. It wasn't until a few years later, when things started to really, it doesn't take long for you to lose money, even no matter how long you've been working to save it up when you have a consistent gambling habit. And so for me, it just started to overwhelm my finances to the point where I had to start doing payday loans and credit cards to fund my habit. And that's really when I started to be like, ooh, maybe maybe I'm not as good as I thought or, you know, I didn't recognize it as a problem. But I definitely started to have questions about what's going on,   Rodney Olsen  Tell me about the first time that you actually walked into a real game, because you've started out on these online games. And it's easy enough to switch that off at the end, although, as you say, you're being drawn in and spending more time there. What about the first time that you walked into an actual game with people around the table?   John Simmons  Yeah, I'd love to tell you about that because it happened the weekend of my 21st birthday, which is the legal gambling age in America. And I'm so excited because I'm like, oh, finally, I've been playing poker online for three years. But I'm in a room by myself clicking buttons, and I'd seen all the tournaments on on TV, I'd saw Chris Moneymaker won this tournament, and he's in Las Vegas. And I'm like, maybe I'll run into some of these guys I've seen on TV. I'm so excited. You know, these older guys, they were all smoking cigarettes or cigars at the table, and they all had sunglasses on inside, it was just so much like a movie or you picture it. This like gangster vibe, you know, I was just like, this is great. I love it. And cash is flying around the table. And I think I lost $100 my first time. So I don't have this, like I want a million dollars. And that's why I kept going story. But for me, it was the atmosphere. It was the culture. I just wanted to keep going. I played in a dozen tournaments that weekend. I didn't leave with much money in my pocket. But I just had the greatest time. And I just went home saying I want to do this. I want to play cards like this a lot. And I remember someone who I was working with at the time I said, Well, you know, there's poker rooms in St. Louis and, and there's a couple local casinos, but I'd never been in them. I wasn't gambling age. And I didn't realize what was behind those doors. But they were like, yeah, and so I drove up there. As soon as I got back from Las Vegas, I went to a local casino here where I live, sat down at a game and it was the same thing I experienced in Las Vegas. But now it was a mile down the street from me. And so it led me to a pattern where I would just continue to go to the casino whenever it was open. And until that money started to run out.   Rodney Olsen  And this is starting to become less of a pastime and more of a lifestyle that you're being drawn into. And it seems like a very attractive lifestyle for you at this stage.   John Simmons  For me, yeah, I was wanting to be near it. I wanted to surround myself with it. So much so that I was working in radio at the time. I had gone to school for radio, I had this passion to be a radio host. I was so lured in that eventually I left my job at the radio station and took a job at the casino dealing poker. So now that I was able to work at the casino, I was able to play the casino. And then if I wasn't doing those two things I was sleeping. And so this was a pattern of rinse and repeat for me for years, years and years. And eventually I had to sign myself off the casino to get away from it. My lifestyle would become too oppressive on my actual life and the things that I was dealing with the results of my gambling.   Rodney Olsen  Tell me about the sorts of losses that you are going through at this stage. When did it start to mount up and you started to realize all this is going a bit far?   John Simmons  When I turned 21 and I started playing cash games more regularly. That's when it really started to dwindle and quickly. And so after school I was working two full time jobs. I was trying to play catch up with my losses, but it never happened. The biggest losses occurred when I lost all of my working income and started getting credit cards. And so I would get, you know, a $25,000 limit credit card, or I would get payday loans from across the city where I would, you know, basically barter my paycheck for extra money. And so I'd have dozens of these types of loans. And so by the time I was 23, I had accumulated over $200,000 of debt, I had to go file bankruptcy, because eventually I lost my credit, you know, these creditors weren't issuing me any credit, I wasn't paying these bills back. Obviously, gambling addiction is one of the ones where you can be an addict, and no one can notice, you know, I'm not walking in my, my speeches and slurred, I'm not hunched over, I'm not drunk at a wheel, you know, I act and look normal. But on the inside, Everything's going haywire. And that was the first time I told my family and friends that I had an issue was the first time that I had to confront when I was dealing with and everyone was telling me that all these problems that I had, and I needed to get help, and they all had their suggestions and ended up with me being in counseling sessions, and I had to get give over my money. But that was the first time that I lost a lot of money, but it wasn't the last.   Rodney Olsen  And so often we hear these stories of people who have run up huge gambling debts and to be down $200,000 at the age of 23 is massive. And so often the thing that people think is, well, why didn't they walk away when they noticed that they were starting to lose money? Maybe you can talk us through that help us to understand what it is that keeps driving you back to that, even though it's it seems to be quite plain to everyone else outside of it, that this is a losing game.   John Simmons  There was no doubt that people thought that I was dealing a losing game. And I would consistently be taught Johnny, why don't you just stop, you know, you just quit this. It's ruining your life for some people were as bold enough to be like, Johnny, you're a loser, quit. Just stop right now. And I just remember thinking, you guys don't understand if I just win this jackpot. If I just win this tournament, just like Chris Moneymaker, if I do any of those things, and all of a sudden, I have a million dollars in my bank account. I'm not a loser anymore. I'm not stupid for keeping going. You're going to envy the life that I have. And that was really a driving motivating force for my thought life at that period of time. I was just like, no, they just don't get it. They don't get it. Because they're there. They don't realize that if I win this, everything's fine. all my problems are erased, all the problems that they see are gone. Once this money shows up in my bank account. I don't have an issue anymore. But that was far from the case.   Rodney Olsen  And now I mentioned those that are offering these opportunities to gamble, such as the casinos and poker houses. They're doing their very best to make you think that the next big win is just around the corner too, aren't they?   John Simmons  Yeah, they put signs on the wall that will say jackpot. It'll say $250,000 and you hit this jackpot. If you hit a certain hand in poker, or if you get beaten in a certain way they call it a bad beat. And so they have jackpots listed on the walls, they offer you playing, you know, perks, if you play long enough, you get free meals. And so I was like, Well, if it's just like getting free lunch, sometimes I would think, you know, take my $200 up there, and I'm gonna get a free lunch, but you're not gonna just take in $5 up to the store and bought a sandwich. But that was not my mindset. My mindset was like, how can I keep going in these casinos certainly make it attractive. If you if you buy in for a certain amount, we'll match it today. And those types of offers. They came quite often.   Rodney Olsen  And you mentioned that this was the first time that you tried to address this issue. And you've talked to counselors. And yet it didn't stop there. What happened at that point?   John Simmons  In these counseling sessions, I wasn't really trying. I was just going through the motions trying to get out of that session and get myself back in a place financially stable, and then I could gamble again. And so that's what I did, you know, I would just constantly do the things people wanted me to do to try and appease them. And then I would go back to the counselors or back to GA meetings which Gamblers Anonymous, and take these types of steps to try and get help. For my problem. Even though I didn't think that I had a problem. It wasn't till years later that I finally woke up one day and was like, yeah, this is me. This is not going to happen when I woke up at 30 years old. And I was thinking, this isn't the life that I imagined having as a child. You know, when I was a child, I had these big dreams and aspirations and things that I wanted to do and be in radio and be a musician and all these different things that had filled my hopes up as a young boy. But as an adult, I realized that my hopes had all been dashed from all the losses in the gambling and I was hopeless. I was depressed. I was severely depressed. By the time I got into this addiction for 10 years and long after I really got into a point where I was betting sports and doing other things to try and hide and mask some of my losses from family and friends by using a different method of gambling in order to keep the thrill of you know that adrenaline those things going in my life.   Rodney Olsen  Where was the money coming from at this stage because that initial time weighing you down $200,000, you've gone to counseling, you've declared yourself bankrupt. So what is actually funding this habit at this stage?   John Simmons  That's a great question. They passed a law that said poker dealers essentially could keep their own wages, their own tips. And before that, we had done a pooling system where all the tips that came into the room were shared equally among 50, or 60, poker dealers that were at this particular casino that I worked at. And in that year, that they created that new law, I was one of the better dealers, I dealt really fast, and I worked fast. And so a lot of the players like me, the regulars appreciated my speed and accuracy of doing the games quickly, so they could keep that thing going faster. And so I made about $90,000, in my first year of making my own tips, and I did that for several years. And so this was able to fund them keep me going and sustain through those years of of high income losses,   Rodney Olsen  The whole time that you're there dealing and doing the very best that you can to get all the tips coming in, it must have been just rolling around in your mind, well, once I finished this, today, I'm going to go to the table myself and start to bet some of this money, it must have been that drawer for you.   John Simmons  It was payday and I had two days off work, I would have to drive hours, I'm talking minimum of four hours away to the nearest casino where I was legally allowed into because when you sign yourself off to Casino in my state, if you go inside, it's illegal and it's considered trespassing, you can be arrested and go to jail. And so I would have to find new ways to gamble and play cards. So I would drive to casinos around America trying to find a place, you know, in a two or three day span where I can get to there and I can gamble for two days straight, I wouldn't sleep, I would be exhausted afterwards. A lot of times I would leave without any money in my pocket at all. I remember having to float bad checks to try and just get gas money to get home. Those are those results of me trying to chase these losses.   Rodney Olsen  And initially you went in and there's this great romantic sense of this lifestyle that's happening and these people around the table that the sunglasses that the cigars, the cigarettes and all of this is drawing you in. How's it feeling? Now, at this point, when you're having to use bad checks when you're having to drive all these miles just to find another casino? Was there any of that thrill left at all?   John Simmons  The thrill was always there when you're at the table. Because when you're at the table, you're not concerned with any of those other things, you're still in that culture in that atmosphere, you're you're still a moment away from that jackpot, that tournament win. And so when you're at the table, you lose connection to the rest of the world, you're not there anymore. The thrill of it was always there on days that I had cash in my pocket on the days that I didn't, it was miserable. I mean, I was completely frustrated and angry at my life, I would spend as much time as I could asleep or working to try and make more money to try and pay back some of my debts to the people who needed it the most. A lot of times that was my bookie for years who would you know, call or text me every, every so often, john, Where's my money? Where's my money, and that was a stressful situation. And so at one point, I do remember thinking, maybe it's not going to happen. And that's when I finally realized, you know what, maybe I need to get help. And that's when I finally entered a rehab center on my own. Well, for the first time I was 29 years old. And I was looking to find that hope that I never had.   Rodney Olsen  There's this thrill when you're at the table but as soon as you walk away, things are vastly different and you touched on the depression that you felt had they did that go?   John Simmons  Well, the war, the mind the Bible describes is that my mental thought life was completely different than anything I've ever experienced. And that is something I never would ever want to go back to the pressures that I was under financially would not allow my mind to rest. And so I was constantly thinking about what I owe this guy money, I owe these 10 places money, this war of my mind would start and then the devil would come in and say, well, let's let's go to the casino with that $2,000. And maybe you can double it up. Or maybe you can triple it up and you can have everybody paid off by the end of the weekend. But of course the money would usually be gone by the end of the weekend. Because even if I would win if I win if I win a tournament and like there was a weekend that I want a jackpot and a tournament the same weekend, and I had $10,000 in my pocket. But two months later that money was gone. It started off by me just sort of pulling myself back from others and just sort of like wanting to be alone. And I would spend so much time alone that my friendships would suffer, my relationships would suffer. And then eventually, when I got really bad, I started to blame my friends and those closest to me, I kicked my best friend out of my apartment because I blamed his party for not being able to sustain my happy life. And but the truth was, is that I'd stolen and gambled his rent money I didn't want him to know, I was engaged in that relationship was broken off and I never got married to her. You know, my my brother. He hasn't trusted me ever since. And, you know, there's a lot of different fractured relationships throughout my life all stemming from the fact that first I pulled away I got depressed. I got angry, I got bitter. I got frustrated. I'm taking it out on the people closest to me and the rest that I could never find in my mind, the only time I could ever seem to have any peace in those situations was when I was sleeping. So I slept a lot on days that I didn't have money to gamble. Because if I had money to gamble, I was at the casino, or I was watching sports betting on them. But the days that I didn't, I would fall asleep as best as I can, I'll take medicine to fall asleep. And the only relief that I could find in as soon as I would wake up, those thoughts would flood back into my mind and making every waking moment as miserable as possible.   Rodney Olsen  In the end, you mentioned that you checked yourself into rehab, give us a bit of an understanding of what happened in that process.   John Simmons  So I was 29 years old, I woke up one day basically was reflecting on the life that I was living in how much money I've lost and how many relationships I broke in and how miserable I was and how alone I was in this little, you know, one bedroom apartment, and I didn't talk to anybody unless I was at work and the work was causing me to, you know, be in a culture and an atmosphere of continuing to do the same things over and over again, I was in this bad cycle. And I wanted out. This wasn't the life that I thought I was meant to have. As a young boy, I just thought I was gonna do all these things. And to have lost all those dreams was really upsetting to me, when I finally woke up at 29 and realized that I hadn't reached them. They weren't even in the distance. It wasn't even like I was in just a few years on my get it No, they were gone. They were long gone. And that was really that was upsetting to me in a major way. And so I went into this rehab facility in town. It's a joke anyway, because the rehab facility that I call to get put into is run by the government that also runs the casinos. So it's like having the the people who make the cigarettes make the cigarette recovery material. They make money either way. So the system's not really built for creating successful support. When you go into these programs, though, there's a couple different things you can do. They recommend going to GA Gamblers Anonymous meetings where you meet with other problem gamblers and you share swap, bad beat stories. And commiserate essentially, is what I believe were happening in those meetings. And some people walk the steps, but I was seeing the same people in these meetings that I saw there years ago. And so no one that I noticed was even getting the help they needed. I went in and I started to have counseling sessions and group sessions, trying to stay clean, and I was trying hard. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. And I remember it 30 days I've gone 30 days sober. And that was probably the first time I'd gone 30 days sober in a decade, one of my counselors handed me this pin and it was like 30 days clean. And everybody clapped. And then john, great job, you did an awesome job. You're so awesome, good job. And I remember feeling pride in myself for the first time in a long time. And I hadn't experienced that and so long that I created that I was like, Oh, I'm gonna keep doing this. Like I couldn't have pinpointed why that was happening. But I was definitely feeling that I wanted to chase that high. And that was a new high essentially, of this recognition of the things that I had accomplished in life, when really all I had done is not done this bad thing for 30 days. So I went 60 days clean, and I went 90 days clean in both sessions. The party happened to get a good job, john, you did a great job. Great, great, great. And then my counselor said at the end of 90 days, and this is the thing that set me on a path to change my life. He said the next time we'll celebrate your win as a year, and we only celebrate years after 90 days. And I go what Wait, why? I was like, I need this. I need you to continue to like encourage and support me and like I need a goal to drive through because the desire to gamble has never left my heart. Every single day for 90 days. My thought life had been gamble, gamble, gamble, let's go to the casino and gamble, let's go to placing gamble, let's but like that was my thought life. I was doing everything I could to stop myself from doing those things. I would overeat I gained over 100 pounds during the season in my life, from constant overeating. I would smoke 100 cigarettes a day, you know, I would do anything that I could to either try and take my mind off, I go to the movie theaters to take my mind off of these things or to just avoid it altogether. I had no one to spend time with no one to be around me. So I'm isolated. And I'm trying to get fixed. And I was so upset when my counselor said that I wasn't going to get any affirmation anymore. And I realized that the desire to gamble hadn't gone away. I asked him in that session, I said, Well, this sucks. I said, this is rehab, you're supposed to fix me. Why aren't you fixing me? And he's just basically like, well, we don't fix you was his response. We don't fix you. He said you have to learn to live one day at a time, or 15 minutes at a time. And they quoted the Serenity Prayer at me again. And I was just like, no, this is ridiculous. This isn't working for me. And so I left that session. I called my bookie I put all the money that I'd saved up in 90 days on a bunch of bets and I went on this eight day bender and I just spent anything that wasn't tied down on my part it went to the pawn shop. Everything went out the door any money I had was gone. At the end of it. That's when I finally was like this is it. I guess this is I've I've placed myself in a hopeless situation. There's nowhere left to go.   Rodney Olsen  And what was it that then brought about the change. You've gone through the counselling and that didn't work, you're really just going through the motions, you've gone through the rehab, expecting to feel fixed and for that desire to go away and found out. No, that's not what we do here. So you've gone on another bender, and that hasn't helped, what actually turn things around for you?   John Simmons  Well, at the end of the bender, I was just beside myself crying in my dark one bedroom apartment. That's when the the legitimate thoughts of suicide can remind for the first time, I was thinking about taking my car and driving it into a wall, or jumping off a bridge, which I'd seen one of my other poker friends do a few years earlier. And he had killed himself because he was in a similar situation. started about taking the pills in my apartment, and I had serious thoughts about taking my own life that night. And in a like, just a, oh my gosh, what's happening to me moment, I was just like, oh, maybe I'll maybe I'll pray. I've heard people talk about prayer before. I haven't talked to God. In a long time since that prayer that I thought killed my father. I know that now that that's not what he did. So I sat on the edge of my bed, and I sort of just looked up at the ceiling. And these are the words that I said, and I didn't really know how or what to pray. But I said, God, if you're real, I need you to show me a future and a hope for my life because I just don't see one anymore and in that moment, I started to hear the words repeat in my head, The kingdom of heaven is upon you. The kingdom of heaven is upon you. And it just started getting louder. And I honestly thought, Rodney, that I had gone crazy that I was finally hearing voices because the kingdom of heaven is upon you was not a phrase that I was not even not familiar with, but I didn't even understand it. And so I thought weird things were happening. I ran out of my bedroom, and I ran into the living room. And I noticed my dad's Bible, it was the one thing from my dad passing away that was given to me. I didn't have any of his clothes. I had no articles to remember him. I didn't even hardly have any pictures. But they'd given me his Bible after he passed away. Apparently, he was a he was a believer. He taught Bible school years ago, he never talked to me about Jesus any any point. But I opened up his Bible, I felt compelled to, I don't know really wide carried it for 20 years, he'd been dead for 17 years at that point. And I had never opened it. It is collected dust on the shelf. And I didn't really know what to look at. But I felt like I had to start reading it. And I opened it up to the New Testament because I knew from my brief experience in church that Jesus was in the New Testament, I was just like, I think I need to read about Jesus. And so I opened up to the first page of the book of Matthew and a couple paragraphs into this reading. It says, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is upon you. And I froze. I just stared at that sentence for a few minutes. And I felt this warmth on my body. And I just, I remember, choking up and in that moment, I realized God's real. I think he's talking to me. I just kept reading that book of Matthew that night a couple times. And I had this revelation that night. That all the words in this Bible that everybody told me for my whole life. And I agreed with a lot of the opinions of the world that the books of the Bible are for old people. They're just a list of rules. They're hard to understand, no one really gets it. It's a bunch of contradictions and all these things. And I believed all that, but I was having a different experience. In this moment. I was reading the book of Matthew and I was reading about the life of Jesus. And these words, were jumping off the page and into my heart. I realized in that moment that this guy had come. And he had lived a life for me. And he died on the cross without doing anything wrong, so that I could find forgiveness. And so I got down on my knees. I didn't know what to do. But I was just like, God, I messed up. I've just lived a life that's dirty. I don't even I don't even know what the prayer was. But I remember just, it all came out. God help me I need your help. This is not something I want to carry anymore. I don't even know what to do I owe all this money in Lord just forgive me, just please forgive me. I don't want to do this anymore. And it was just, and I felt all the weight of the world fall off my shoulders. In that moment, it was the best relief that I've ever experienced. It was physical, in the sense that I literally felt like a pressure and a weight had been lifted off of my body. But in that moment, I realized that life was about to get different for me. How different did it become because you're still a person who has this enormous debt that you're having to pay back. You're still in the same situation. But as you're saying, there's this weight that feels it's been lifted from you. So   Rodney Olsen  How did that change start to manifest in your life?   John Simmons  For me, it tarted with daily Bible reading. I was I was so thirsty for God's word that in that early days that I wouldn't leave without my Bible. I'd go to work with my Bible. I'd read my Bible in the in the break room at work or in the car and I listened to sermon messages on the radio on the drive to work or when I got home, I would watch Christian sermons on TV and I was just trying to fill myself with all these new ideas and things from the Bible and trying to learn more about who God was and his love for me and how to make my life different. Not really applying much of it yet. At one point I remember somebody asked me if I wanted to go to church with them. And I was like, No, I don't need church. All they do is take your money. And I just was like, I don't want to go there. I've got my Bible. That's all I need. And, of course, I was wrong. I needed that community, the community that I hadn't had in my life for so long. Eventually, I find myself in a church service for the first time and the pastor. He had a series on vision and he said, if you're a Christian, you need to find God's plan for your life. And you find it by praying for it. And this was revelation knowledge to me, I'd never prayed for anything except my food at that point. And so I was like, Okay, well, if God's got a plan for me, I want to plan for my life. I'm aimless, I have nowhere to go, I have no word. I don't know what to do. I'm working at this casino. I obviously want to get away from this gambling addiction, which didn't come off right away. I start praying for six months, every day, every minute that I can think to pray, God, show me your vision for my life, God, show me your vision for my life. So for six months, all I prayed for was food and a vision. And as I was doing that, I was continuing to study God's word and go to church more often I got involved in the parking lot ministry waving at people as they came into church in the mornings. And I was excited where my life was, but I still had the issues and the results of my sin, you know, the debt that had piled up and I was still smoking a lot. And I was still drinking and some of these things, and God started one by one. taking those things out of my life. The first time that had happened was with my cigarettes, and I was trying to lose weight. And on a walk, I was smoking cigarettes. And I just remember the holy spirit being like, how are you ever going to get healthy if you're doing that? I tried quitting smoking a dozen times before I was saved pills, patches, gums and all that and never worked. But in that one conviction note, I threw that pack of cigarettes in the in the dumpster near me, and I never smoked again. And it was this just deliverance moment. For me. That happened a few times later, it happened again with my drinking. And then eventually, with my gambling, I placed my last bet a few months after I'd gotten born again. And I got back into the casino for the last time and I had this not this huge knot in my stomach. It felt like there was weights on my ankles as well. And I just remember the physical manifestation of like, john, you should not go in there. John, you need to get out of here. And so that was the last I walked in there. And I played for about five minutes. My stomach hurts so bad from being in there that I left. And I cried on the way home and I was just like, oh, gosh, what you know, why do I feel like this and, but that was him breaking that off me. And so I never made another bet again, of course, you still have to deal with the issue of the money. And so I stayed at the casino until May of the following year when God gave me the vision for Testimony House. after praying for six months, God revealed to me that I would start a ministry, I knew it was God talking to me because I didn't really know what a ministry was. I was like a ministry, the only ministry I'd ever heard of at that point was the parking lot ministry. at my church, I was thinking, you want me to go wave at people like I don't know what that is, or how that's a job. But that's what I saw, I knew that it was him talking to me. And a few hours later, he gave me a download. And I've never experienced anything like this before since and he said, john, you're going to start a ministry, it's going to be called Testimony House, I was in the middle of dealing a poker hand at work, I stopped basically stopped the hand and everybody's just sort of looking at me and I take a pen that was sitting next to me and I start writing on my hand Testimony House, it's going to be a Christian Learning Center. And all these words are Greek to me, I don't know what Testimony House is as that's not something I've dreamed of, or thought of, or, you know, I had aspirations to be a musician, or maybe you play Christian music, if he was going to give me a plan. Those are my plans. His plan was for me to share my testimony, and start a ministry where we share the testimony of others. And I write books where I'm inspiring and encouraging others to walk out and find God's plan for the life. And that's those are the types of things that I'm writing down here on my hand and this poker table, because I don't want to forget what he's saying to me, I get home and I put them all in a Word document. And it's about 20 pages long. I've never done anything like this. And I start sharing it with some of the people from church and they're like this must be from God, because you're, you're too dumb to have thought of any of this basically, is the gist of their conversation to be like, and so it was such eye opening that oh my gosh, I found the vision that I've been praying for for six months. I don't know what it looks like, I don't know what's going to happen. But over the course of those six months, God had delivered me from the afflictions in my life. God had given me a new a new vision to walk towards in my life, I still had to pay down debt. You're right, Rodney, and it took me years of that. And you know, it wasn't until, in fact, the summer of last year that I finally became debt free. And so now I'm debt free walking in fullness of what God has for me in ministry. And in life. I have a family and a wife and three kids,   Rodney Olsen  There's a couple of things. I just want to touch on there that you've talked about. And the first is the fact that you prayed constantly for six months. God give me a vision. And I'm wondering, firstly, do you think that people give up way too soon when they're praying for something that they might pray for a couple of days, maybe a few weeks? If they're being really persistent, it might be a month, but then it's like, well, God's not bringing it. And the other thing is the fact that the Holy Spirit was actually touching you on the shoulder and saying, Hey, this is time to give this up and then giving you the power to do that. Do you think so often We try and take the place of the Holy Spirit by telling people what they should and shouldn't be doing.   John Simmons  Yeah, I'll start with that question first. So the Holy Spirit thing is it was so unique to me, because I remember having to ask people like, Is this normal? Like, it was so unusual for me to, like, hear that internal monologue that I knew wasn't my voice? And that's how I experienced the Holy Spirit, you know, these these just little phrases? Usually, it's a question like, why are you doing that, and these sorts of things. And so for us, we're just like, well, to stop gaming, why can't like I've tried, I'm saying that I still can't stop. Like, I need the Holy Spirit to show up and convict me and, you know, speak to me in a way that my mind needs to grasp the reality of the situation that I'm in. And it was so awesome for me to experience that I would encourage anybody who's like trying to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit to just like, what, usually when it's telling you to do something, you know, you shouldn't be doing that's probably him. And you just listen to some of that walk into instead of trying to like, self correct, because I self corrected for 10 years, Rodney, and nothing seemed to work, you know, my family tried to give me a self correct I was sent, I was one time sent to a psychiatrist where I was prescribed pills to stop me from gambling, and they definitely worked. But I also didn't want to leave my couch or work or live or do anything else. So they didn't really work as in terms of being able to correct my life. So all these things that I had done, none of them worked as good as is partnering with the Holy Spirit to walk in what he wanted me to do with my life. As far as the vision goes, I absolutely believe that a vision is the number one thing. This is my own personal opinion, a vision is the number one thing that can help someone in any issue of their life. Whether it is you know, you're sick, and you need to find a vision to be healed, or someone in your family, or whether it's a you're an addict, and you need to have a vision of not being an addict. And you need to figure out what God's plan is for your life so that you could walk further in that. And for me, the desire to pray was well, first off, it came because I didn't know what else to pray. No one had taught me how to pray for anything besides vision and food. And so I was like, well, these are the things that I pray for. But it was such a hunger for me because I had nothing else. I had nothing else in my life. And I was so desperate for it. And you see this often in the Bible, the stories of the people who are like Daniel, fasting, fasting, fasting, fasting, and praying, fasting and praying, and he was so desperate to get out of his situation. And so many times you see this in other Bible people, that's what I was experiencing, I was so desperate to find what God had for me because Jesus died on the cross for me. And I recognize that now, I asked for forgiveness of my sins. But he was asking for more he was asking us to take up our cross and walk with he's asking us to walk in love and demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit. And all these different things in the Bible were talks about like your next steps. I was like, I want to do that for him. He died for me, I want to give my life to Him. And so for me, I was like, I'm gonna find it, I'm going to go chase this vision, I'm gonna pray for it everyday, I'm going to believe for it, I started writing things down. And in the midst of all that, I will let you know that I I stepped out on my own a couple times trying to be like, well, maybe this is what he wants me to do. And so I tried a series of things, including trying to be a stand up Christian comedian, including trying to write Christian music and starting a Christian band. I tried to start a Christian podcast, and I did all these things that I thought was God speaking to me. But it wasn't, it was me trying to fill in from God, when you hit when I heard from God, I knew it was God, it was something way bigger than anything I could have planned for myself. That's how you know it's him, because you're going to need help from others to do it. The other thing is going to be probably be something you don't necessarily want to do in a million years, I would have never expected to be brought in, sit in a ministry and lead a ministry. Now that I'm in it, I realized that Oh, my goodness, I have been made and created and designed specifically for this. And I got when I finally read Ephesians 2:10 and said, You are God's handiwork created to be used by God for great things. Through Jesus Christ. I was just like, this is what I've been created to do like this, is it? I know that this is it. And so for people who are giving up on their visions, yes, I absolutely would agree with you that so many of us, we don't see it overnight. And that as time passes, it becomes so easy to let go of the things that are important to you. Because you're just not seeing any fruit in that area. We give up so often on vision. But if you just press and you say God, I want this so bad and you don't give up and you don't let those prayers go. Imagine the moment you can have where God gives you a revelation where this is the answer to your prayer. This is the healing you've been praying praying for this is the vision of a career that you've been praying for this is the vision of unlocking the salvation for your child has been such a trouble and hasn't been able to get saved or set free from the damage they've done in their own lives. All of these things can happen if you just don't give up Never give up on that prayer.   Rodney Olsen  I know that there are several different aspects to Testimony House so the ministry that God asked you to set up maybe you can give us a thumbnail sketch of what Testimony House is all about.   John Simmons  Testimony House we call it a Christian Learning Center. Our Our objective is twofold. One is to lead the loss to Christ and we believe we're doing that mainly through creating testimonial videos and books and doing podcasts like this where I either either share my testimony or Share the testimony of others. We do long form testimonial videos. We do short form testimonial videos, we do books that have testimonies in them. All these things are to encourage someone who doesn't know Jesus to find Jesus, someone who is dealing with something and wants to have an aspiration of faith and their own heart. They can overcome or get through or find Jesus in those types of moments for themselves. The second part of our ministry is that we wanted, we call it finding God's sentence for your life. But most people would say, your discipleship, or they would say, finding God's plan and purpose for your life. So we want people to get saved, and then we want them to find what God has for them. We created in the last two years, a studio here in my house where we create live stream content, we invite other ministries to come in and share the messages that God has put on their heart. We do videos, I've written several books, one book's called Finding Faith, and that articulates my path from gambling addict to being born again. And the one called God Has a Sentence for Your Life where I describe how you are step by step guide on finding God's plan for your life after you get born again. And so mostly what we're doing is online videos right now. And we would like to do more events and things in the future. I am sure that there are people listening right now, who want to find out more about this, where's the easiest place for people to track you down? testimonyhouse.org is the website where you can take a 12 question quiz and find out where you are on your path to writing God's sentence. If you want to see any of our video resources, we've merged everything into YouTube, all of our videos, all of our content that has been currently distributed as on our YouTube channel, it's youtube.com/testimonyhouseorg   Rodney Olsen  So there's a couple of easy ways to find you. And we will put links to those URLs in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net, so people can find them there. But John it has been a delight to speak to you to hear about the transformation that you have you experienced, there can be no doubt that something amazing has happened in your life, and you're continuing to share that to so many people. So I want to thank you for spending some time sharing that story here on Bleeding Daylight,   John Simmons  Been a pleasure and honor I thank you so much, Rodney, for having me on today.   Emily Olsen  Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight. Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others. For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net  

In recent years, we've seen a growing interest in what many refer to as true crime. There are blogs, books, podcasts, television shows, and more dedicated to delving into the details of real crimes, and in many cases seeking resolution for previously unsolved crime. Lori Morrison takes us deep into the world of true crime. Lori is a paralegal and a licensed private investigator. Her podcast, The Unlovely Truth, is dedicated to exploring the intersection of faith and true crime.   https://www.theunlovelytruth.com/ https://www.facebook.com/theUnlovelyTruth https://www.instagram.com/theunlovelytruthpodcast/ lori@heunlovelytruth.com       (This transcript is intended as a guide only. It may not be 100% correct.)   Emily Olsen  Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick out the darkness until it bleeds daylight. This is Bleeding Daylight with your host Rodney Olsen.   Rodney Olsen  Thanks for listening. Please connect with Bleeding Daylight on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and please share this and other episodes with others.   Our guest today takes us deep into the world of true crime. As a private investigator she’s seen the best and worst of people. I’ll introduce you in just a moment.   In recent years, we've seen a growing interest in what many refer to as true crime. There are blogs, books, podcasts, television shows, and more dedicated to delving into the details of real crimes, and in many cases seeking resolution for previously unsolved crime. My guest on Bleeding Daylight today is Lori Morrison, a paralegal and a licensed private investigator. Her podcast, The Unlovely Truth is dedicated to exploring the intersection of faith and true crime. Lori, thank you for your time today.   Lori Morrison  Well, it's a pleasure to be here, Rodney.   Rodney Olsen  I want to explore the reasons that people seem so fascinated by the dark world of crime and maybe the best place to start is asking, what is it about crime that actually fascinates you?   Lori Morrison  That is a great question. I cannot remember a time when I wasn't interested in mysteries. You know, I started out with the little kid mysteries, the Encyclopedia Browns, and the Nancy, Drews and all that and then got into more literary I guess, if you will more adult things with Earl Stanley Gardner and Agatha Christie, and those just always fascinated me as puzzles. And when you look at true crime, I think that puzzle factor is still there. And the whole psychological aspect of what could possibly drive a person to behave this way.   Rodney Olsen  So you think there's something in there that makes us wonder, what's going on in that person's mind? Am I someone who could actively carry out a crime like that? Is there something deep within me, do you think that there's something of that, in the whole sense of of wanting to tune into true crime?   Lori Morrison  Exactly. Because at our core, we want to think, why I'm different from that person, I could never do that. Or that could never happen to me. You know, we're all the same. We all have a broken nature. And you know, the Bible tells us that our hearts are all dark. And without God, there's nothing good in us.   Rodney Olsen  Do you think sometimes it becomes a little bit morbid for people that they're wanting to find too many details? Or is that part of the the interest that we have into wanting to know it all?   Lori Morrison  I think it can get too morbid. I know that I have worked a case where people have publicly shared autopsy photos and that's absolutely no one needs to see that, you know, the family really didn't even want to see that you're at your absolute most vulnerable at that point. You know, what, what's left of you here on earth. And so, you know, people using that to hurt other people, or to be sensationalistic or to just have clickbait to get people to look at things, you know, really appealing at the darkest aspects of our nature. I really try to stay away from that type of thing. I want to talk about the issues that are important to understanding why things happened. Understanding, is there a way we can protect ourselves and our loved ones? And is there an avenue of service that we can be involved in? to help prevent these things from happening? Again,   Rodney Olsen  There are a lot of people delving into True Crime through a range of podcasts these days and I wonder how many of those people are actually reaching out to the victims of the crimes to the families and seeking permission or just going here? And this comes down to that question that you're mentioning, of how much should we share?   Lori Morrison  I agree. And I I've done a mix of both if, of course, my podcast is based on true crime books, because I just I love books. And I thought that would be an interesting way to choose issues to talk about. And I have had victim's family members on my podcast, you know, you have to think about what is your motivation? Why are you doing what you're doing? And I actually had started out, I was just gonna do a little True Crime book review, you know, this one is balanced and victim centric, this one's exploitative, and kind of tried to steer people that way. But a very good friend of mine, we were talking about how I was getting things set up. And she said, You know, there's a lot of noise out there in the true crime world. And there certainly is, like you said in your introduction, TV shows, documentaries, movies, podcasts, books, it's everywhere. And she said, the thing that makes you different Lori, and that would bring a unique perspective is your faith. And she was exactly right. And so I pivoted just a little bit. I still use the books because I just I love the books. But I tried to just kind of summarize a story, because we were a people that love stories. And that's how Jesus taught as well. And I tried to pull out larger themes, whether it be forgiveness, retaliation, whatever that book really highlights, and talk about how that can apply to our lives in any area of our lives, because most of us, thank goodness are not going to run into a serial killer in our lives. Most of us are only going to meet maybe touched, kind of at the edge of something. And so I wanted to give people that sense of again, how do you make sense of this? How do you maybe protect yourself and your loved ones. But I want people to understand that there are simple things they can do to be of service, I call it being a true crime hero. You can do things that help victims that help maybe prevent some future victimization, and even help maybe, and this is a hard one to swallow the perpetrators. Because God loves them. He doesn't love what they did. But he loves them in the same way he loves us. And we're all created in his image.   Rodney Olsen  There's so much he there that I want to draw around. And maybe before we go there, I'll ask this question. We see so many programs, there's CSI programs, and all sorts of other things that we've seen on TV over various years, NCIS, and all these different things which are about solving crimes, and even back in the day of just good old fashioned murder mystery, which are fiction. Do you think sometimes the lines blur and so when we're actually getting involved in something that happened to someone that we blur the line, because we're so used to these mysteries as entertainment,   Lori Morrison  I think that can definitely happen. And of course, it's it's pretty well known the CSI effect. It's even affecting juries, everybody expects that there are going to be fingerprints and DNA, and surveillance camera footage and that's just not always the case. fingerprints in usable form, aren't that easy to recover, they get smudged, they get smeared. If it's a potential offender who has been around that victim, maybe they live in the same house, their friends they visited, of course, there's going to be fingerprints, DNA is only going to help you if you have a sample to compare it against. It's not as easy to solve a lot of these crimes as people think. But then on the flip side, some of them are a little easier to understand what probably happened, but difficult to prove in court. And I think that frustrates people, you know, the rules in our justice system, where certain things are admissible, certain things aren't. And I get that frustration, I really do. But you've got to protect the rights of the accused. Because someday that might be you.   Rodney Olsen  How do you as a person of faith, managed to continue to surround yourself by this darkness of true crimes and some fairly despicable things happening to other people to victims? And yet hold on to your faith? How do you surround yourself with all of this darkness, and yet still talk about the light,   Lori Morrison  You do have to be very intentional about working that through. So I make sure I'm staying in the Word, I'm having my time with God, staying in community that is very, very important, having other believers around you that they're bringing other perspectives into your life. And I think for me, what really helps is something that a victim's mother said to me, I was interviewing her, she was telling me her daughter's story. And she had actually become a victims advocate she was working with and for other families who had gone through similar situations. And I asked her, how difficult is that for you? Does that just constantly bring up your own pain and your own tragedy? You know, how do you do that? And she said, Oh, it heals my heart. I was so blown away with that amazing perspective. But she's right. In any type of situation, when we get too involved in self, that darkness is going to stay as a cloud around us. But it's by stepping out. It's by helping others. It's by focusing on other's needs. Because the darkness never leaves on its own. The light has to come in and drive it away. And so I try to remind myself, that that's what I'm doing. It's not about being stuck in the darkness. It's about needing to go there because without me bringing the light into it. It's not going to go anywhere.   Rodney Olsen  You mentioned that there are some of these television shows that have changed our perception What really happens and so we expect there to be perfect sets of fingerprints everywhere, and DNA that automatically matches and and it's in the system. But of course, one of those other areas where we have got a wrong perception at times I'm sure is that of the private investigator, there are magic life that that is tell us what it's really like,   Lori Morrison  Well, it's definitely not like Magnum PI, he kind of want to blend in, you don't want to be driving the flashy car and wearing the the loud, bright clothes. So you know, that's fun to watch on TV. But I try to really, really blend in. I try to be unmemorable, if you will. And it's not glamorous, I've I've done surveillance before where you sit, and you sit, sit for long periods of time, waiting for something to happen. Because you can't always predict when people are going to do what it is you want them to do. The hardest thing for me is, if you're interviewing an individual, it really depends on your circumstances. But a lot of times you're trying to get information from individuals, and you don't really necessarily want them to know why you want it. And so you come up with what we call a pretext, you give them a reason to talk about something that's slightly different from your, your actual motive, and trying to be sympathetic and warm and draw information out of people that you feel may have done some fairly horrible things. That's not always easy. But I think you see on TV, you know, people are coming in, and they're being really aggressive, and they're demanding answers, and the people fold and give it to them. I have not really found that that works. Well. I think you come in with a softer approach. You're sympathetic, I apologize a lot. I'm so sorry to be bothering you really try to put people at ease. Sometimes in an unguarded moment, they'll tell you something that they don't really realize, has given something away.   Rodney Olsen  I do remember being a jury in a court case quite some time ago, and watching the prosecution talking to to the witness who was the defendant. And it was quite interesting to see just some of the almost, you know, passing by kind of questions that were asked, and I just kept thinking that's gonna come back and most of the time it did. So I imagine it is the same as you say that you're asking questions, that the person that you're talking to isn't necessarily imagining that this is going to be a key piece of evidence.   Lori Morrison  Right. It's interesting, though, I did have one person that the minute they said something, they realized that they shouldn't have said it. And their body language and their facial expression, and even a quick intake of breath. You knew, okay, that information is important, because she just realized she should not have shared that, from her perspective,   Rodney Olsen  As a person of faith. you're wanting to do the right thing to to be an honest person, obviously. So where do you draw the line with the ends justifying the means? So you're having to come up with a pretext, which is not necessarily what you're really there for? How do you draw that line for yourself as a person of faith?   Lori Morrison  That's a great question. And nobody has ever actually asked me that. So I'm glad you did. I try very hard not to lie. Because just from a practical standpoint, when you start telling lies, you have to remember what you told who. And the truth is just always easier to remember, what I tend to do is make kind of open ended statements, and allow people to interpret them the way they want to. And then as you see that they're thinking that the conversation is coming from a certain point of view, you just, you just kind of roll with that. If I actually have to tell something that is not entirely true. Again, I try to stay as close to the truth as I possibly can. But I also try to remember Rahab, you know, she missed directed the soldiers away from the spies. And that was credited to her as righteousness, because her larger purpose was God's work and having God's justice be done. And not that I am some agent of God and in some kind of, you know, overblown way, but God uses people that is how he often does his work in our world. and so I just tried to remember the bigger picture of what I'm trying to do, and why I'm trying to do it and who I'm doing it for not only my clients, who are victims, but also a God who loves justice.   Rodney Olsen  Again, to contrast the wonderful world of television, which is where most of us get our information on these things. In the real world, of course, on the TV, the cases that private investigators take are always involving a millionaire and, and there are all these hard cases to crack, I would imagine that the sort of cases that you have to take on a quite different to that what would an everyday case be that you would need to take on as an investigator?   Lori Morrison  Well, I have yet to work with any millionaires. So we can dispel that myth pretty quickly. Unfortunately, a lot of people that I'm working with are folks that are just broken, because they feel like the system has let them down. Maybe someone whose loved one has passed, and there was no real investigation, they just quickly said, Oh, this is a suicide, we don't really need to look into things. And the family says, but when I look at the circumstances, and I know my loved one, I just I don't believe that's true. So sometimes it's families that are just wanting more information, to either confirm that determination, or if that determination is not correct, they want justice for their loved one. And they want to take back a narrative that was false. So I've done a lot of work in that area. Sometimes I'm working with attorneys in civil suits. So that's a little bit of the more mundane, where you might have some surveillance, that kind of thing. So it's a pretty mixed bag, but it's not ever really movie worthy from a Hollywood standpoint. Now, from a human standpoint, I think these stories are incredibly compelling, and actually would make good documentary type series again, to to educate people on if your loved one has been a victim of a crime. Here's some things that you need to be doing, to make sure that an investigation is staying on track, and doing everything that needs to be done. Because you know, police departments can get overwhelmed, they just don't have the time to devote to every case that comes their way. It could be a type of crime, that doesn't happen in that jurisdiction very often. And you just don't have officers with the training and experience to look into that particular type of incident. Just a lot of different factors. A lot of times, it's just helping families walk through this and get answers that they are wanting.   Rodney Olsen  So let's take those examples you're talking about. Sometimes if if a client comes to you and says, look, the police have said that my loved one has suicided below, I believe that there's something more in it, or a case like that, and you're trying to exonerate the person who has passed away from what they've been accused of doing. Oftentimes, I'm sure that you're able to come up with that evidence. And that's a great relief for the client. But there's obviously other times where the evidence that presents actually confirms the police's case, how do you comfort a client when you come to them and say, Look, I'm sorry, but this is how it happened.   Lori Morrison  That's a tough one. I've had my my arms around clients while they cried. And you just, you just have to be there for them. There's, there's really nothing you can do in that moment, that's going to fix anything. And I think a lot of us are fixers, we want to be able to step in and do something to make it better for them. And if we don't think that we can, then we tend to shy away and not do anything. What I've found with a lot of these families is they just want to be heard, they want to be told that they're not crazy for thinking what they thought, even if things are are looking like they were wrong, because that's going to be most families natural tendency. You know, my loved one didn't do this. You know, you just you have to be willing to sit with them while they absorb that. You have to be willing to just let them talk, let them cry, let them do whatever they need to do. And let them know that they're not alone.   Rodney Olsen  A lot of the trouble that people find themselves in, as we have said, or what more mundane than the sorts of things that that we might imagine even coming down to the fact that there are disputes between neighbors. And we hear about this all the time. Have you ever had to intervene in that sort of a case,   Lori Morrison  Actually a couple and one of them was quite scary because the neighbor had a family member that lived with them that we weren't certain was entirely stable, and they had access to a lot of weapons, and routinely liked to just shoot those weapons kind of wherever they were. The neighbors felt very He threatened certain actions that had happened, I understood why they felt threatened. And so drying to step in law enforcement was getting a little tired of being called out, didn't really see this as a problem. And so just just working with them to maybe almost be a go between. And of course, civil litigation is always a good opportunity to let cooler heads decide what should be done. Because a lot of times, people wait until things just get so heated, that the parties themselves really have no good way of working out their differences. But if you can say, you know, look, there's been this type of civil wrong, let's see how the system handles it. And then we will live by whatever is decided in that venue. And sometimes even if somebody thinks criminal behavior has been possibly involved, and the police have not uncovered what they think is enough to move forward in that direction. civil litigation can help there as well. If you have McCollum torts and civil litigation a civil wrong as opposed to a criminal wrong. If you have a tort, you think you can prove a lot of times if you can get that into civil court, that gives you the opportunity to explore other investigative avenues, you can serve subpoenas for documents, or you can hold depositions where you're able to compel sworn testimony. So that venue is very, very helpful. And so with my background as a paralegal, also, I do work with attorneys. And hopefully I can help again, kind of bridge that gap between them and their client. And also maybe save the client some money, litigation can be very expensive. And it's very unfortunate that families would have to pay out of their own pocket to do things that they felt like the authorities maybe should have done. And so if I can do some of kind of the heavy lifting, and then the, the attorney supervises it all and does all the final work on it, that can often help families in that way. And I'm glad that I'm able to do that as well.   Rodney Olsen  Social media these days, has really cracked open the world to us in seeing what people's immediate reactions to things are. So we're not just having conversations with like minded people where we're seeing the whole thing broken open. And whenever we see a crime or reporting of a crime in social media, there is an overwhelming sense in the comments of just throw the book at them, they deserve this. And yet, you earlier mentioned that as people of faith, we need to be offering some sort of hope, or some sort of love to the perpetrators. How do we do that? How do we keep that balance between bringing justice in a situation, and yet still honoring and loving someone who has done the wrong thing?   Lori Morrison  I will admit that that is very hard for me. Because when you're working with clients, you get emotionally attached to them. And so someone that has wronged them, it is very hard to to have warm and compassionate feelings for that person. So again, I think that's one of those things that you have to be very intentional about, you have to cultivate that mindset, because I don't think it's a natural mindset for most of us, because we do like vengeance and making things right and punishing bad people and rewarding good people. And it's just hardly ever that neat and tidy. You know, life is messy and when you're talking about criminal behavior, it gets even messier still. And so just remembering that, again, like we said before, deep down in all of us, is that broken nature, that sin nature that we all have that little darkness in us that were we to make a series of disastrous choices could lead us to some pretty dark places where we are really capable of doing things that we don't like to admit we're capable of doing. And so just trying to remember, this person is a dearly loved child of God, no less than I am. I may have made some better choices than this person did. But you know, sin is sin. There are issues in my life that God is highly displeased with. And so, just trying to remember that you're not better than that person, that you're maybe just making some better choices right now. your priorities are more aligned with God's and At the moment than this person, but you're not better, you're not more loved. So just being super, super intentional about remembering that it's, it's just the mindset that we bring to what we're doing. And it's hard.   Rodney Olsen  You talk a lot about choices there. And I know that as you investigate cases, and as you say, You've become quite close to some of the clients and someone has done them wrong, or they times that you actually investigate, but you can start to see the circumstances that have led them to this dark place.   Lori Morrison  Oh, for sure. And not that ever excuses what anybody does. I don't want people to think that I'm doing that. And it's never about blaming the victim, you know, you shouldn't have been involved with this person, or you shouldn't have been in this place. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I'm going to make a series of choices that will lead me to be a victim. Nobody does that. So I don't want people to think that victim blaming is ever appropriate. And typically, I find it so interesting, because we would never blame someone whose house got broken into. Well, why did you have that nice TV? Well, why did you not have a security system? We wouldn't do that. But especially sexual assault, physical assault, and homicide. There are times when we say, Well, you know, if you wouldn't have been there, if you wouldn't have done that. But like you said, on the flip side, you can start looking at these perpetrators. And you can say, okay, you made a lot of bad choices. But some of these choices were made for you, whether it was in your childhood, or whatever. And again, I don't want to say, you know, if you had a bad childhood, you get a free pass on whatever you do. But you can see where kind of the foundation of that was, was laid. And so one thing I like to really encourage people to do is, if you are someone that really likes the true crime genre, you want to make a difference in people's lives. But you don't want to do something crazy, like I did and go out and become a PI, I already take that kind of leap, mentor at risk youth. Those kids don't always have someone that is showing them what the better choice is. And so if you can be that person, whether it's through sports, or scouting, or youth group at church, or whatever it happens to be, if you can help those kids learn that there's a better way, learn how intentional you have to be to stay on that path, then you are making a difference.   Rodney Olsen  I know that in your job, you must put yourself into risky situations, and there's probably quite often danger there. What are some of the most dangerous situations that you found yourself in?   Lori Morrison  I actually try to avoid danger every time I possibly can. I am certainly not someone. Yes, thank you. I'm not someone that courts that. So there are cases I've actually turned down. Because I think that the personal danger is really more than I'm equipped to take on. There may be other people that are there better that they should be doing that particular case, probably the most dangerous one I've ever been involved with. Didn't seem that dangerous to begin with. And I was very fortunate. I was working with a team of investigators. And so they were mostly more experienced than I. So I was able to just really soak in their knowledge and their experience. They were all extremely kind, very mentoring. But we were working a case that had been a determination of suicide, the family, for good reason, did not believe it. And so we were investigating and doing some interviews. And it turned out that we found some information that there was perhaps some official cover up maybe possibly even misconduct and ties to some human trafficking. And that is a very dangerous area to work in. And we did not pursue that angle because it really didn't bear too much on the case itself. It was just kind of peripherally a part of it. I was very glad to be in a group. I try not to do a lot of things. One on one, if there might be any, any way that things are gonna go sideways. I usually take another investigator with me. My husband's gone with me before he's not an investigator, but he's just there to be a person because there's you know, so At a numbers, there are dangerous situations. And I let people that are better equipped than I to handle those maybe people that are ex military, ex police, that kind of thing. I do a lot of document recovery, that kind of that kind of evidence recovery, interviewing of witnesses. And a lot of times just writing out timelines, people have given different accounts of what happened. And when you start laying everything out and just writing it out in linear fashion, you realize, okay, I can't tell who's lying, but somebody's lying here. Because this could not have all happened the way everybody is explaining that it did. And so again, just kind of putting that puzzle together. A lot of investigative work is kind of behind the scenes like that,   Rodney Olsen  In the middle of everything that you're discussing here. There's this internal scream for justice, and I can't help but think that this is really a part of the Father's heart. So I imagine that as you do spend that time in Scripture, as you do spend that time with God, there is something there that renews you to go back in as difficult as it may seem to actually see justice happen.   Lori Morrison  I think a lot about Micah 6:8, where the writer says, What does your God one of you, He wants you to do justice, love, mercy, and walk humbly with your God. And so I try to balance those things. That, yes, we're going to seek justice. And yes, we're going to try to temper that with mercy. But most of all, we're going to be humble and realize that God is on the throne and is in control. And we're just trying to work out his purposes. And I've also come to learn, the longer I do this, is that justice can have different meanings. Not every case is going to be able to be resolved with this was the perpetrator, we bring them to court, we get a conviction. And then we go on with our lives, you're never going to be able to put a victim back in the position they were in before the incident happened to them. That would be true justice, restore everybody to where they were. That's simply not possible. So then we can look at our system of justice in whatever society we live in. And again, for different reasons. It's just not always possible to achieve that measure of justice. But some families find justice in knowing the truth. And again, being able to reclaim the narrative of what happened. If it's been put out there in a way that the family feels is false, or dishonouring.   Rodney Olsen  We've tackled a lot of heavy stuff here. But I imagine that there are occasions when there is a lighter side to this investigation, or the humorous moments amongst all of the heaviness.   Lori Morrison  Oh, sure. One of my favorites, the case that I talked about, where I worked with a group of investigators, we were from different parts of the country and media company had wanted to do a story on this. And so we volunteered our time, but they paid our expenses to come in and do this. And so we were all staying together at a giant Airbnb. And I remember, everybody came in different times of the evening, because we were coming from different places. And so the next morning, the first morning, we were all there together. We sat up in the dining room to kind of have a war room a little bit. We had already planned out what we were going to do. But we're just going over last minute things and did anything need to change and who was doing what and all that. And one of the investigators who is a security expert, he pulls a big like Rubbermaid tub out from under this table and sets it up on top and says, Okay, what does everybody want? And he pulls the lid off. And he said, I've got 22s, I've got this. And I'm thinking, I've never been to a staff meeting where they armed you. That was fascinating to me. And so I didn't carry anything my job in that particular operation was to kind of be the, the head of the nerve center, the operation center. So as people were going out, when they needed information, I was pulling information for them if they couldn't locate someone and they needed an alternate address. I was finding that for them and and keeping track of where everybody was because, you know, we were dealing with what we felt was criminal activity. And so you won't keep tabs on everybody. So that was my job. Kind of command central. But I did kind of geek out a little bit. And as we were going back to the airport, when everything was over, this particular investigator shared one of our rental cars back because his flight was at about the same time that ours was. And so I said, Can I carry one of the gun cases into the airport? Because I just want to be able to say that I did that. And he's like, Okay, if that makes you happy? Sure. And so I learned that when you take a gun into an airport, you immediately go to security, and declare, here's my gun, you take it, you know, there, there are little, little moments like that, that keep you sane.   Rodney Olsen  Now, we've talked a lot about your work as an investigator, but coming right back to where we started, was talking about your podcast, and your your podcast is all about true crime and started out, as you mentioned, as really a book review of true crime books, and it's, it's gone from there. But I know that it's been very helpful for people, it hasn't just been something to entertain. But it's been something that has helped people along the way as well.   Lori Morrison  Well, that is certainly my hope. And it's, it's so wonderful. When I hear from a listener, which I did, just a couple of weeks ago, I had done an episode about fraud. And the the crime itself was a man who not only committed fraud after fraud, but he was the first known person to use the internet, to lure victims, he was a serial killer as well. And so you know, we think of most serial killers as being kind of the roaming person that's out there looking for victims, he was just sitting at home, drawing them to himself through the internet. And so I interviewed a fellow PI, and she was also a fraud expert. And so like I said, before, you know, not many of us are going to encounter serial killers in our lives, hopefully. And so we talked about the fraud aspect for the listeners, what they could do to recognize fraud, protect themselves. And I had a listener, reach out to me over social media and said, Oh, I listened to that episode. And someone had tried to scam me. And now I know where I can go, to get resources to protect myself. That is what it's all about protecting ourselves protecting our loved ones. And I also try to encourage people again, step up and get involved, there are so many ways that you can make a difference in victims lives, or in heading off people, hopefully, being a victim, that are easy, they're safe, and they involve skills you already have. And so trying to encourage people, making them aware of wonderful nonprofits that they might be able to get involved with. And even something just as simple as sharing a podcast episode. I do highlight unsolved crimes, from time to time. And just sometimes getting that information out in the public. Someone who knows something, may say, oh, gosh, I didn't even realize that was still unsolved. Maybe I should tell the police this. Or maybe it's been a cold case where you were close with the perpetrator. And so you know, some things well, now that relationship has soured, you're not so close, maybe you're ready to talk. You know, I don't want it to be just entertainment. And I hate to even use that word, but I want the entertainment value, the knowledge value of the stories, to bring people in to listen. And then I want to bring in a mix of wonderful guests who have all this knowledge and all the the resources that I don't have, that we can share with people.   Rodney Olsen  And I'm sure that talking to a lot of the people that you do on the podcast, is actually helping you to sharpen your skills as an investigator as well.   Lori Morrison  Oh, for sure. One of the favorite sayings I have is, we're all smarter together than any of us are by ourselves. And so I love a team approach in almost everything. These type of cases almost always take a team approach, the lone wolf PI, who can do it all by themselves. That is very rare, because I'm certainly not a ballistics expert. I'm not a forensic expert. I'm not a statement analysis expert. I'm learning just enough about all of these things. That when a case I have needs someone like that, I know who to go to.   Rodney Olsen  If people are wanting to find The Unlovely Truth, your podcast, where's the easiest place for them to go?   Lori Morrison  It's on Podbean, Apple, Stitcher. Most of your your major podcast hosts have picked it up. You can find it there. You can go to my website, theunlovelytruth.com. The episodes are all there. You can also email me, lori@heunlovelytruth.com or you can find me on Facebook at The Unlovely Truth or Instagram, The Unlovely Truth Podcast.   Rodney Olsen  And Lori we will put links to those various places to get in touch with you in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net. But I've got to say it has been an absolute delight to speak to you to get some of your knowledge of places that most of us don't go. But thank you so much for your time today.   Lori Morrison  Thank you and thank you for your podcast. You have had some fascinating guests on that are educating people in all kinds of different areas. So you're doing a real public service and I appreciate it.   Emily Olsen  Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight. Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others. For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net