Founder of Fullness Of Joy Ministry, Author, Speaker, and Teacher

***Nichole's testimony is being transcribed and will be available soon.***

These are Nichole's favorite scriptures...

Can you share about your childhood, and then walk us through the moment that things changed, because you had an incredible transformation? 

Absolutely. It really started at the beginning of my life because I was born into a family with domestic violence. My biological dad was very violent toward my mom. They were young when they got married, and the violence started pretty much from the beginning. I was born learning to fear him, but when I was around three, my mom left him. And when she left him, she went back to Indiana, where her family was, and he stayed in Florida.

I started visiting him during the summers and every other Christmas after the divorce. And when I was around seven, I went down there for the summer, and I knew things were completely different. I’d always feared him, but that is when things got really, really dark. He was getting ready to marry a new woman, and she had some kids of her own. When I first walked into the home, dragons and wizards decorated it, and my biological father was very different. He was into the occult, into Satanism, and just flat-out witchcraft. I didn’t know the words to put to it then, because I had never been around for anything like that. I did not grow up around such things. And that’s when I remembered the sexual abuse starting when I was around seven, and it went on for a few years. When I was around nine, he divorced that woman and left.

More than sexual abuse was the mental torment that he inflicted on me, because he told me he could read my mind, and that no matter where I was, he knew what I was thinking. And if I ever thought badly about him and told anybody about the abuse, he would kill me and my mom both, and I believed him. As a small child, I watched him do rituals. I watched him harm animals and do really dark things. When he said he had power, I believed he had power, and I believed he could read my mind. Even when I would be back with my mom’s side of the family, I would be terrified all the time because I thought he could read my mind. And so, I learned from a young age to suppress everything–I had to suppress my emotions and thoughts. It’s hard to put into words, but imagine not having one safe space, not even in your mind. And that’s exactly how I felt. I was always afraid. All these symptoms stemmed from the abuse, the satanic rituals, and him telling me he could read my mind. To say the least, I was a mess. When I was around 12, he shot himself, but he didn’t die. He lived through it. When he did that, I got so much worse, because when he hurt himself, he was his favorite person in the entire world. And I knew if he could hurt himself, he could harm my mom or me. So that really is when I started having suicidal ideation for the first time. 

While sitting in my upstairs bedroom, I remember considering whether I could tie the blind cord around my neck and jump out the window, and that's also when I first started cutting. I recall that the fear of only being injured and not ceasing to exist scared me from ending my life. I didn’t want to go through life crippled or whatever the outcome would have been. Now, I know God was saving me. I never really felt like I had access to a way to harm myself. We didn’t have the internet back then. Praise the Lord. But that really is when a spirit of suicide attached to me. And it followed me throughout my life until a few years ago.My teenage years were very tumultuous, to say the least. I was very interested in men twice my age. When I was 14, I was in sexual relationships with men in their mid-20s. My body meant absolutely nothing to me. I always felt like I was born into an old soul. The reality was that I couldn’t relax or have carefree fun like my peers, as I was always on alert to avoid saying something wrong.

I got saved at 18. I got married to my first husband at 16. That marriage was full of domestic violence. It was a very volatile relationship. And I felt like I deserved it because my biological dad had already trained me that those who are supposed to love you can hurt you. And that’s just part of life—it was my whole mindset, so I told nobody. I covered the abuse. It actually was more of a self-harming behavior because I would push and push until he would finally explode. Then we could have peace in the home for a little while. Looking back, it was a way for me to continue punishing myself because I never felt worthy, good enough, or loved. I never felt like I fit in with anybody or anywhere. And so we got married, but then I got saved at 18. My parents—my mom and stepdad—went to church and invited us along. And I got saved and gave my heart to the Lord. And, you know, I had this idea that whenever I started serving God and living for him, everything would get better. My grandparents were Christians. I grew up in a Christian household, but I didn’t understand Christianity clearly. I knew who God was, but I didn’t really know Him for myself. And then I got to know Him for myself. But the problem was I had a wall up because I didn’t trust Him because of the childhood abuse. I couldn’t reconcile the God of the Bible, who could do anything, with the God who allowed that to happen to me. And so I always kept Him at arm’s length. I loved Him, and I wanted to submit fully to Him, but I didn’t trust Him. And, you know, you’ll never fully submit to somebody that you don’t trust. God did these massive miracles—He split the Red Sea, and people walked through it. But whenever I was going through abuse, it felt like He wasn’t there. He didn’t stop it, and I knew He could. The only sensible conclusion I can draw is that He chose not to. This led to inward hatred, as it fostered the belief that I was so bad, damaged, and broken that even God would not save me. So not only did nobody physically save me, but even God saw me going through that and chose not to save me.

I continued serving Him throughout my 20s, and life was very bleak. Doctors eventually diagnosed me with severe depression, PTSD, and dissociative identity disorder when I was in my mid-20s. At this time, I went back to college to become a mental health professional myself and am practicing as a clinical mental health professional. I was a family and child therapist and a mental health therapist. It was a terrible idea because I was still very unhealed. And so, I would go and listen to children all day long, telling me about their trauma. And then I would go home and have to cut. I have scars all over my body where I used to cut to make it through the evening with my family. And so that’s what caused me to go back into therapy for myself, because I realized quickly that it was not a good thing and it was not helpful to me to be practicing at all. I went back into therapy for myself with a Christian counselor. And after a few weeks, she and I had a serious conversation about it not being ethical for me to practice any longer. I had a heart for people and wanted to help them, but I was not healthy enough to help anybody. And so, I resigned with the idea that I would come back in a few years and then be back in the field after I had healed. 

I continued with therapy for a while, and I got worse. My therapist was the one who diagnosed me with a dissociative identity disorder. The idea behind DID is that when you have trauma, especially early childhood trauma, it can cause the personality to split into separate parts, so you can have parts of yourself split, and it’s like having many people living in the same body—one body, many people. My therapist told me I had to encourage myself to allow each part to express itself, to allow it to coexist with them, so I started doing that, and I would let them talk through me. I had different voices, and they were very distinct, and I knew their personality traits and knew when each one was around or speaking—I knew who they were. I knew many of their names. I wasn’t surprised when doctors diagnosed me, but I felt very ashamed and didn’t tell anyone. Nobody knew as much as my husband. He knew more than anybody but still shared little with him. I wasn’t ashamed of the PTSD or the depression. In a way, I wore them like badges of honor because of everything I had walked through. But the DID brought a deep sense of shame, and I hid it as much as I could. My family knew I had drastic mood swings and could switch in an instant—I was volatile and struggled with intense anger.

In addition, I was extremely ill. I had tons of diagnoses. I was on a lot of medication, and my health and mental health continued declining each month. The suicidal ideation was constant. The voices—I always call them the voices. They would tell me to just kill myself. My family would be better without me. I could go rest and be with Jesus. Wouldn't it be better to just rest? But then they also hated God. They were constantly saying, "If God loves you, why won't he heal you?" Why is He leaving you like this? Why doesn't He care about you? If He's a good father, what father would let their child go through this? I was very protective of the voices because I thought they were protecting me. I thought they loved me. And that's what I had been told, and I believed it. 

The diagnosis of DID wasn't surprising to me; I had it, and it got worse because I gave in to it and validated it. Because of this, I thought everybody just needed to leave me alone and let me be who I am because I've suffered, and I would even tell my husband, "If I had heart disease, you would give me a pill, and you would feel compassion for me." So mental illness is no different—just get off my back, basically, and let me be. But the problem is I was incredibly hard to live with. I was very critical, manipulative, hateful, judgmental, wrapped in pity, and in pits of despair. "Oh, woe is me" was every single day, day in and day out, and I allowed that to become my identity—I allowed it to become a very integral part of who I was. Because I had the idea that the trauma had helped shape my character and that there was nothing I could do about that. The trauma changed me so drastically that it changed the neurotransmitters and chemicals in my brain—it changed my body. And I was basically helpless to how it had changed me, so I thought I just needed coping skills to cope with it the best I knew how. I prayed God would heal me, but in the meantime, everybody just needs to deal with it. And so that's where I was in 2019. It had gotten extremely dark. I was still serving God to the best of my ability in that moment. Was it great? No, because I didn't trust God. My anger and bitterness grew, and I failed to recognize my declining health and worsening mind. There were times I thought I was going to slip into insanity and not remember who I was at all. The voices would beg me to let them take the driver's seat, and I knew if I let them take the driver's seat, I, the core of me, would be gone. It was a constant battle to stay alive and not kill myself.

My son reached out to me in 2019. And he said, “Mom, I think there's this ministry you need to listen to.” And I said, "Okay." By that time in my life, I knew I was going to die, or God was going to have to do something. I've tried to think about how many specialists; there's no way for me to even remember how many treatments I had and tried—I went the natural and pharmaceutical route, and I was getting worse. Even after engaging in inner healing prayer ministry, my condition worsened. Life had brought me to a crucial crossroads. Either I'm going to get better, or I'm going to die. And so, not that I was going to kill myself. I mean, that was a constant threat, but my body just physically would not maintain this much longer. And so, when my son reached out to me, I knew I should listen to what he encouraged me to listen to, so I listened to a sermon. It was one sermon. And in that sermon, the preacher was talking about how even as Christians, we can need deliverance. I had never heard of deliverance. I had been in spirit-filled churches, and I had never heard the word "deliverance." No one had really taught me anything about spiritual warfare. We learned that demons were real, but no one taught us how to combat their tormenting influence.

My whole life, from the time I was young, I would see things. I would see dark shadows walking through my house. It would be nothing to see full-on people walk through the house and peek around corners at me. The lights would turn on and off. My bed would shake and vibrate all night. Sometimes I would wake up with bite marks on my body or bruises shaped like a handprint. My husband had never experienced stuff like that. And then once we got married and lived together, he was like, “How do you deal with this?” And I'm like, “Well, what do you want me to do about it? What am I supposed to do?” And then he started getting afraid because he started seeing things and hearing things, like the doors opening and different things happening in the house. He told me, “I don't know how you live with this," and now he had to live with it too. We had received no instructions on how to handle it. So, I heard that sermon, and I reached out to the minister, and I said, “Do you have anything that you can recommend? I know nothing about what you're teaching, but I think I need it.” Then he recommended a few books. I put them on the shelf, and I lost a year. That year, I got sicker. I had this weird thing going on where if I tried to talk, I would cough, and I couldn't even get a full sentence out without coughing. We lived in Arizona then and made frequent trips to the Mayo Clinic. They weren’t nailing down a diagnosis, and I was on breathing treatments.

Then, at the beginning of May 2020, the Lord said to me, “Set aside a week for prayer and fasting for healing and deliverance.” So, I set aside a week and put it on the calendar. I scheduled the week of May 24th so that I would have time to prepare. Then He said, “Make it public.” And I respond, “Lord, people don't care. Nobody wants to know. Why would I do that?” But I did it. I was at this point in my life where I was ready to surrender everything. If He legitimately told me to burn my house down, I would say, "Where's the match?" I knew I was at the turning point, and I knew I was going to get free, or I was going to die. I was finally ready to surrender everything. So, I made it public, and people started. The outpouring was absolutely amazing. People were sending me scriptures, saying they would stand with me in prayer. And then God told me to have my parents come over midweek to pray for me in person. And I said, “Lord, I don't want to because they live two hours away. 

If you really want them to come, will you please tell them to come? They’ll listen to You.” Shortly after that prayer, my mom messaged me and said, "Nichole, I really feel like the Lord is saying we need to come to visit you mid-week." That was my confirmation.

Before our prayer session, I had sent them a few videos on the basics of deliverance ministry. I had read a few books and watched several teachings, so I sent them some foundational material because I knew deliverance would be part of what I needed. But going into it, I still didn’t know if I had alters. Some ministries teach that people have different parts, and those parts can have demons, and that you need to do a lot of inner work to address it all. I didn’t know what was what. I knew I needed some level of deliverance, but I didn’t know to what extent. I thought maybe I had one or two demons and the rest were alters that God would need to heal—but truly, I had no idea.

Leading up to that prayer time, the Lord took me through a deep, deep surrender. He showed me a vision of two paths. On one path, I could keep questioning why those things happened to me—why He didn’t intervene, why bad things happen to children—and if I stayed on that path, I would simply continue living the way I was. Or I could release all of that and walk down a new path of total faith and total surrender. And I knew when He showed me that, surrender meant I would never ask again. It wasn’t just surrendering in that moment; I was choosing to let go for the rest of my life.

It meant reconciling the fact that walking by faith requires not having all the answers—and being okay with that. That was hard because those questions had lived in me my entire life. I often asked Him, “Lord, why do You let these things happen?” I knew all the Christian explanations—we live in a fallen world—but I still couldn’t reconcile it in my heart.

As I prayed and released it, something massive happened. God flipped my entire perspective. I had always viewed God through the lens of my abuse and everything that happened to me. That was my filter. But when I surrendered, I chose—intentionally—to walk by faith. It wasn’t Him forcing me. It wasn’t Him doing everything for me in that moment. It was my choice. I realized I’m not owed any answers. God already did everything for me on the cross. So I laid it all down.

I didn’t fully realize what happened until much later, looking back over the past several years. He truly transformed my lens. Now, I view Him through the truth of His Word, not through my pain. I walk through things I don’t understand. I walk through situations that make absolutely no sense—but they don’t have to. I view Him through faith.

The Word of God says He is good. He is a good Father. He is gracious and kind. That is the truth I stand on—not what my circumstances tell me. Circumstances can lie. My emotions can lie. The enemy absolutely can lie. But the one thing that will never lie is the Word of God. That is my lens now. I view life through the truth of His Word—not my emotions and not whatever I’m walking through in the moment.

Fullness Of Joy Ministry Site

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Nichole shared her testimony on Truth, Talk & Testimonies

Nichole's testimony is also on VictoryEmbraced:

Truth, Talk & Testimonies

Thomas Carchidi

Retired Police Officer, Author, 9/11-Related Stage Four Cancer Survivor, Pitbull Advocate & Dad, and Martial Artist & Black Belt 

These are Thomas's favorite scriptures...

Could you share the moment or experience that inspired you to write your book, A Life in Law Enforcement, and tell your story?

I realized shortly into my law enforcement career that working in places like Baltimore City as a police officer was an eye-opening experience. Approximately, I did some research; only about 0.2% of Americans, U.S. citizens, can work in a sworn law enforcement capacity in their lifetime compared to the population, and even less than that work in dangerous, violent, and deadly areas of Baltimore and New York in the 70s and 80s, with crack and AIDS, parts of Chicago, Detroit, and certain areas of LA. I truly wanted people to understand the reality of how things work, cutting through the superficiality often portrayed in media like television and Hollywood, and to grasp the day-to-day operations and share stories of what I experienced. Everybody who works in a sworn law enforcement capacity, whether they work a week, a year, or 40 years on the job, has their own unique experiences that they take from it, and I don’t think anybody gets out unscathed.

Having witnessed both integrity and corruption in policing, how has that shaped your understanding of justice, mercy, and the role of faith in leadership?

I learned early on that wearing a badge, or saying you’re a politician, being a law enforcement officer, or being a politician working for the government doesn’t mean much, to be honest with you. When I was growing up, I always thought it was black-and-white. I thought the government and police were the good guys, and the criminals were the bad guys. Now I realize things were a lot different. There was a lot of gray area and overlap in the government and law enforcement systems. I saw that people with power in the government and police are human, just like you and me, and that means the police make mistakes. They use good and bad judgment and commit crimes like the rest of us. We’re all flawed because we’re all human beings, and no one’s perfect—there’s only one perfect ‌being, and that’s God. I know I’m not. I don’t judge people when they come to me and say, “I’m a lawyer,” “I’m a doctor,” “I’m a police officer,” or “I’m a politician.” That means nothing to me. I have to get to know the person. I don’t care if you’re a plumber, a garbage man, or a civil servant. There’s good and bad in everything, and I try to get to know the person. Until I know the person, I don’t care what you do—it doesn’t matter to me. Because you do something for a living doesn’t mean you’re a good person or a bad person. Yeah, correct. There’s good and bad in everything. And I’ve realized that. Yeah, it takes a while to get to know people.

You survived an unimaginable battle with stage four cancer connected to 911. What did God teach you in that season that still shapes the way you live today?

So we never know where cancer comes from, right? Is it biological or genetic? Is it environmental? You know, there’s a ton of cancer on Long Island. You never really know where you get cancer from. I believe 911 happened on a Tuesday, and I volunteered on Thursday and Friday as I was in between law enforcement jobs. I just felt the need to help. It was a crazy and surreal experience, and I can’t even say you’re going to see it once in your lifetime; I think things like that very few people see, like 911—you think of things like Pearl Harbor; you think of national disasters on that level. It was such a big event; what took place was horrible, devastating, and nightmarish.

I constantly ponder life's meaning and purpose. There are so many things I don’t understand about my life‌. All I know is that without God, we have nothing; I have nothing. I want and need to believe in a higher power. You know, I love believing that when our time on earth is up, when we’re done, essentially, there will be a higher power; we’re going to meet our maker. God will wait for us. And that’s where it gets a little hazy for many people. I believe in that. I believe in Christianity.

I believe in good and bad, so to speak. I believe in the afterlife. But I also believe that Jesus will not come back the second time as the sacrificial lamb. If you read Revelation, it’s a very scary story,‌ but there’s hope at the end. I make so many mistakes in life, but I always try to learn from them and never make the same mistake again. I think that’s why I’ve gotten where I’ve gotten in life, because I never quit. One day, I believe with all my heart, we will meet our maker and face judgment. And if we mess up, most of us are going to get the boot and are going to go somewhere we don’t want to go. My longing is for salvation and to be with God eternally. I desire peace for my mind and body. My desire is for all that heaven holds, and God gives.

One thing I’ve learned throughout this entire process I’ve been through, you know, the cancer battle, which was a nightmare I can’t even describe, two years of torture, is never give up. Always keep pushing through; keep grinding. Once we're gone, that's it; and that’s it—I want to be judged in a good light. I want to be favored in God’s eyes. I don’t want to live in eternal damnation—you think Earth is bad.

I try to live the way God would want me to live. This is how I live my life. I was so super sick with stage four cancer for almost two years. Thank God I’m in full remission. I'm back to training in martial arts, and my strength and size have returned. I’m in the gym again, but I know I’ll never be quite the same. Currently fifty years old, I'm not in my twenties or thirties and am dealing with multiple health concerns. During my last cancer treatment, I received CAR T-cell therapy—a newer type of treatment. It involved using an exceptionally large needle, almost like a super-sized gauge. I have a high pain tolerance. I don’t care about stuff like that. They stick it in, and they take your T-cells. They take your blood, and they extract your T-cells, and they manufacture a fighting agent, a cure for the lymphoma cancer, for the disease you have, and there’s a super high percentage to cure certain blood cancers now, like lymphoma and leukemia. But it’s all worth it. It’s a minimum 23-day process, and I was in the hospital for 23 days, sick as a dog.

One thing this treatment does is ‌literally erase your cognition. For two days, I didn’t know where I was or who I was. I couldn’t make a sentence. It’s crazy because I’m back in law school now. You know, thank God I just finished up my third year. At one point, I was really, really messed up. And so I go for this T-cell therapy. I lost about 30 pounds. I was in the hospital for like 13 days, or 14 days. Then, in a hospital setting, almost like a little rehab center. I felt as though I was losing my mind with anxiety, depression, and anger. It was a nightmare mentally, physically, and emotionally. And then I lost like 30 pounds. I finally get out on the 23rd day. They tested me, and I’m cancer-free. Thank God. We had a little celebration at the hospital, and they’re like, “It’s time to go home,” so they cut the catheter out of me, and I’m weak. I lost 25 or 30 pounds. They let me go. It was Wednesday afternoon, around 3:30, and by 7:30 pm, I was in Jiu Jitsu training. That’s how I live my life. I don’t stop, give up, or make excuses.

You know, life involves many challenges, and believe me, I have faced many of them, but you must not just give up and fade away. And that’s how I live my life. I don’t regret many things. I have an amazing family. My mom—my parents are the best, my extended family, cousins, aunts, uncles, and my grandparents when they were around. I graduated from college and have a master’s degree. Recently, I concluded my third year of law studies. I’ve practiced martial arts my whole life and have authored a book. Some people don’t have food; they may live on the street, and I’m grateful to have a beautiful house on Long Island. You know, some people are living on the street, and I’m blessed, and I can’t complain about my life. I’m retired from the police department and have a pension; I have benefits. So yeah, did I go through a lot? Yes, but I’m blessed in so many ways, and I got to thank God for that.

How did you become a pit bull rescue advocate and a dad?

I love pit bulls and have three of them. When I moved to Maryland after college and graduate school, living in Baltimore County and working in Baltimore City, there were pit bulls all over the place. I guess that’s a beloved dog in the city. I never really had much experience with them in Long Island, and I got to know them and spend time with them through friends. And a girlfriend of mine 25 years ago had a pit bull, and it was the most affectionate and amazing dog, and I was hooked and became an advocate by rescuing them and helping them out. And now I have three pit bull mixes at home: two females and a male. I’ve been rescuing them for 25 years. I have Nala, who’s three; Kimora, who’s nine; and Rugby, who’s 10. Two of them I actually rescued off the street. They were running around the streets as puppies. Well, Rugby was a little older. Rugby was about a year old when I found him, but they were running around the street, both of them, in Coney Island, Brooklyn, when I was working for the Seagate Police Department, and I just fell in love with them. I was going to bring them to the shelter because I already had dogs, but I knew what would happen to them—they would put them down and not get adopted, so I took them home. 

You’re a lifelong martial artist and a black belt. How did that discipline, mentally and spiritually, prepare you for the hardest moments in your life?

I am. I don’t know where it came from because my mom and dad came off the boat from Italy, and Italians really aren’t into martial arts. But ever since I was a kid, around eight years old, I’d been obsessed with Kung Fu Theater on Fox Five Saturday afternoons, all the martial arts movies, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and the rest of these people—I just loved every second. I’ve trained all my life pretty much, but I got really serious about it around 17 or 18. I’m an American combat karate black belt, then Tai-Zen American combat karate, and into Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. So I’m a black belt in American combat karate and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I’ve always loved it. And to tell you the truth, martial arts are beneficial in so many ways that we could just talk for days about martial arts, but they definitely keep your mind sharpened because it’s like mathematics for the mind and body, like Jiu Jitsu—they call it the smart man’s martial art. Like, it’s super technical and hard. You’ve got to string movements and techniques together. A lot of people stay away from Jiu Jitsu because it is very difficult, but once you get it, I think it’s the most beautiful martial art, the most devastating single martial art. If somebody told me I had only one choice, to train in kickboxing, regular boxing, wrestling, and Jiu Jitsu, I would train in Jiu Jitsu because it’s like cross-training everything. I think it’s just such an amazing art, and it’s so street applicable for self-defense and sport in martial arts competitions. Martial arts strengthen you mentally and physically. It’s like a microcosm of life. I believe that martial arts are really a coping mechanism for life and a microcosm of what you see out in everyday life.

Thomas, you overcame many traumas, corruption, cancer, and hardship. What message of hope do you want people to walk away with after hearing your testimony tonight?

Never give up–Never let anyone keep you down–Never let someone tell you that you can’t do something. There are a lot of haters out there. Many people are jealous. There’s a lot of nepotism and corruption. If I had given up because of problems along the way, I would never have become a law enforcement officer and received 30 awards in law enforcement for saving people. I would have never fulfilled that dream. If you listen to people and allow them to, so to speak, keep their foot on your neck, you will not fulfill your dreams. So I just say, don’t worry about what people say or what people do. Do what you feel is right and what God would want you to do, what your family would want you to do; you know, the people you trust, and just keep moving forward. When your time is up, God will be in front of us, and he’ll judge us, but while you’re here, never give up or settle for mediocrity. As long as you give whatever you’re doing a hundred percent, your best, that’s all anyone can ask of you. And that’s all God wants—do your best with what He has given to you. It’s important to remain humble and always remember that we’re here because of God, and we’re nothing without Him, and we are to love Him with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and love others. Matthew 12:30-31. Love God, follow Him, and trust Him even if things get crazy here. There’s going to be an afterlife—honor Him in all you do. 

Thomas's Website

Thomas shared his testimony on Truth, Talk & Testimonies

Thomas's testimony is also on VictoryEmbraced: 

Truth, Talk & Testimonies

Christian Author & Encourager

Hope-Filled Fiction and Faith-Filled Reflections for 
 Weary Hearts

These are Karin's favorite scriptures...

Corinne, you speak about healing from emotional pain and past wounds. What caused your emotional pain and wounds?

I had a furious father. To give him some grace, he was in World War II. He was in Holland and a Dutchman and had a lot of PTSD. He had autism and anxiety issues, and in those days, it wasn’t a known subject like it is today—people didn’t talk about it. If you had a problem, you just had a problem, and you kept it to yourself. There was no Google or any information. So my dad was a furious man, and he would take out his anger on my sisters, my mother, and me, and there was a lot of abuse and violence. It was horrendous. It was awful living with him because his anger was so unpredictable, triggered by anything from coffee that was too strong or too weak.

Did you feel you had to tread carefully around him?

Yes. So, I’ve been around the world. I’m in Sydney, Australia, now. But this all happened when I was living in South Africa. I was born in New Zealand. My parents met in New Zealand, but they immigrated to South Africa. And this is where I spent most of my childhood and adult life. South Africa was already a very tense country with all its problems and things going on. So this didn’t help my dad because there was so much anxiety and stress already in the country, so it just escalated his temperament. To make matters worse, the many burglaries and personal misfortunes he experienced, coupled with his refusal to seek help, took a toll on him. In those days, people considered going to counseling a sign of weakness, so they avoided psychologists and talking to someone.

Can you share the moment or the time when you first realized God was restoring those broken pieces in your life? Was that when you got married and started ‌a family?

I think predominantly it was. I had kids; they went to school, and there were parents' meetings. My parents never did all that because they were never involved in my life. So now, I was getting involved in my kids' lives, and I started making friends. As I started talking to my new friends, I realized they shared things I had never experienced. However, I felt blessed because I accepted Jesus at age 12, and with Jesus in my life, I could speak to God about these things. And I'd say, I'm different. I didn't enjoy being different because it was a bad sort of difference; a good difference is fine, but mine was a strange one. I would be in a conversation in a room, and suddenly I would feel uncomfortable, run away, and disappear. Today it's totally different, but in those days I used to get petrified in a crowd.

I used to worry that I could never say the right thing and feel like I was putting my foot in my mouth because I had no social skills, and then Jesus started dealing with me and showing me He had the problem. We tend to think it's everybody else, and people are weird; in actuality, it's you that's weird—you just need to look at the fingers pointing back at you. Then I got hold of some books and tapes on how to be a mother, wife, and woman because my upbringing had not taught me these things, and I had to tiptoe around my dad until I left at 17. I started realizing what is right and godly, and God showed me things that I needed to change. When I embarked on my journey of wanting to change, I realized I couldn't go on like I was, and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired—I didn't like myself or how I treated people. I became overly defensive to protect myself. It was all about me because that's all I knew. My existing skills were useful at home, but I was no longer in that environment and required new skills for social integration. I needed to learn how to be a wife and mother and mix with people. The need for personal change became clear to me, and with God's help, I learned how to fix my problems. 

I’m really glad that God showed you, and He really directs our steps when we ask Him for help. He hears every single one of our prayers, and when we ask Him for help, He’s right there. 

That’s right. And that reminds me of that scripture, Ephesians 3:20. God will do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond all that we could ask or think. I needed to trust him more abundantly. I had to believe that there was a better life waiting for me, because unless you lay hold of it and believe God for it, you can’t get it. It’s all there for you. God’s provision is for you, but you have to tap into it. And so the first thing you’ve got to do is realize that you need to change. And who likes change? I mean, we don’t even like an app change or a bank account change. We don’t like change. But God is so great. He just takes you on a journey, and it’s your journey, your pace, your time. He leads and guides you. And He did. He worked within me and changed things. And today, I can honestly say, I’m a totally different person. Thank you, Jesus.

Many people feel overwhelmed in life’s storms. What helped you hold on to hope and trust God when everything around you felt heavy and uncertain?

You know, I was very fortunate. When I got saved at 12, the lady who introduced me to Jesus invited me to Sunday school. We could have Sunday school because the school rented out the hall. The reason I went was that my father was present all day Saturday and Sunday. Thankfully, there was not much interaction with my dad, only in the evening. I was in school Monday to Friday and attended Sunday school each week. I decided that a few hours out of the house on Sunday would provide some much-needed breathing space. 

Then the lady who introduced me to Jesus asked the children, “Does anyone need a friend? And I really needed a friend. She said, “Jesus will be your friend for the rest of your life” after I raised my hand. That’s what I need. I really need a friend. And so I invited Jesus into my life. But the beautiful thing is the way she introduced me to Him was that He was with me every moment of every second of every single day. I believe she sensed my body language. Understanding psychology helps you recognize when someone experiences trauma and unhappiness. She likely perceived that, as a 12-year-old, I appeared stressed, withdrawn, and troubled. She encouraged me to always go to Jesus, so I did. I figured that I would put Jesus in my pocket, in my school uniform, and I would talk to Him all day. Everywhere I went all day, every day, talking to Jesus. And today, when I go shopping, I talk to Him, asking Him to show me where the sales are or find whatever I’m looking for and need. I talk to Jesus all day.

I really believe that when I made Jesus my friend, that was a turning point in my life. Jesus led me on this path of how to fix things. But it’s a relationship. You know, you’ve got to find your relationship with God. I stopped identifying with my dad, the abused girl, and my dad’s abuser. I just stopped identifying with that and identified with Jesus. I’m now in Christ. I am a new creature. I abide with Him. He’s with me. And I started to shift my whole mindset, shift my thoughts, everything, to what God says. Not what my dad said about me—You’re nothing. You’ll never be anything. You’re a waste of time. God said that He knew us right from the moment we were in the womb. And then I thought, “Well, my dad and mother might not have wanted me, but God does because He says in scripture, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” (Jeremiah 1:5) When I read this scripture, I learned He wanted to know me. God knew me, and I was worthy. Whereas with my father, I felt so ashamed and so rejected. But with God, he wanted to know me. And He knew me from the moment of my conception. So that made me feel bigger than. It made me feel worthy of being alive, worthy of being a person. Suddenly, that mentality of “I’m not worth anything, and I’m a worm, and I’m full of shame, and I should never have been born, and why did this happen to me?" God knows me; changed that mentality. And that mind shift was so huge. It totally healed my rejection and my self-confidence. It healed everything and changed my legacy–I’ve been married for forty-nine years. I have two children, both married to beautiful Christian girls. I've got grandchildren who love Jesus, and all this changed because Jesus came into my life.

You went from being a victim to becoming victorious in Christ, replacing the enemy’s lies with God’s truth. 

That's right. You can't go forward with your stinky thinking. If I'm going to go with the mindset of my dad, all I'm going to do is become another version of my father. I'm not saying it's easy because it isn’t, but anything worthwhile is difficult, from making sure you are eating right and taking care of yourself, to working at a job, having a long and successful marriage–everything is hard. Good things are hard to do, but they're worth the reward. Here I am now, years down the road, and it's not as hard anymore. It's become my everyday routine and lifestyle. I have developed my routines around my godly habits. 

In my book, My Journey to Enjoying My Life, I give the 12 life-changing steps of how I went from abuse to being a woman of God. I take 12 steps that God showed me. Each step is a journey, and then I even tell you in the final chapters how to put all these categories together, apply them, and make them a routine. They are definite and reliable. These steps are not just theoretical; they are practical tools designed to help you transform your life. By embracing each step in faith and dedication, you can cultivate a deeper relationship with God and find true fulfillment. If you commit to these 12 steps throughout your life, you will grow into a strong Christian and have success in your life. These are the steps that I did, and they changed my world. I gradually took these actions, and they remain fixed today. I still do all these every day because life is full of routines. Everything is routine. Christian life has to become a routine. Reading your Bible, praying, making your own confessions, and doing the things that we need to do to keep our faith built up is a routine. If we don’t do it for five days, we’re going to go backwards, just as if we don’t eat right for five days, we’re going to put on weight. It’s the same process.

I couldn’t understand why he could be so cruel to a little girl who all she wanted to do was love her daddy. It's upsetting. However, I now understand he lacked what I needed. He was a very troubled man and had a lot of his own problems, and unfortunately, he didn’t seek help. So he just took them out on everybody else. But as I went through the journey of healing, as I let God minister to me and change me over the years, it was very effective. Now, I’m on the other side and can share what I’ve learned and encourage others to take this journey. 

A beautiful testimony from an 86-year-old woman who read Karin's book, My Journey to Enjoying My Life.

If someone watching this is struggling with emotional wounds or feeling hopeless, what would you want them to reflect on about God’s plan for their life?

I want to encourage people that they don’t have to be stuck. You don’t have to live in the history of your abuser. You can’t change your past, but you can change your future. The future is yours. Choose what kind of future you want. Do you want your future to be based on what happened to you and woe is me, and you're the victim? Or are you going to say that’s enough of that? Yes, this happened to me, but I’m done with it. Now I’m going to start living my life. God will heal the hurt. He will help you reframe your mind. He will help you change and take the pain away if you let Him; He will. Then, you will embark on a new life, the one you would live—the life God intended for you. 

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VictoryEmbraced: Truth, Talk & Testimonies

Louise Sedgwick

Author, Teacher, and Podcaster

Your childhood story is both heartbreaking and powerful. How did your experiences shape your faith and your understanding of God? Can you share about your childhood? 

Yes, I can do that. Sharing my childhood story is always painful, even though I’ve told it many times; it never gets easier. My parents raised my siblings and me in the Midwest and took us to church every time the doors were open. My parents were visible church leaders and respected in the community. But what happened at home was very different. My father sexually abused me throughout my entire childhood and sold me to other men—now they call it trafficking. They didn’t call it that when I was young—they just sold me, and we had to participate in child pornography. It was a very severe abuse and evil. And so you can imagine the conflict and confusion for me as a little girl, who was at conservative evangelical churches, where I heard the gospel, and I accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was little. Still, the turmoil of the double life that we lived was very confusing. 

When I went to church camp as a junior high schooler, I gave my life to Christ fully and said, “God, use me big for your kingdom purposes. I will be yours for the rest of my life.” And so here I was, having this desire to honor God with my life, serve Him, and be about His kingdom. And yet I had this literal terror going on at home, every day, every night, and I didn’t know that you could live without terror. Not just fear, but terror for my life. I loved Jesus with all my heart, but I had another thing going on in me–now I know it’s called trauma responses, but that was unknown and unresearched. I had a horrific problem with anger. And not just a little. I mean rage, like with the veins sticking out of your neck rage. Now, I know it was the fight, flight, or freeze response. It was a fight response of mine, trying to feel powerful when I felt absolutely powerless and hopeless. Shame overwhelmed me, and I felt like raw sewage. I believed that only someone worthless would receive such treatment. 

So, I felt like raw sewage, but I was really arrogant because I learned to be a perfectionist to survive. After all, my father would always say that he was going to abuse me because of some infraction I had committed, so I tried really hard to be perfect and never make a mistake. I felt I needed to perform to stop my father from abusing me. Of course, I learned later that no matter how perfectly I performed, it wouldn’t have stopped him, but that was my strategy as a child. 

When I was a really high-performing child and teenager, I thought I was better than other people. So I had both things going on: arrogance and deep, deep shame. And so I was judgmental and critical, and it was really messy, and I was a perfectionist. So here I was, loving Jesus and wanting to serve Him and have my life be all about His kingdom and honoring Him, but I was struggling with so much sin that I couldn’t control, and that made me feel so terrible about myself, and on top of that, I just didn’t believe that God loved me. 

I started teaching even as a teenager in my church because it was one of my gifts and part of the design of my life. I would teach all these things that were true about scripture because I’d studied scripture and gone to doctrine classes and all those things, and so I was doing all these teachings, all this truth. I knew a lot of truth, but I didn’t believe it for me–it was in my head, but there was a 12-inch gap between my head and my heart that was disconnected because I didn’t trust God, because how could I trust a God who allowed me to go through what I was going through. I was on an ongoing journey where I was trying so hard to be perfect and get my sin under control to stop being judgmental and critical, stop raging, and I just couldn’t get it under control because we can’t control our sin. But the teaching that I received was wonderful in so many ways. Still, it was missing the fullness of the gospel of how we live, not just by God’s grace for our salvation, but God’s grace for our ongoing journey as believers. I was unsure how to live. I felt awful about my failures as a Christian and what happened to me. And so when I was in my early 20s in college, I told God, “So far, everything you’ve taught me about the Christian life is a crock because I’m doing everything I was taught to do, and it’s not making any difference.” And I said, “God, if you are real and if your word is true, will you take me to a place where they can teach me a new way?” It was the turning point for me when God brought me to that place to teach me a new way. 

You mentioned a trauma response, and that’s for protection, like when fighters get in the ring, they put their fists up. So, you had a trauma response of anger, and that was a way to protect yourself.

Yeah. Because you think about it, when you see somebody who’s raging, you want to back away from them because it’s powerful. And so if I’m the one who’s raging, I don’t feel small or weak. I feel powerful and big. And it’s an illusion, of course; it’s not the truth, but it’s the feeling that it gave me. I didn’t love what it did, and I didn’t have an understanding for a long time of how my rage affected the people around me. I just knew it helped me feel stronger and safer. 

What was the turning point when you experienced real healing and freedom? 

Well, it was a process. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily a point, but it was a process. The healing began when I started attending 12-step groups for adult children of alcoholics, even though my father never drank, but he had a sexual addiction, so I was with other people whose parents had addiction issues. I began to understand the dynamics of a home where that is true. It took away some of the confusion for me to say, “Oh, this is common. These behaviors are common. The manipulation, the pouting, and the lies are common for someone in a home where there’s addiction present,” and so that was helpful. But then, as I said a little bit earlier, when God took me to a place where I could learn a new way to do the Christian life, He took me to a church here in Phoenix where I learned about God’s grace. Not just grace for my salvation, but God’s grace for my everyday life. And I came to understand, even though I’d been to Bible college and taken theology classes, I never fully understood the reality of what Jesus accomplished for me at the cross and resurrection. And that I was no longer a slave to sin according to Romans 6. I had lived my life as a slave to sin because I had repented and repented and said the words of repentance for years about my anger and my judgmental criticism and my perfectionism. But I couldn’t stop because it was stronger than me. And when I learned that not just by reading it, I learned how to live as though I was no longer a slave to sin—how to repent in a way where God does the work in me. Because even when I was in college, I said, “God, take me to a place where I can learn a new way.” I said to Him, “As far as I’ve been doing in trying to deal with my sin, God, I’ve been the one doing all the work. And if there is victory over sin in a believer’s life, there has to be something supernatural involved. You have to do something about my sin, not just me trying to control my sin.” And so when I learned about this new church through God’s grace, I learned how it is that it’s the Holy Spirit in me, Christ in me by the Holy Spirit, that is stronger than sin. Christ in me, by the Holy Spirit, can forgive. Christ in me by the Holy Spirit doesn’t have to hang on to shame and can trust God. And I had never heard that. I missed it if someone taught it to me. But that’s what began to change my life, to say I didn’t have to make it happen. I could believe that God could make it happen. The Holy Spirit could make it happen in me. And that changed everything for me. He's faithful to hear our prayers and remember them even when we've forgotten them and to answer them in His perfect time. I'm grateful for His mercy and grace toward me. 

What are some practical ways people can find hope and healing through Jesus, even in the midst of deep pain? 

Well, I think for me, one of the big shifts that helped me was I knew that Jesus had died for my sins, but I didn't comprehend or grasp that Jesus didn't just die for my sins. He died for the sins that were done to me, so I could have healing for the sins that were done to me, because otherwise, there would be all this abuse that I had endured from my childhood that was lying in me, and I didn't know how to give it back to my parents. I was holding on to it, and I was holding on to the shame from it. And so, I didn't have any idea that my way out, my way toward healing, was to come to understand and live out the truth that Jesus died for the sins done against me. That I could forgive my parents because their debt was paid by Jesus. I could have hope that all these things didn't define me because Jesus paid the debt for those sins. He paid for the shame of those sins done against me, and it lifted my face toward heaven to say, "Oh, you love me that much that you would die for what somebody else did for me so that I could be free. Wow! Wow!"

A lot of times when we’re going through things, if we get our focus off ourselves and our issues and we start serving others, it helps our healing process a lot. So, when you first began serving others while still healing yourself, what was it like to see God use your story to bring hope to someone else?

Oh, it was the truth that I had learned as a child that Jesus is our redeemer. It became my reality because He redeemed my soul. He redeemed my life from the pit, as it says in Psalms 40:1-3. He lifted me out of the pit. He redeemed me so that others could experience Christ through me and the healing of Jesus through me because I had experienced it myself, and I knew what it meant, and I knew what it looked like, and I knew how to help other people because I had learned it for myself. Psalm 40:1-3, “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he reached down to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the mud. And he set my feet on a rock, making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord.”  I felt that I was in the pit for so many years, and I tried to claw my way out by myself, but He lifted me out of it through Jesus and what Jesus accomplished for me on the cross. And I’m so grateful.How did your perspective on forgiveness, both of yourself and others, change as you walked through your journey of healing?Well, in the beginning, honestly, I did not want to forgive my parents. I wanted them to suffer. If I can be this bold, I wanted them to be in hell. I did not want them to heal. I did not want them to be forgiven. And in the beginning, I knew I needed to forgive my parents, but I didn’t want to. And I had never truly forgiven anyone in my life. I didn’t know how to. I could say the words, but I didn’t mean that I had let it go. There was a debt to be paid, and a debt that was owed. And I didn’t want to forgive my parents until they owned up to what they did. And so it was a journey for me to come to understand forgiveness. I could forgive because Jesus had paid the debt. But I also had an even harder time forgiving myself because my anger and rage were present when my children were growing up. And I raged a lot at my husband, and my children witnessed it, and my judgmental criticism and my perfectionism deeply, deeply injured my family. I had a lot of self-hatred for the sins; they were trauma responses, but they were also sins for what I had done to my family and the damage that I had done. My prayer had always been that I wouldn’t hurt my children, especially the way my parents had hurt me. While I didn’t inflict the same pain on them as my parents did on me, I still caused my family to suffer. And so I had just so much self-contempt for years and regret, deep regret for what I had done. And so, learning to forgive my parents was the first step. But the second step was getting to a place where I could forgive myself and receive God’s grace for me.

My husband and I were going to confront my parents because they were in positions of church leadership, and my pastor at my church was going to go with us to confront them. He told me that I had to forgive my parents before I could confront them, so that was my motivator, not in any Christlike way, but because I wanted my parents exposed. I wanted them out. It wasn’t from a heart desiring reconciliation whatsoever that I was in the forgiveness process. But I just had to ask God to help me forgive because I wasn’t willing to forgive, nor was I willing to be willing to forgive. And so I had to pray three times, willing–God helped me to be willing to be willing to be willing to forgive. I prayed every day for months because it wasn’t in my willingness to forgive my parents—it was not going to come from anything in me—it had to be Christ in me that could forgive them. 

How has Psalm 34:4-5 touch your heart and life?

My heart is to walk with people so that they would know the healing of Jesus from the shame that they feel for what they’ve done or the sin done to them. I always say that if God can heal me, He can heal anyone because it’s about Him and His power. The scripture from Psalm 34:4-5 is precious to me because it’s the calling of my life to share with others how we can be lifted from shame through Jesus and His grace. 

Psalm 34:4-5

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

This scripture says, I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered or rescued me from all my fears. I went from being a woman who felt worthless and unlovable. I didn’t have what it takes. I couldn’t measure up. I believed I was unwanted, but now, because of all that God and Jesus have done in me, I feel loved, known, cherished, and beloved—all of it. I can look to God and not feel shame. I can feel His delight in me. I know I’m treasured by Him and that through Him I have what it takes. That is a complete transformation. Not that I don’t or can’t feel shame now and again because I live in a sinful world, but it does not own me like it used to. He’s not only a redeemer for me, but He’s a redeemer for everyone who chooses Him. 

Looking back on your journey of redemption, what advice would you give to somebody who feels trapped by their past or ashamed of their story? 

First, I would say I understand. I’ve been there. I lived it. And this is why Jesus came. He came to set the captives free. He came to seek and to save those who were lost. And I remember crying out to God and saying, “That’s me. I’m lost. I don’t know how to do life. I am lost. You came for me. Show up for me, Jesus. Show up for me. I’m lost.” And He did. He did show up for me. More than just show up for me. He healed my soul. He transformed my life. He redeemed my life from the pit. Jesus wants to do that for you. You are not ineligible. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He doesn’t expect us to have it all together because nobody does. 

My pastor at the church where I served for all those years, my favorite line that he said was, “There are no together people, just people who dress better.” And I believe that. No, nobody’s got it all together, but we can live in confidence of our worth and value because of Jesus. And that frees our hearts and allows us to stand in who He designed us to be. And when we live out who He designed us to be, we have a confidence and a joy and a peace that comes from Him. We don’t have to compete with anyone. We can trust that He’s going to open the doors for us, and we just have to walk through them. And that’s been my life. I dreamed I always wanted to be in full-time Christian ministry, and I felt completely ineligible because of how broken I was and how I overreacted to things. I was socially awkward sometimes. I raged. I was so judgmental and critical. And I thought, “Nope, God could never use me,” but He qualifies the called, as that old saying goes, that when we allow Him to do His work in us with open hands of surrender, saying, “You do it in me, God,” and we believe that He can do it—He will absolutely move in our lives, and it’s a miracle; my life is a miracle 100%. 

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VictoryEmbraced: Truth, Talk & Testimonies

Destiny Nicole

Author and Co-Founder of Warrior Connections 

and Battle Buddies

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 In your book, November Unknown, you talked about how you had many identities shaped by pain and labels others placed on you. Can you share some identities that you used to have?

When I woke up from my coma, I woke up with complete amnesia. Jesus literally walked me through each stage of my life where I went through childhood abuse, and that became my identity. Then I was in an abusive marriage, and I struggled to leave it, and I went through different identities because of the abuse. The next would’ve been paganism, where I was seeking after witchcraft and doing magic, and living that life. I thought that was what I needed to do to be a strong woman, as I had only known abuse at that point. In Paganism, they glorify the goddess and women, and I wanted to be a powerful woman. So I thought that’s where I would get it from. So I sank myself into that identity. And then I started working for a company that I later bought, having worked my way up through it. So I held many identities, and I just wanted to feel important–I wanted to be somebody that my children could look up to. I thought that becoming a strong woman would give me the answer, even though no one ever gave me an opportunity. My favorite identity was being a mom. The best identity I still have. I’ve adopted many children, and I love children. I did that because I knew this world is so mean, and what it was like to be a child. Unprotected, the world just engulfed me, and I wanted to be a different light for children. So that’s what I think grew my refined, my love for children was just because of what I lived through.

Your story in November Unknown is truly miraculous. Could you tell us about when the hospital rushed you there, and they said you were clinically dead with only a 4% chance of survival? So what, what happened, and what did you experience in that coma?

Yes. Because I lack six years of memories, I share things I’ve been told. So, there are a lot of memories I haven’t regained. The last thing I remember is living in Canada and returning to my ex-husband, whom I had been with before. I, okay. Went back to him again. I don’t remember moving to the state I’m in now.

I ended up in another relationship with yet a different abuser. So he had poisoned me. That’s how I actually ended up in my coma because of the poisoning. The EMS found me face down, unresponsive to pain, and already turning blue. They brought me in a sheet and were taking me out of my house.

And the EMS worker saw my stomach filled with air, and they started compressions, leaving so quickly that they didn’t even grab my identification. When I arrived at the hospital, they registered me as a Jane Doe because they didn’t know my identity. Now, they use a month, gender, and unknowns, which is how I became November Female Unknown. That’s where the book’s title comes from.

They use a month, your gender, and then unknowns. Oh, I didn’t know that. People knew me as November Female Unknown. So that’s how I — that’s where the title of the book came from. And once I got to that. Once the ambulance got to the hospital again. I died again at the hospital. So you died twice? Twice. I died on the 13th, but it was like 11 p.m.

It was really late. And then by the time I got to the hospital, it was the next day. So I died on November 13th and then November 14th, and that’s when I slipped into a coma. That’s where the book name came from. 

Can you share your experience with Jesus, as not everyone gets to experience what you did?

Absolutely. One of everyone’s favorite questions is, Could you hear the doctors and people around you talking when I went into my coma? I couldn’t hear any of that. I am afraid of water here on Earth, especially water that I can’t see the bottom of — it terrifies me. But I was white water rafting down a raging river, and I was in this boat, and there was a rope that went around the sides of the boat. I grabbed onto the rope, and I turned just slightly to my right. And Jesus was standing in the boat with me, unmoved. The sound of the water was so loud, and everything was so crisp and bright. And I said to Him, “I’m scared,” not because I was feeling fear, but because I knew that’s what I was supposed to say. And He turned to me, and not only in seeing Him did I know who He was, but in the roar of His voice, and He spoke, “Move when I say move, and stay only when I say to stay.” He paused on the word only, and I still don’t know why yet, but that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I’ve learned to love the pause. And the Bible verse that says to pause and be slow to speak drew me in because I have to pause. We react rapidly as a society due to our fast-moving world and split-second choices. But if you just pause more and seek what He wants for you before you take even the smallest step, then the big steps are easier to pause at.

I have sought His picture ever since, and have yet to find it. I have people who send me pictures of Him regularly. There’s one picture that is very close to His presence that I’ve been able to find, and I can’t say He has a nose like this person or a feature like that person. He’s every emotion you’ve ever felt at one time without being overwhelmed. Every time I try to describe His voice, it just gets stuck inside me. He has a voice of agape love. Strict, firm, gentle, protective–for the first time in my life, I felt love because I had lived in so much abuse and I was seeking so many identities, trying to make myself feel important, and none of that mattered.

When I stood in His presence, I was just His. And I was enough, and He loved me. I always wished to be loved like that in that moment, and I always think that if everyone could have a second of that experience, their pursuit of Jesus would be very different today. 

So it was during your time with Jesus that you learned who you truly are in Him? 

Well, I was told that I was a Christian before my coma, so I had left paganism and moved to Florida, and I was working with the youth at church. I don’t remember the defining moment that made me a follower of Jesus instead of a pagan–I have no memory of that, and I rarely ask Him for memories back because He knows more than I do. And if He took them away, there’s probably a reason. I wish I knew what drew me back to Him, but I’m glad I was with Him, and was in that boat with Him. When I woke up, Satan immediately preyed on my vulnerability, whispering doubts about Jesus’ acceptance of me. So I went through a tough time, and I went right back into the abusive situation. The hospital had sent me home with the man who put me in a coma, and I went right back into the abuse the day I came home.

How is God using you today? 

In my book, I discuss my daughter and armoring up. In the morning, we put on our armor, and there’s a little blip in the book that didn’t really make sense at the time I was writing it, but the Holy Spirit really wrote my book, and later, from my book, I developed because I’m so nervous to speak. I actually wrote the book so I wouldn’t have to speak. Because I’m such a shy person, I wanted to give my story to other people to share. I was asked to speak at a bunch of events to share my story, I would get very nervous, so I would write out everything to say and get up there, and then forget to read everything that I wrote, and I would stumble over myself.

I was speaking at a revival, and there were youth kids there, and I turned and started talking to the kids, and it felt so natural to me because I love children. So the armoring up developed into Battle Buddies, where my best friend, Trisha, and I Get in The Word Ministries and we do team verse and team games, which are object lessons, for children and family’s and as they come in, they choose pink or green, and they are team verse and team games, and everyone gets to have fun—it’s like the old VBS-style games, and it’s an object lesson of being labeled with an identity that sometimes they didn’t get to pick for themselves or that sometimes they come in and they all wanted to be team green or somebody wants to be a different color, and who you surround yourself with, sometimes you give up pieces of your identity. So, it’s important to stay around people who are leading you in the right direction. Trisha shares her testimony about her car accident. And I share about the identities that I have in my testimony.

Some who are reading your story may be facing their own struggles—identity battles, despair, or even depression. What message of hope and encouragement would you want them to take away from your testimony?

To seek Jesus and know that you are enough. You won’t find true healing or identity anywhere else, so let me save you the time of trying all the paths this world offers or the schemes the enemy will send your way. Just pause… and sit at the feet of Jesus, because that’s where the answers are. 

My pursuit of Jesus looked different. It didn’t matter that I had been a witch or that I was abused—none of it mattered. Getting to Him mattered most. And when you put Jesus in the position where nothing else matters, the little agitations that once consumed you lose their power. God brought me back for a reason, and as He walked me through each of those identities, He kept saying, “I was there.”

I lived through domestic violence. Some women stay because they believe they can’t make it on their own. It’s incredibly hard—especially when you finally reach out for help, but the abuser is only held for 72 hours and then comes right back home. That doesn’t give a woman enough time to escape… but leave anyway. That is my biggest advice: leave anyway. You are far more valuable than sacrificing your life and identity to live for somebody else. You matter. Your safety matters. Your life matters.

Destiny's book, November Unknown. Get your copy today by clicking on the book cover.

Ministries that Destiny leads or partners with.

Battle Buddies

Get in The Word Ministries

Warrior Connections YouTube Channel

Warrior Connections is on Beyond FM Radio every 

Thursday at 6 pm CT.

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VictoryEmbraced: Truth, Talk & Testimonies every other Tuesday at 11 am CT on Beyond FM Radio. 

Tabitha Yates

Bestselling author of Jesus and Therapy: Bridging the Gap Between Faith and Mental Health 

These are Tabitha's favorite scriptures...

Tabitha, you speak openly about surviving physical and spiritual abuse. How did you find the courage to break the silence and share your story, and how did your own journey with faith and mental health shape its message?

First, unfortunately, there are a lot of systems in place to protect people in power who are abusive. So when you’re talking about church and spiritual abuse and those things that I went through, that was very scary to talk about, and then when you’re talking about family abuse, nobody wants you to bring that into the light, of course. 

And so I had to walk so closely with Jesus through this process because I needed to know that I knew that He was in it, that He was commanding me to do this, that He was giving me the words because there was so much fear interjected into the whole process, and what if someone sues you, and what if your ex-pastor comes after you, and what if your father comes after you, and all these things where I was like, “Okay, like those are some legitimate fears,” and to be able to open up, that was one of the most significant parts of my healing. I realized that my silence was not protecting me; it was protecting them, and the people who have wounded and hurt me have been avoiding accountability for decades. Therefore, it was a type of reckoning, like I wasn’t going to cover for them anymore, I wasn’t going to hide, and I wasn’t trying to drag them through the middle or bash, and I made sure to change their real names. I was very respectful, but I am going to tell the truth and talk about what I experienced because it doesn’t matter—it did happen. 

And so it was a raw, you know, third, fourth, and fifth healing process for me because I had to get to a place on my own healing journey where it wasn’t triggering to talk about. I wanted to be speaking from a place of healing, not from a place of wounding, because I didn’t want that to be filtered through which I was, you know, saying things to people, and that was really important to me. So, throughout the blessing before the Lord, there were a lot of bathroom floors and sob sessions as I continually surrendered to God, letting Him wash over me and heal me, and letting Him use my story to hopefully go out and heal others. 

I think the book is very much a companion guide because I’m never coming at it from the angle that I’m healed, mainly because of how complex my trauma was—my healing is going to be a lifelong process. So the book is very much like, “Let me come alongside of you and show you what I’ve learned in the last 20 years of healing,” so maybe it will give you a little of a roadmap in areas where it’s still really foggy for you, and that was my hope because I didn’t have the church or parental leadership—I didn’t have anyone walking me through healing, just Jesus, myself and my counselor, so I feel like I was going through this jungle with a machete and clearing a path that did not exist. I’m like, “My goodness, if I can go to someone a few miles back and be like, ‘Here, you know, I cleared a little of the way. Like, here are a few ideas.” Here are a few tips. Here are a few things that got me through and made their healing journey a little easier. That was my heart. There was so much to do, and that was to illuminate a path that had been so hard to carve out, and for other survivors to do it with just a little bit more of a roadmap than I had.

My abuse was spiritual, verbal, emotional, and narcissistic. Every safe adult in my life subjected me to every type of abuse imaginable, so I was incredibly confused and believed, “I guess this is just how grown-ups are, and there’s no safe place.” It led me to become severely suicidal because I’m like, “There’s no way out,” and I couldn’t escape the abuse anywhere I went. 

How did you start your healing process? Can you share a couple of steps you took? Was there anyone in your family or at your church you could go to, or a friend who came along with you, who could share what you were going through?

I unfortunately needed to break before I rebuilt—part of my journey was that my church did not believe mental illness was a legitimate thing at all, so everything was overspiritualized. I was not allowed to go to counseling. Even in the beginning, from having childhood abuse and parents who divorced dramatically, and all the things I’d gone through, where counseling would have been beneficial, I was not allowed to do that. Then it got to the point that it literally led to me overdosing and attempting suicide before I could see a counselor, so it took getting that bad because again, that was the only escape from the abuse and the hell I was in that I could see, and that was the only way out. After that act, I got locked down in a psych ward on suicide watch by the time I was 16 years old.

I was able to start seeing a Christian psychologist, and it took a lot of healing and years to unravel myself from toxic systems and relationships. It also took me growing older and finally being able to make choices for myself—saying, “Okay, I’m not going to do this anymore. I’m not going to listen to this person anymore. I’m not going to go to this church anymore.”It took a complete shattering of my faith, because for so long my faith had been placed more in people than in God. I had lived in such a spiritually abusive environment where the message was always, “We speak for God; you don’t hear from Him yourself.” Everything spoken to me in that system was damaging and wounding. I had to completely separate people from God and realize that everything I had been told about Him was not true and not biblical. I had to burn it all down to the ground and start over—rebuild my faith and find the truth for myself. There were two women in my church who would still say hurtful things, though not intentionally—they meant well, but they didn’t understand depression or suicidality. Still, a few people tried to show up for me and love me during that period. But they weren’t the ones who should have been protecting me, sheltering me, or helping me at that point. 

It took a long time to unravel everything I thought I knew about Jesus—what He felt like, what He felt about me—and to rebuild my understanding of His love. I wrestled with believing that He could still love me after all I’d been through. I wondered if I was some disgrace to Christianity because I was depressed and traumatized. I remember pastors and elders telling me things like, “God’s done with you. You’re beyond saving. You’re not even worth saving.” They said God had washed His hands of me—and that permitted them to do the same. I truly believed I was worthless, beyond saving, and that even if God could save me, He didn’t want to. The level of damage that was done to my faith, my psyche, and my sense of self was enormous. It’s taken a lifetime to undo all of that and to rebuild a foundation that actually comes from the truth of Scripture.

My earthly father’s abuse deeply distorted my view of God. On top of that, many of the church leaders I grew up around also abused me, and I ended up projecting all of that brokenness onto Jesus. It took time—and a lot of healing—to finally develop a healthy, personal relationship with Him that wasn’t shaped by my past pain.I reached a point where I had to step away from those people and toxic environments. Everything they poured into me was rooted in lies, not truth. Setting healthy boundaries became necessary for my healing. And I’ve learned that boundaries are not unkind—they’re actually a loving and wise way to protect the heart God gave you.

Many Christians struggle with the idea of seeking therapy and think that it shows a lack of faith. In your book, Jesus and Therapy, you share six false beliefs to help Christians know and understand that faith and therapy work together. Please share about these beliefs.

What encouragement would you give to someone watching who loves Jesus but is quietly battling anxiety, depression, or burnout—and doesn’t know where to start? 

I think there’s no reason for churches not to be trauma-informed, not to have a care team, and not to have people who understand mental health. I think this even extends to awareness training for people with special needs, to make sure we don’t further wound them. Because again, there’s another level of harm when we wound people in God’s name. 

We need to be the safest place. We need to be a place where people can go to heal. And we need to stop being uncomfortable or put off by pain. We also need to stop rushing people through the healing process. So much of what happens is spiritual bypassing—just slapping a verse on someone’s pain and pushing them past actually sitting with what they’ve been through. There is a difference between ruminating for years and actually walking through your trauma. Real healing requires sitting with it. It requires feeling it. And we can’t heal what we won’t name. 

As Christians, we need to become okay with discomfort. We need to be willing to hold space for people—their journeys, their grief, their pain—without feeling like we have the right to tell them how to grieve or how to heal. Of course, we can always point them to the arms of a loving Savior who is walking with them. But we need to be careful and guard our hearts so we don’t inflict more damage on someone who is already at their weakest and most vulnerable. I don’t think there’s any excuse anymore for pastors not to be trauma-informed or to avoid training. There’s so much excellent training available.

When we come to the end of ourselves, God is just beginning. Healing involves both Jesus and therapy. Some healing only Jesus can do. But some healing requires the tools available to us—counseling, support, boundaries, and sometimes medication. God doesn’t require you to suffer alone. He doesn’t call it “more spiritual” to stay silent or avoid help. He wants you to step into the light and seek resources. If Christians have made you feel like you have to silently carry your anxiety or depression as your cross to bear, you don’t. You’re allowed to heal. You’re allowed to address the real trauma in your life. It doesn’t have to be that heavy forever. I didn’t want to carry it for the rest of my life—and for my children’s sake, I wouldn’t. So I chased healing. And now it has become my life’s mission.

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Jeremiah James

Founder of United To Revive Ministries and the Truth B Told Podcast

These are Jeremiah's favorite scriptures...

Can you share your testimony and how God began to put United to Revive Ministries and the Truth B Told YouTube channel on your heart? 

Yeah, absolutely. I was a high school science teacher for nine years before any of this happened. But when I was 17 years old, I encountered Jesus by His Spirit in a very real and experiential way, and I sought Him with all my heart, confessed my sins, confessed my belief in Him, and decided to live for Him. He radically transformed my life by becoming an experience in my heart and in my life. A lot of people can look at church, the Bible, and hear sermons and think it's just all head knowledge. And it's for another time you die, and then you experience heaven. But I'll tell you what, when I was 17 years old, the Lord poured heaven upon my life through the Holy Spirit. And because of that experience, I believe everything has taken place because of it. But truly, I mean, my path through college, early life, marriage, and as a teacher, I just grew in my calling as I read the Word, as I spent time in prayer, and began to ask the Lord to use my life. 

And so I want to encourage anybody listening that, regardless of what I've done or even what Dawn-Marie has done, it really starts in prayer. It really begins by asking Him — He will speak to you and change your life. So, with United to Revive, I was the Fellowship of Christian Athletes huddle coach here in a small town called Bunker Hill, Illinois, while coaching and teaching. And during the whole COVID epidemic and all the things that were going on with COVID, I really felt in my heart that there are so many students who were masked and no one was allowed to be near anyone. And after school, they're told that, basically, if you hang out with one another, you're bad and you're wanting to hurt people, because socializing with others in a time when it’s dangerous. And even if you don't have symptoms of COVID, you still probably have COVID anyway. So you can't be around any person. I was listening to a podcast on our way back from Atlanta about how we are seeing rises in depression, anxiety, suicide, and thoughts of suicide, and they're linking it to this isolation experience that we put students through. Oh my goodness. It broke my heart, and more students were hospitalized; they weren't coming to school, and I was noticing cuts on their arms, cuts on their legs, you know, people were just lost and sad because of what was going on. And it broke my heart. 

So during this time, I just began praying, seeking the heart of God, and asking Him, "What can I do?" In that moment, I was crying intensely in prayer with my face on the ground. And I'm just asking God, "What can we do? You know, I will do whatever it takes to be a witness in these dark times for these students." And instantly, He asked me to open up my house. It was very, very noticeable, His voice at this time. The first person I called was someone with whom I've done ministry in the past. She was all about it and said, "Let's go!" You've got to remember that during this time, if you're open, especially as a science teacher in a small town, you know, if you were to hear, "Hey, the science teacher and FCA coach is opening up their houses for youth when everyone else is told to stay home," there are no open churches, and no youth groups going on. Can you imagine the kind of criticism that I could face in that moment, but I didn't care. I didn't care. And then, in the first week, we had 25 students show up, and the following week and the weeks to come, we never had fewer than 30. It’s incredible what we witnessed: even that small group of 30 students — every one of them received Christ after the first four weeks — and it just kept growing and spreading. We never had any “super spreader” events or whatever you want to call them—No one got sick, and nothing like that happened. But the gospel was proclaimed, and we're still here.

I’m going to jump forward because there’s a lot to this. I think we did this for about 1.5 to 2 years, but around this time, we got plugged into a church that saw what we were doing because we were also serving. I love to serve. Half of my testimony is just me serving and loving on people. We are made to grow and serve. We grow in our relationship with God, and then we use that to love others and point them to Jesus. But I got plugged into a church. I never thought I would be a pastor, but I got asked to be a youth pastor at a church. I said no at first because I would consider myself an evangelist more than a pastor. But I accepted the call. And, you know, within a year, the church started doing park services. They asked me to preach. That’s where I learned how to organize bigger events out in parks. I was knocking on doors. We’re praying for people. We’re inviting them back. We fed every person. At these park services, many people experienced salvation and baptism, and these events transformed their lives. Shout-out to Restoring Hope Church of God in Wood River for taking me along on this journey, because I know God used them to get me to where I am today. So around this time, I started feeling like I needed to quit my job. The Lord was literally telling me to leave my teaching career because I’m spending all my time talking about ionic bonds, covalent bonds, vectors, velocities — you know, all these great things. But I want to talk about Jesus. You know, like, we can talk all day about this science, but whenever you’re struggling at home and you have no one to go to, whenever you’re struggling.

For instance, we had a girl call us at 11:30 pm. She cut herself so badly, and she was bleeding out, and she wanted us to take her to the hospital. Do you know why? Because her dad was drunk on the couch, passed out, and she couldn’t wake him up. And even if she did, that wouldn’t be a safe ride to the hospital. So we took her to the hospital. And that’s again, a whole other story. I just felt this pull from the Lord. It really feels like a fire I want to get out of and share the truth. I desire to speak about Jesus in a real way—someone who transforms lives and sets people free. And so I told my wife, and we prayed on it for over a year. And man, there was one time in a meeting at school at Bunker Hill High School here in Illinois, I remember sitting in this meeting and, you know, they’re trying to figure out all these issues with students. And they’re talking about programs, social work, more counseling, obviously more medication, more this, and more that. I’m like, it’s just empty. I know what they needed to drink from the well of living water—these students needed their Savior and a release from bondage. And although I love our teachers and what they’re trying to do—I’m not saying that’s bad—personally, it was my time to leave. So I went home. I told my wife, and honestly, no plan at all; I did not know any of this was going to happen. I quit my job, and when you leave your job in faith, you’d better be praying and believing that God will use your life.

There are a lot of people and coincidences involved in this story; that’s not coincidences. I remember being with my wife at her work one day, and in my mind, I thought I would start a ministry called Truth B Told. And I thought that was going to be an in-person ministry, where I would go from church to church and hold revival meetings and preach the gospel. I want to see people saved. I want to see the church revived. But God had other plans. So I was with my wife one day at her work, writing sermons, preparing my heart and my mind, and studying. And I get a phone call from a businessperson I had never met before, out of nowhere—and to this day, I don’t know how he got my phone number. So he called me, introduced himself, and said, “I heard about what we were doing at the park and wanted to talk about starting a tent ministry.” And I was like, “Okay, Lord, what are you saying here? Is this from you?” I had never been to a tent meeting or to a large tent or tent revival in my life. But I think that if you’re following God’s will, you must be able to see and hear what he’s leading you to. And so I started praying and discerning. Well, watch this. I had a breakfast meeting with the one person I spoke with as a mentor before I quit my job, after this conversation with the business owner about a tent meeting. And I looked at him and I said, “Tom, I’ve got a phone call from a businessperson in town about starting a tent ministry, and I’m discerning if this is from the Lord. I believe it is, and I asked him to pray with me about this.” And he literally looks me in the eye, and he says, “Jeremiah, I have a 40 by 80 tent sitting right now in my warehouse, not being used, and it’s yours. You can have it.” We started crying, you know, because in that moment, it was like the atmosphere around us changed, and we felt God was present in a very, very real way. It was like God joined us on this mission. Tom had a tent. God gave me this vision. And that’s when United To Revive was born.

I want to speak on the fact that it’s called United To Revive, not Jeremiah James, not Jeremiah James Ministry, not JeremiahJames.org, and not seek Jeremiah James because of whatever—this is about all of us. We have over 100 volunteers now, as young as 15 and as old and wise as 91, from different backgrounds and denominations, and we’ve been all over the region—it’s all of us together as one. John 17:20-23 says… “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”

It’s this Scripture that we named the ministry United To Revive. Before we formed United To Revive, I saw this in prayer. It was just like the prayer in my prayer closet, but this was a prayer on my back deck. I’ve had two visions in the last five years, and the first one led to the youth starting in the basement, which led me to here. But the other one was the vision that we believe we’re on this mission to fulfill this prayer. My friend, you are reading a prayer from Jesus. This is a prayer from Him. And He’s praying for us to fulfill something that only we can, and when I look at the world, I see it not being fulfilled. I see the enemy winning because he has created so much division in the church amongst denominations—denominations that preach Christ. Still, they don’t want to unify on Him because they want power. They want control. They want the spotlight. They want tithing. They want money. They believe that their sheep are their sheep and not His sheep. And so they’re afraid that they’re going to lose their sheep to somebody else—it’s mudslinging, and it’s not good. But Jesus prayed for us to be one. May they be one as we are one. You know, He’s speaking to the Father. He says that they may all be one as your Father is in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us. 

This is spiritual. This is deep. This is why, later, if we get into it, I speak a lot about meditating on Scripture, slowing down your thoughts, and going into your heart to listen to God, because He calls us to be one with Him. I want to be one with my Father. And there’s only one way to be one with Him. It’s through Jesus Christ. We have access to the Father through Christ.

It’s been a wild three years. But it’s not because of me. We have been in prayer for three and a half years every Monday. Like I said, with different denominations, backgrounds, and ages, we have been praying as one. We take communion every single Monday, and we seek the face of God in actual prayer. I don’t stand up, give a sermon, and then pray for everybody. We all pray. Everyone has a voice. If the Lord gives you a scripture, we read it. If he gives you a prayer, you pray it. And we’re praying for this region with precision and focus. Faith is coming alive. Churches are on board, and we’ve had about 150 meetings and 200 prayer meetings in the last 3 years across 11 local cities.

So that means that we’ve gone into a city and we’ve hosted large-scale, massive tent revivals where hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people gather from all walks of life to hear the gospel and to see Jesus lifted high. We had hundreds of volunteers from every denomination and background, and I’m so thankful for them, who came from a 50-mile radius across this entire region. It is so fun! We fed 6,250 people free food and a free dinner. That doesn’t include our homeless outreach. If you show up at one of our events, we’ll make sure you eat, and you don’t have to pay for anything. We’ve reached over 10,000 people in person with the gospel. Also, we have seen many hundreds of people give their lives to Christ, get baptized, and rededicate their lives. Now, I don’t count numbers. We try to get people plugged into a church afterwards. Jesus called us to make disciples, not converts. It’s challenging, but we pray that the Holy Spirit will lead different people, such as pastors, who join our events. If you belong to a church, invite someone to church. We need to do this naturally, because if you try to make it feel like a program, it just comes across as rigid and unnatural. We get salvation commitment cards from people, and every person receives a birth certificate when they get baptized.

We’ve reached many people in this region, and we are seeing church growth throughout the region. Many churches are actually growing in numbers, and pastors are being lit on fire for Jesus. We have one pastor who came out of depression. No one knew it except his wife, but he was in full-blown depression. But whenever we came into town, we locked arms because we’re here for each other. It’s so good. This pastor then wrote me a letter about how, when we went out on the street and started serving the homeless, and then we went through the tent revival, it literally lit a fire in him that he had not felt in 5 to 10 years. 

We’ve had two ministries that have started or been born out of this one, and they are on the ground now, serving the homeless multiple days a week and helping get homeless people off the streets—should they choose that path—by feeding them and loving them. And seeing other people like me and you being used by God, just regular people. You’re talking to people who go to work and are nurses, teachers, accountants, lawyers, and go on the street. They learn how to serve and love those that, unfortunately, society and even the church sometimes reject, but when you begin to love your neighbor, like Jesus told us to, you come alive; your faith, your life, and everything become so much stronger and more fulfilling because you’re doing what He told us to do, which is to love. And that’s what we do, and I love bringing people into those circumstances to do things they’re not used to doing, or maybe they’re afraid to do, because once you break that fear barrier in faith, like I said, you come alive. 

I want to share a testimony of someone whose life was changed and give you an idea that you don’t know what’s going to happen—you walk in faith and trust God. Before we did our big Alton tent revival this year, we were on the streets ahead of time, feeding people. Some would donate food to us, and we would bring it to the homeless and meet them where they are. One particular one that really stands out is when we went to a person who was sitting next to a gas station outside a bar, and we asked them, “Hey, do you want some food? We had hamburgers there, and they responded, “Oh yeah, yeah.” And he then asked, “Are you with the church? And we’re like, “Well, kinda. We don’t all go to the same church.” There was a group of us, and we shared Jesus with them and prayed for them. And then when we invited them to the tent revival, well, one of them came, and his name was Michael. The first few days, he was outside the tent. He had a knife on his staff, wore necklaces with cult symbols, and had tattoos all over his face; he was also addicted to meth. Many brothers and sisters were loving on this person—love will break down barriers. A couple of people in love said something to him about the necklaces, and he became convicted because they had cult symbols on them. By night three, he ripped those suckers off and threw them right into the river. And then, before long, he was in the tent and worshiping the Lord. He decided that he wanted to travel with us to our next stop in Kampsville, Illinois, on the Illinois River. It’s a town of about  200 people, and he camps out with us. He was there the first night, and he gave his heart to Christ. But what I didn’t know at the time was that he brought some meth and needles with him to the tent revival. The Lord convicted him the next morning. I was in my trailer after we had just finished this excellent time in the Bible and the Word, and we were camping at this spot on the Illinois River. He knocks on my door, and he hands me a bag with his meth and a syringe. And he says, “I’m done. “I’m done!”—he completely gave it up and surrendered everything to the Lord. That’s repentance and confession. I didn’t judge him or scold him for bringing it—nothing like that. I hugged him. We cried, we prayed, and then I brought him outside, and more of us prayed for him, and we were celebrating. And Michael got baptized that night—he’s no longer homeless, has a job and a license, and is entirely different. No more meth. He’s on fire for the Holy Spirit. Jesus went for the one, and he brought him home.

We also know of men who used to call themselves female names, but no longer do. They no longer want to live that lifestyle —they want to date a woman, not be one. Alcoholics are sober now. Meth addicts are no longer meth addicts. People are getting off the streets. Families are now restored. We're talking about brothers and sisters who haven't spoken for years and are now restored to one another. I want to repeat it–This is not because of Jeremiah James—This is because of the unity of believers—This is what happens when we lay down our pride. We wash each other's feet, humble ourselves for one another, and allow God to use us as individuals. He will make it happen. 

We are to humble ourselves and make Him known. How can we do that? Not everyone is gifted in evangelism, so how can we show His love in our everyday lives or learn to evangelize? 

Well, there's a fun little quote by C.S. Lewis that says, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less”. We need to stop thinking about ourselves so much and think more about God, our Savior, and believe in Him and what He wants to do in our lives. And so, how do we do that? The first thing is we have to let the Word of God dwell in us richly. We need to know what the Word actually says about us—it says some amazing things about you whenever you come to Christ and become a new believer. If you're not a Christian right now, I'm telling you that you’re never gonna find satisfaction in this world, no matter what you do. No matter how many people you date, you get married, have kids, take the drugs, get the career, make the money, you will always want more. I know there are also Christians out there who are Christians, and they're not fulfilled. It's because you're not living out the life that you've been called to do. You don't know who you are yet. Learn and come to know what the Word of God says about you. 

Jeremiah shares some scriptures that teach us who we are in Christ and our purpose.  It’s important to know who you are in Christ, your purpose, and gifts to give Him glory and make disciples. 

How did Truth B Told come to be? 

I felt a pull from God to start this YouTube channel, Truth B Told. We started this channel with me just sitting on the couch interviewing regular people who came on the podcast, sharing their testimonies, so people can be encouraged and inspired, no matter where they are in their lives, to realize that it may feel hopeless now, but when God comes into your life, He can turn everything around. He uses what we go through for good and gives us a new direction. Lots of people prayed to unite, and that’s exactly what I was praying for. At first, I didn't know anything about YouTube. Honestly, I didn't even want to get on YouTube. I don't like being in the spotlight, but I think God will send someone else if you don't. You're in sin because you're disobeying God, or someone's going to do it that has wrong motives, someone who's going to be doing it that's really just trying to build a platform in the name of God, but they want to lift themselves. So I would rather see more genuine Christians out there who speak about Jesus and see what He does, because in my case, I had no idea we were going to be at 227,000 subscribers at the time of our broadcast interview—it's really just blown up in the last six months or so. 

I want to speak about the importance of rest because we're so zealous for good works. We want to please God and live out this calling, but so many of us forget to rest. It's in these times of rest that God will not only strengthen you, but He'll speak to you and give you vision. It was in that time of rest that the Lord told me to start making videos to share world events and talk about Him, so I started praying about it, and then, you know, the next thing was that things started showing up in my path. I started learning here and there and making the videos I do today with a biblical worldview. I want to be honest, talk about my love for Him, and inspire people to read the Bible, pray, and be the Christians and children of God that God wants them to be. 

What's the importance of Christians having a biblical worldview, being good Bereans, and having discernment, especially in the times we are in? 

One of the most significant questions anyone could ever ask is the same one Pontius Pilate asked Jesus before He was crucified. And it's the question, what is the truth? What is the truth? And so I've been on a quest personally to seek that out. I have degrees in biology and chemistry, was a high school science teacher, and I desire to know the truth. Jesus said, "I am the truth." So I believe that if you're an honest seeker of truth in this world, it will ultimately lead you to Jesus of Nazareth—not the person of religion, not the person your church talks about, but the real historical person who literally walked 2000 years ago, named Jesus of Nazareth. All roads will eventually point to Him if you are honestly seeking the truth. So when it comes to a biblical worldview, it was satisfied in my mind when I started looking at science. When I started looking at the tough questions about where the universe comes from? How did the Earth form? How did people get here? Is evolution true? I just started asking all of these questions in my mind, and reading and seeking like crazy. I didn't even used to like reading, but once I started getting into this, I was like, "Man, I love reading." And so I was reading different authors and philosophers, and I started forming this biblical worldview that shows me that, yeah, Jesus is the real deal. He is who He said He was, He did what He said He would do, and He's coming back. Also, we have to get into the Word and discern, but man, don't be afraid to question; don't be scared to look into this, because the world is way more mysterious than meets the eye. We need to recognize that there's an enemy. A cosmic struggle has been going on since we rebelled against God by eating from the tree of life. Once we did that, sin entered the world, infecting our thoughts, emotions, and desires. And so now we're infected, but we also have this evil liar that is behind the scenes. Satan is not in hell, right? He's not hanging out in hell with a pitchfork waiting for people—No, he's on the earth literally now. And the Bible says that he goes throughout the earth, and puts the kings together to battle against the Lord and His anointed. We are in a cosmic spiritual war that actually exists right now. And if you finally take the Bible and look at it through the right lens—like, it's not separate from this world, but it is the world — it teaches about the world. It will make everything you see make sense. I don't get into politics. You won't get me to really get into politics unless the Lord calls me to do something in that realm, but like, I don't need to. This supersedes politics. A liar is pulling the strings of it all. And that's why you're never going to see unity in politics. You're never going to see anything good happen out of all this in the truest sense, because there's an enemy that's gathering the world's forces for a day of battle with the Antichrist and the false prophet. So, you know, you have sin, and then you have the world. That attacks our flesh and makes us want to rebel against God—all these things that rebel against God. And then you have the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly realms, as spoken of in Ephesians 6, chapter 12. So, when you realize you have an enemy and that you need saving, it'll always point you to Jesus. We need Jesus. We need Him. He's the only one who conquered the grave. He's the only one who has authority over satan, and He's handed it to us, His church, and that's why we need to wake up and see this for what it really is—a cosmic war—and He's called us to join it. So, a biblical worldview is the only worldview to have. Test everything by scripture. Don't even listen to me. Look at these things in the scripture for yourself, and the Holy Spirit will teach you as you submit. 

Jeremiah shares some more scripture, and that we're all on a mission to make Jesus known so that everyone can believe. 

Is there one more piece of encouragement you can give? 

Many people have lost faith and hope, and they're having a hard time finding a solid biblical church. These days, I believe the Lord is calling back again what I've been calling the faithful no-names. Think about who Jesus originally called: regular people, not skilled in theology, not the Pharisees. He didn't call them. He called regular people. I know and believe that He's doing the same thing literally right now. The days are short. Many people are claiming that they're this or they're that. Prophets and false prophets are rising up. There are signs in the sky. The climate is crazy. There's all this tension and division worldwide. We have the rise of AI, all these different things, but we're not to fear. Be encouraged.He's coming back for us, and it's going to be better than ever. But He's called the faithful no-names to take their place and know who they are in Him. I want to encourage everybody: just because you're not known, just because you don't have a platform, doesn't mean you're not important. Live your life for an audience of one. Seek Him first. He loves you! He gave His life for you. And if you've been reading this, know He's giving you a new identity and a purpose—not to walk in weakness, but in absolute power, supernatural power through the Holy Spirit—to be His witness. John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” The more you let go and let your flesh be crucified and know that you’re not doing this on your own, you trust the Lord. Wow. Now you're walking in a new way. Oh my goodness gracious. God will do it — trust Him — seek Him; ask, and you'll find.

Jeremiah's Ministry Site & Social Media Platforms

United To Revive Ministries YouTube Channel

United To Revive Facebook

United To Revive Instagram

Truth B Told YouTube Channel

Truth B Told Facebook 

Jeremiah James Instagram

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Founder of Grace Unfolded

Where faith comes alive, and hearts find encouragement.

These are Nancy's favorite scriptures...

Before you met your husband, you endured an abusive relationship that cost you a child and battled anxiety and depression—even contemplating taking your own life. During that season of your life, what were you feeling about yourself? 

Yes. So, in 2008, it's crazy to think that it was that long ago that my pain and suffering started. Right after high school, I dated a guy, and we were together for quite a while. I then uprooted and moved. I didn't speak to my family very much because we only had one car, and he worked, so I didn't have a way to see my parents. As a result, I became a stranger to them for a little over a year. We ended up getting pregnant, and I was eight months along. I was having a girl, and he decided he didn't love me anymore and didn't want the responsibility of being a father, so he pushed me down the stairs as I was carrying in groceries one night. Looking back on that time now, I see that God started working right away because the first officer on the scene looked at my driver's license and saw my maiden name, which was still my last name since I hadn't married. The officer happened to know my mom and proceeded to contact her and said, "Your daughter's on the way to the hospital. You need to come and be with her." My mom was confused and she said, "I don't know what you mean. I haven't talked to her in over a year. What's going on?" And he said, "Well, she probably lost a child. You need to come to the hospital." My parents helped me leave my boyfriend, and we pressed charges, and he served time. During that time, I felt broken and invisible, as if I would never be worthy of someone's love and be the mom I so desperately wanted to be—that's all I had ever dreamed of—having my own family and being a mom. I didn't know if I would ever be able to have kids again because it was such a traumatic loss, and honestly, I was scared to love again, but a few years later, I met my husband, and I saw that I could love again and have happiness. 

Before you met your husband, did you visit a church that a family friend had invited you to?

Yes. A family friend, who knew one of our relatives, asked us to visit a church because they were aware that I was struggling. And I went, and I fell in love with it. The pastor, who was leading the church at the time, instilled in me a hunger for a deeper understanding of God, which led to my baptism and becoming born again. I wanted to put my life back on track. Healing from my trauma took a while and was a process.

It was after you gave your life to Christ and were baptized that you started dating your husband.

Yes.

You were happily married for almost 9 years. What happened in mid-November? How did your life take a turn for the worse? 

In mid-November of 2024, I was at work just on a typical Monday morning. Then, suddenly, my phone started blowing up with text messages and phone calls. My neighbor was trying to find out what was going on at our house. We lived with my parents, and there were a dozen cop cars outside, and they had my dad outside in handcuffs. I panicked, like anybody would have. Then, my coworker informed me that my husband was outside and wanted to speak with me. I went out there and I said, "What is going on?" And my husband said, "I have a past that has caught up to me that I have kept from you." I will explain everything later after things settle down." So I went home because I was impatient. It was traumatic, and it was as though my life was flashing in front of my eyes, and I kept saying to myself, "What do I do? What's going on?" 

After the cops had left, my husband came back home, and I met him outside. And I remember I ran to him, screaming at him, and hitting him. I was mortified that he didn't tell me about his own past trauma and abuse. He opened up to me and told me that he didn't have a good childhood. And I could relate to him at that time because I had a hard time; it's not like my parents were abusive or anything, but I got harsher punishments as a child. For two days, my head was spinning. I didn't know what to do. I told my husband I needed to take a drive and clear my mind. I had nowhere particular to go—I just got in my car and drove, and I ended up in the parking lot of the church where we used to attend services and where we got married. Although no vehicles were in the parking lot, I decided to check if the doors were unlocked. They were, so I went inside the sanctuary and I prayed. Moments later, I heard someone say, "Hello." I barely turned myself from the pew, and the pastor said, "Nancy, is everything okay?" And, by the way, this is a different pastor from the one who married us. I had only met him once, two years prior, and he recognized me, calling me by name. It just gave me goosebumps because I know he's not Jesus, but he called me by name just like Jesus does. He asked me what had happened, and I told him everything, expecting him to turn me away. He didn't. Pastor Jake asked if there was anything he could do to help. And I told him, "We need God. We need to come back to church. I know my husband is sorry because I could see it in his eyes, but I need help coping with this." He read scriptures and prayed with me, and then he asked, "Would your husband meet with me?" And so I went home and I asked my husband, and he said, "Yes, I would like to meet with him." So then we met with Pastor Jake at his home, and my husband told him everything. 

Is there anything else that you would like to share? 

Finding forgiveness or finding the strength to forgive my husband was very difficult. Since November 2024, my husband and I have made significant progress. We initially strayed from God, but my husband and I have grown and strengthened our marriage. Are there times I am mad at him for what we are going through right now? Absolutely, I am. Will he resort to backwardness and head down the wrong path again? No, I don’t think he will. And the reason why is that he has asked me to forgive him a handful of times since this all started. I couldn’t forgive him at first, but one day, while looking back at our wedding photos, I was reminded of the vows I had said to my husband in front of God and our family, and that I would love, honor, and cherish my husband in good times and bad. Yes, we are currently going through a difficult time. My husband made a mistake, and he has accepted the consequences. God forgave him. He will only continue to be a man of God. We struggle daily because my family and others know what my husband’s sin was, and they refuse to have anything to do with us. However, our two children and I have a strong relationship with God, as well as with our pastor and others in our congregation, who have counseled and supported us. A powerful verse Pastor Jake shared with us when I was ready to fully forgive my husband was from Matthew 6:14—“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” It’s essential to remember that forgiveness, as seen in scriptures like Matthew 6:14, reminds us that since God forgives us, we must also offer forgiveness to those who have wronged us. And at that moment, I could finally truly forgive my husband for what he had done, and I was able to also forgive my past abuser for the child I lost. So from 2008 until 2024, I had not forgiven that man until then. It has helped me so much, and I feel stronger. I know in my heart that one day I’ll see my daughter, and I can’t wait to see her. Jesus loves us so much that He died on that cross so that when we repent and ask for forgiveness, we are forgiven. People, sadly, look at a sin and then they compare it to the next person and don’t take an honest look at themselves first. We need to take a closer look at ourselves rather than at another person, because we’re all sinners.

Now, both you and your husband are serving in the church, attending services consistently, praying, and staying in Scripture. How can such practices change a person's life? 

It can change it tremendously. I'll also address another question, as it is related to this one. Staying in the church and surrounding yourself with people of faith is crucial. I truly felt the presence of God in this situation. Approximately three months after our journey began, we met with Pastor Jake, as he had inquired about how things were going. He said, "What if we tell more people?" My husband was open to repenting to the elders of our church. We have 12 elders. They are the eyes and the ears of the church, and they can help try to keep things at bay, if you will, and help protect my husband and me. So, we met with the 12 elders, Pastor Jake, and Brian. Brian is a member of our church and a good friend of ours, to whom we also told the situation. And he has been just like Pastor Jake. We felt the Lord's presence that night because my husband confessed to 12 people that we had only known each other for three months. Pastor Jake told them, "We know it's a lot to take in. His past is a lot. We don't want you to react right now if you need the time." One elder stood up, went over to my husband, put his hand on his back, and said, "Brother, let us help carry your burden because guess what the good news is? You're forgiven. Let us help you and carry your cross." And at that moment, all the other elders stood up and surrounded my husband, praying over him.

I get goosebumps thinking about it because it was an amazing night, one that I will never forget. We're both now in the choir. My husband has led a couple of Bible studies, and I assist in teaching Sunday school. Our church has been a great support system. It keeps us on track and strengthens our faith and our relationship with God. We're with people who see us and who have forgiven us. God also brought people into our lives that I would have never thought possible. We went to Louisiana a couple of years ago and happened to meet my husband's friend's brother and his wife; she is now my best friend. Even from thousands of miles away, Jennifer and her husband, Marshall, have stood by us every step of the way. I also met two coworkers, as well as other women from our church or school. I found out that they are Christian women, and I've been able to open up to them and say, "Hey, I'm going through something. Can you pray with me? Can you help me out?" And they didn't ask for the reasoning because they already knew. And they said, "Nobody's perfect. Whatever you have going on, you don't need to tell us, but we're going to pray with you and help you in any way we can." It's been a blessing to see God bring people into my life whom He knew I needed, and it's been truly amazing to be a part of our church family. 

What encouragement would you give to someone watching who feels hopeless, broken, or far from God right now?

My encouragement is that my journey is long, and some days I fall short. I get angry, cry, and have even been diagnosed by my therapist with PTSD from my own past trauma. I still have flashbacks of what happened to me, but I know now that God has been with me the whole time. He has never left my side. I was lost for quite a few years, and so was my husband. It took a huge trial to pull us back to God. God used a difficult situation to teach us a lesson. A lesson I will never forget. One of the most extraordinary abilities God has given us is the ability to believe. When you believe, you ignite the promise of God, and the surpassing greatness of His power is released. When you believe, doors will open. You will defeat giants.

My husband and I have a long road ahead of us. However, we now have something we did not have at the beginning. We have faith and we believe in God. My hope and my testimony are this. To share my story and continue sharing it, I'm working on becoming a motivational speaker. I want to write a book eventually. That's why I started my website; I want to support others who feel alone and isolated, because I have been there many times in my life, and God has redeemed my story. No matter where you are in life, it is never too late to receive God's gift to us, and that is everlasting life with Him in heaven. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16. You can receive that beautiful gift. All you have to do is repent for your sins and ask Jesus into your life and heart. God redeemed my story, and He can redeem yours as well.

Nancy's Ministry Site & Social Media Platforms

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Tom Snow

Founder of the Just to Be Clear Teaching Series, author of The Daily Stand and Set the Captives Free, engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, fisherman, husband, father of five, and grandfather of eight.

 These are Tom's favorite scriptures...

About 50 years ago, you were diagnosed with terminal cancer.  Can you take us back to that season of your life? What was going on? Was it at the same time that you lost your mom, too? 

Yes, this is all involved. This is in the mid-to-late 1960s. And I will make it a little shorter than usual. If I were to tell you the entire story of what happened here, it was both challenging and wonderful when God intervened. This part of my testimony is chapter one of the first book. But in the late 60s, I was a teenager in high school. God gifted me with a good brain, and I loved math and science. I also had an ego, and the way to have my father’s approval was to be an engineer and excel in math and science. My two older brothers didn’t care, but I managed to get his attention. My father didn’t fish or play ball, which I wanted to do. He just wanted to do math and science, and I knew trigonometry by the time I was in the sixth grade; I would sit at the table and learn from my father. I was winning state science fairs in junior high and high school, and one year, I wanted to create a new invention. Manufacturers used asbestos to make car brakes from the time cars were invented, likely until the 1970s and 1980s, because it could withstand high temperatures. Medical studies revealed the dangers of asbestos and the lung diseases that caused cancer and heart disease, but people were mostly unaware of this. It wasn’t like nowadays when we have a ceiling tile break and we go in a hazmat suit because there might be one fiber of asbestos. Well, I did some research; back then, there wasn’t the internet, so I went to the library. My studies revealed that brake shoes worldwide released 60 million tons of asbestos dust into the air annually. Think about that. We worry about one little fiber, and yet here we are, breathing it in and out, wondering why the world has so much sickness. This is one reason I wanted to create an invention to help address that issue. Ego was involved, but I wanted to create an invention to prove to my father what I could do. 

So, I built a device designed to encapsulate every brake system of each wheel. And as you drove down the road, the wind would blow through it, capture it, and put it into a bag in the back that you could dispose of. There was a good intention, but to create the invention, I collected asbestos dust by going to the brake shops, where they had brake dust lying all over the floor. Piles and piles of it because nobody worried about asbestos back then. I would get bags and bags of it, and they would let me sweep it up, bring it home, put it into my invention in the basement, and let it run through the system because you can’t blow it like sawdust; it doesn’t weigh the same. It was heavy and dense because I needed to prove that the wind in my invention could pick it all up and put it in the bag. Initially, it’s not completely sealed, and mounds of dust are flying through the air. Not safe. God gave me brains, but I didn’t have common sense, at least not when I was a teenager. And I already knew the problem with asbestos, even though it wasn’t popular, so I created this invention. My mother, father, and I were the only ones living at home at the time because my two older brothers were away in college and the military, and my parents worked long hours. My mother was the only source of love for me and was my cheerleader. She would come down to the basement with mounds of asbestos dust flying and cheer me on as a good mother would. Fathers in that day were really tough—he disciplined with the belt and the fist. He belonged to a different generation. You didn’t want to be on his bad side.  The following year, I won my state science fair—big deal. And the year following that, my mother got cancer that spread throughout her whole body. The double mastectomy and hysterectomy went into her lymph system, settled in her liver, and killed her. I was devastated because she was the only source of love I had, and now I didn’t care that my invention was patentable or that I won the state science fair. I don’t care about anything because I just killed my mother. That’s the guilt I was carrying as a 14- to 15-year-old boy. Nothing mattered anymore. Thankfully, my mother wasn’t afraid of dying, and she had met the Lord, and He was gracious to show me that later, after I came to know Him. One month after my mom’s passing, I noticed a rock-hard tumor in the middle of my gut that was about the size of a walnut. I knew that was cancer, and I decided I wasn’t going to tell anybody because with the guilt I had, I believed that I deserved to die.

Then, God began to give me this vision day in and day out, and it would make me understand eternity was there and that the world didn’t evolve around me, and I was going to die, and the world wasn’t going to stop when I stopped. One day, as I was sitting home alone, not knowing what to do and afraid of eternity, and hoping that God, who’s way out there, would accept me for what I did to my mother, God spoke to me audibly. It’s the only time I’ve ever heard the audible voice of God in this way. We all can hear the still, small, quiet voice that His word promises us. When He spoke, the entire room filled with sound, like it was roaring thunder, with rivers of living water flowing all around me. And yet so full of love, which dwarfed any love I’d known before. My entire body and being felt that love. His love surrounded me, and the presence of God was so fabulous. I’ve seen and felt his presence in the charismatic movement, but never to this level—it was just beyond anything you can imagine. His presence was there—the God of the universe, who I thought was out there somewhere. I didn’t know if He accepted me for how I had mistreated my mother and for all the guilt I had, but I wanted to get there. When He spoke to me at that moment, He said two things. He said, “I love you,” and "Someday, I’ll provide your perfect mate for you." Now, the first part, He has just proven with the love that surrounded me. There’s no question in the world that this was the love of God, and I was thinking, “The God of the universe took a moment out to talk to me,” and I was astounded. The second part made no sense because God didn’t get the memo that I had a tumor and was going to die—it initially was a walnut. Now it’s about the size of a softball. I thought, “God, don’t you understand? Did you miss the message? I’m out of here soon. I’m doomed to be six feet under. So someday provide a perfect mate for me—yeah, that doesn’t make any sense. No sense at all.” But let’s set that one aside. Maybe He’s been too busy taking care of the world. At the time, that’s all I can think of. Now, I know that He has every hair numbered on my head, but I didn’t know that at the moment. All I knew in that moment was that the God of the universe spoke to me. How do I reach Him? How do I get to meet the God of the universe? Because I’m leaving soon. How, how, how? 

About a month later, my brother Bruce came home from college, walked in the door, and told my father and me a story. He said that he was on an LSD trip, and he called out to the Lord, and the Lord saved him and took him down off the trip. As he tells this story, my father and I's jaws hit the ground. Now, around 1970, our upper-middle-class family didn’t joke about drugs because people considered them as taboo as anything in the world. Nothing more than an aspirin. And my father probably thought Bruce drank with his buddies in college, but that was a wink-wink because he wasn’t even going to accept that. So when Bruce told us he wouldn’t have if it were just a joke, because if my father knew or found out he was doing drugs, he would’ve beaten him within an inch of his life, Bruce took a big chance when he told us this and said that he called out to the Lord. He said that he was on an LSD trip a year prior and had flashbacks for nine months, and he was never going to do it again, but his friends talked him into it. And this time, when he began to trip, he freaked out, but he’d recently heard the gospel and called out to the Lord, and He saved him and instantly sobered him. Bruce had a star-spangled banner and a fireworks encounter with the Lord. As I was listening to his story, I was putting two and two together. The God of the universe talked to me and said He loved me. How do I reach him? And here’s my brother saying that he just reached him. So, for the next day and a half, I asked Bruce, “How do you meet the Lord?” Bruce told me the scriptures and what to do. Well, I repented. I asked the Lord to come into my life, and I didn’t feel squat. Now Bruce got the Star-Spangled Banner, and I got a zero—goose eggs—and I’m like, “I don’t understand.” Now, the scripture is true, and every man is a liar, but in this moment, the lie of the man and the little demon on the shoulder is going, “You know what? God isn’t there. And what you thought happened a month ago, I bet that was just a dream. It probably didn’t happen. There’s no God of the universe who’s going to come down and talk to you, and all of this is baloney.” Suddenly, I go from guilt and grieving my mother to having hope, and the liar of liars now dashes that hope, the God of lies, Satan, and he’s speaking in my ear, going, “That wasn’t really God.” Now, I became angry at God because it seemed like He wasn’t real—He wasn’t available—He was still the God of the universe, far away—and all of a sudden, I went into major rebellion, and I became the worst of the worst.

I left being a brainiac at school, not to do drugs, but to drink, and became a teenage alcoholic at 16 years old. I would drink a fifth of whiskey in two hours and then be proud of it. So now I’m just going to live my worst life before I die, and I would literally wake up on the other side of the road four lanes away, and then wake up, and someone would push me back four lanes to the other side. At this point in my life, I felt I deserved to die because I thought, “The God of the universe doesn’t really love me—I’m nothing good.” There are a lot of badly bruised angels, by the grace of God, who were watching over me. Don’t ever knock praying relatives. 

Eventually, I sold everything I had and persuaded my father to buy me this little motorcycle, but to do that, I had to get a job and obtain a food handler’s permit, which was the only job available to a 16-year-old in 1970. Well, to get the license, I had to go to the county clinic and get an X-ray and a blood test, and I knew that this was going to give up my secret that I’ve been holding onto for six months, and then my father would know. He doesn’t show love, but maybe he could put his arm around me and somehow comfort me. I don’t care if he doesn’t find me medical help because I thought that I deserved to die. I wanted that little motorcycle so bad, so I got the blood test and X-ray, and in a few days, I got my permit in the mail. However, while walking home, I saw my dad’s car, which was strange because he usually worked long hours. And as I came up to the door, I knew because I knew. After all, I knew he had gotten the letter that day from the county clinic showing the tumor inside my abdomen and, probably, if they did an extensive blood test, could see it coursing through my veins. When I walked in the front door, I saw my father building a fire on an 85-degree day in April. He loves fire, but you don’t need one on this day. When I saw him, he looked at me and immediately threw the letter into the fire. I have a really sarcastic side to me, and I asked him, “What are you doing? He replied, “Nothing.” I preceded by saying, “Why did you build a fire?” And he said, “I’m just burning trash.” I continued by saying, “Really? Hey, what did you throw in the fire? That looks like a letter. Was that a letter?” And my father denied it by saying, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It’s just trash.” And I’m like, “Sure you are.” I decided to back off and give him some space so he could process what was happening, as he had recently lost his wife and would soon lose his son as well. I knew I was going to die for seven months, and he just found out. 

About a week later, I come walking in from high school again, and his car and another car are in the driveway. When I walk in the house, two insurance agents are sitting in the living room with my father, and he says to me, “Tommy, come on in. Why don’t you talk to these guys?” My father was taking out a life insurance policy on me, and inside, I was burning up with anger, and I felt like hitting the roof. So I’m thinking to myself, “Are you kidding me? Now, I understand you’re grieving my mother, your wife. I understand you just found out about me, but are you kidding? No medical attention or care for me, and he’s planning to take out a fraudulent life insurance policy on me. We’re an upper-middle-class family. Maybe he needs enough to bury me? Maybe it’s a small insurance policy to help pay the costs of burying me, so I played along as he sells them this song and dance. 

Remember, I have this mind that God gave me, and I’m calculating; what am I really going to do instead of just blowing it for him here? Let me think about how I can angle this for me now. Ultimately, the insurance agents said, “Tom, we’ll need to go get a clean bill of health; have him go see his doctor and get a clean bill of health, and we can grant it.” At that point, my father jumps in, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Tommy’s in sports. He’s been in sports and gets a physical every year. Didn’t you take one about six months ago, Tommy?” That part was the only truth he was saying. I replied, “Yeah, I did. Well, back when I went to school, a boy’s physical consisted of their height, weight, blood pressure, and ‘turn your head and cough’—it doesn’t check you for cancer. My father continued to tell them, “Hey, I could go get a copy from Tommy’s doctor and give it to you. Would that work? They said, “Oh, okay, that’s fine,” and they granted the policy. Well, if it had only been a few thousand dollars, even no more than 10,000, whatever, it would have been one thing. But by today’s standards, it would have been worth millions. My father was going to cash in on my death. Now my anger is no longer just at God—now I’m angry at my father too. We had a decent relationship in terms of math and science and got along fine, but now I hate my father and harbor deep wrath and unforgiveness. 

I went berserk and sold everything I had. With the money, I bought an old Harley—just boxes of parts—and built it into a chopper. Not only did I start drinking, but I also began riding with motorcycle gangs. If you remember the Hell’s Angels, I rode with them. At just sixteen years old, with hair halfway down my back, grease-stained clothes, and hands constantly rebuilding that bike, I looked like a complete scuzzball. For eight months after asking the Lord into my life, I was in total turmoil. The devil had his way with me, whispering in my ear, laughing as I ran deeper into destruction.Anger and unforgiveness consumed me, becoming strongholds that pushed me downhill fast. The devil played me like a fiddle. I thought I was independent and even claimed to be a “happy agnostic,” but Jesus said, “If you’re not with Me, you’re against Me.” There’s no middle ground. The path is narrow, and I wasn’t on it.During those eight months, I kept trying to get my motorcycle running right because I had a plan: to blackmail my father. Every time I rode to the city limits, the bike broke down. It was as if an angel stood in my way with a sword, making sure I never got far. I planned to tell my father I knew about the fraudulent life insurance policy he had taken out on me and demand thousands of dollars to fund one last ride across the country. Secretly, I intended to end that ride at the Grand Canyon—driving my Harley off the edge—but God had other plans. And He gave me a praying mother.Prayer is powerful. It doesn’t always get answered when or how we want, but it is heard. My mom’s prayers, even when I felt nothing, were protecting me. I thought I had asked Christ into my life and got nothing in return, while my friend Bruce had this dramatic experience. But I didn’t realize my guilt, hate, and unforgiveness were blocking everything.One night, sitting with my biker friends, drinking cheap wine, the conversation turned—strangely—to spiritual things. I told them about Bruce, expecting laughter and scoffing, but none came. So I told them about my own attempt at asking the Lord into my life, saying, “Nothing happened.” The moment the words left my mouth, conviction hit me. I knew I was wrong, and in an instant, the rivers of living water Jesus promised in John 7 broke through. His presence flowed from deep within me. Suddenly, I was sober. I looked at my biker friends and said, “I have to go.” I rode home that night fully sober, entirely changed, and fully aware of the true and living God who loved me and had been there all along.From that moment, everything shifted. I wasn’t afraid of dying anymore. I knew where I was going. To live is Christ, to die is gain. I was finally free to live in God’s love. My high school classmates couldn’t believe the transformation—from brainiac to biker to “Jesus freak.” But I didn’t care. I told everyone about the love of God.God led me to a church where I could grow. I devoured the Word daily, learning to hear His still, small voice. I learned to discern His voice from the others. And in those days of the Charismatic Movement, the power of God was everywhere—healings, hours of worship, and the tangible presence of the Spirit.Meanwhile, a tumor inside me that had started the size of a walnut had grown larger than a football, hard as a rock. I had lived with pain for years, but I didn’t care because I thought I’d soon be with my Heavenly Father. Then one night, while riding my motorcycle and talking to God, He spoke clearly: “Do you see in Isaiah where I said, ‘By His stripes you are healed’?” “Yes, Lord.” “Do you see in 1 Peter where I said, ‘By His wounds you were healed’?” “Yes.” He then said, “Isaiah was looking forward to the cross. Peter was looking back. I completed everything at the cross. Would you like that healing?” I halfheartedly said, “Sure, whatever.” But in that moment, something changed. Within 24 hours, the tumor that had consumed my body dissolved completely. It melted away, leaving no trace. God had saved my soul, rescued my life, and even healed my body. 

To hear more of Tom’s testimony shared on Truth, Talk & Testimonies, listen to the broadcast beginning at the 43:00-minute mark. In this segment, Tom explains, “We can’t walk in God’s authority without His anointing.” Like the Bereans in Acts 17, he encourages us to study the Word, pray, and dwell in God’s presence. What does it truly mean to be “in Christ” and fully yielded to Him? Tom also shares how God healed him from unforgiveness, along with insights into his ministry and books.

Tom's Ministry Site, Books, and Social Media Platforms

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Dawnita Fogleman

Award-Winning Journalist, Homestead and Preparedness Coach, Published Author, and Founder & Creator of Prairie Dust Trail

These are Dawnita's favorite scriptures...

Dawnita, you grew up in a house that practiced New Age and were actually raised to become a Native American medicine woman. How did that all come about? 

I have Native American on both sides of my family. Unfortunately, I did not inherit the lovely extra melanin. I’ve got very little, so I’m white as paper, but I was a teen pregnancy, and my mother left when I was around 18 months old. She was a hippie, and she went and hitchhiked across the country. It was a typical hippie thing. My dad was in the Navy. After that, he went back home to the farm and ranch, where he was a cowboy. He remarried when I was four. Nobody really attended church in my family. One of my great-grandmothers attended church, and that was about it. My stepmother would read the Bible, but my grandmother, with whom I lived a lot, took me to her medium. And then when I was about five or six years old, I was allowed to go to a vacation Bible school. We had a little country church on a hill out here in the middle of nowhere. It’s a good 30 minutes from any town. I was about five or six years old when I asked Jesus into my heart because I didn’t think I was going to survive to grow up.

How come you felt that you wouldn't survive to grow up?  

Because my father was abusing me in every way, but I didn’t know any different, because that was just life for me. Still, I really didn’t know if I would survive to grow up, so I wanted Jesus to help me be a good person while I was here, and I wanted to know that I was going to be with Him whenever I passed away. 

So anyway, when I was eight years old, I met my mother. And when I was ten, I moved in with her. She was a drug user, and she taught me tarot cards and other New Age things in addition to what my grandmother taught me. And I would have manifestations of evil spirits and the familiar spirits. 

I married a preacher’s son, and after we married, I realized the houses we lived in were haunted, so I needed deliverance. After we had our second child, an opportunity came up in the church we were attending to go to a ladies’ retreat. And up to that point, whenever people would come to visit our house, they would hear and see things. So it wasn’t just me who was noticing weird things going on. It would sound like bells tinkling, or things scurrying, or children playing, and you could even hear them on the nursery monitor. Thus, it was a physical thing that was audible. I was encouraged by the church ladies to join their retreat. When I asked my husband, he initially thought it was pricey, but the following day, he arrived home with a check covering the retreat’s cost. And he said, “I guess the Lord wants you to go.” And so I went. And it was a holy roller retreat, which, I love my full gospel friends, but I am so not. I had one preacher’s wife who said it’s kind of like the difference in flavors of ice cream. Some of us are chocolate, some of us are vanilla. And she said, “And I’m Rocky Road.” I decided that I’m chocolate almond; I’m a little nutty. While at the retreat, they didn’t do deliverance, but they did several things that were like object lessons. And one of them was that they gave us all little wooden crosses and nails, and we would talk about things and burdens that we needed to give to the Lord. We were encouraged to talk about what that burden was and then nail it on the cross. And there were several little things like that, and just being able to speak openly with other women about things that I had gone through that I had never been able to talk about before. My husband would tell you to this day that when I came home from the retreat, there was a considerable change.

I can’t tell you much about the conference itself, but I know the Lord worked on me, and that’s what we need to remember. Paul’s dad was a preacher and an evangelist, and he always would say, “God’s Word doesn’t return to Him void,” so it doesn’t matter who’s preaching God’s Word or who’s sharing God’s Word and where people are in their walk, but if they’re sharing it, then His Word can still touch, and it’s still powerful. After the retreat, I prayed for a spiritual mentor, because I wasn’t raised in the church and didn’t know a whole lot, but I wanted to raise our family in the Lord's ways. So I prayed for a mentor, and He sent me a holy roller homeschool mom who was very confident and got out there and got things done. She challenged me in so many ways. And she saw my crystal ball and my tarot cards that I still had, and she said, “Why do you still have these things in your house? I told her, “Well, they’re keepsakes.” And she said, “Well, are those really why you have them? Or is that what the spirits are trying to tell you?” And then she left. She didn’t push the issue or be judgmental or anything; she just asked a question to challenge me lovingly. And you know what? The second she walked out that door and went out of the driveway, I threw them all away. I got rid of it because I didn’t want to take a chance. I not only threw those away, but I also went through the house and got rid of anything mystical or magical that I had. I got rid of them, even the Disney princess movie with magic in it. The whole kit and caboodle—I just cleaned house and got rid of anything mystical, magical, or anything that could be in the least bit, and started focusing on God’s Word. This was huge and exactly what we needed to get grounded in my faith and solid in His Word, and once I did this, He started bringing things back into my life and showing me His creation and what He made, like the constellations, and then I wrote a book about the constellations and prophecy. I did it as a homeschool project for our family because I wanted to look into this. And I did coloring pages to go with it, and because so many of the pictures of the constellations are not modest, I made a coloring book so that we could have modest constellation images. So I did this with my children, and it’s based on a book written in the 1800s, giving the prophecy that’s in the stars—and God put the complete story of Jesus in the constellations for us. And it’s fascinating. I did this scrapbook project with my children for homeschooling and other moms. They encouraged me to put it in a curriculum for them because they wanted to do this with their children. The stars are being redeemed for their original purpose, biblically. It was because of the stars that everybody knew, or had the chance to know, that Jesus was coming, because all they had to do was look at the stars. It’s amazing! And then, the Lord started bringing me more, and on my YouTube channel, I wear this fabulous tinfoil hat.

Yes. Can you explain why you wear a tinfoil hat? 

Christians, who were raised in the church, have an attitude about some things, and they think, “Oh, this is New Age. We can’t touch that because it’s New Age. God created the heavens and the earth. He created crystals, herbs, and essential oils. And in the Bible, God explains to us ways to use some of these things. So you have Christians who will be afraid of crystals. In scripture, people used crystals and gemstones primarily for adornment and ritual purposes, most notably in the High Priest Aaron’s God-designed breastplate, which bore twelve gems representing the twelve tribes of Israel. And yet, we have Christians doing yoga in their churches, which is actually preparation for death. So my New Age background gives me a background that people who have been raised in the church don’t have, and it gives me a perception of some of the ancient things, along with an understanding of some of the cultural stuff in the Bible that other people may not understand. And I’m able to pull those together. So through Prairie Dust Trail, we’re able to explore historical topics and talk about Bigfoot, UFOs, and other topics on my channel. I talk to other believers about these things and how they fit into the Bible, what they really are, and how we stand against the evils that are in this world and protect our family and teach our family about these things so that they can have discernment.

A lot of people counterfeit what Christ has done, right? 

Right. That’s what the devil does. He camouflages things. A good example is the sage that witches will burn and have the smoke of sage around their house, but people don’t realize that hyssop in the Bible and sage are basically very closely related plants. The witches, pagans, and those in the New Age take things from the Bible because that’s the original source, and they take those things and twist them and do other things with them, so it’s not the sage that’s bad. It’s how they’re doing it. Hyssop was used for cleansing in the Bible. So if you go back to the Bible and see how it was used, you can realize that it’s okay to use hyssop, but we’re going to do it differently than the way the witches do it, with sage. There are a lot of fun things to think about, and God created the heavens and the earth with frequency. He spoke everything into existence.

You teach people things like preparedness and homesteading, but you also provide something equally important—a community. A place where people don’t feel isolated and can safely share the things they’re noticing in the world that just don’t make sense.

Right. And it’s this kind of uncertainty that often makes people fearful about the future. But the Bible repeatedly tells us to be prepared. Proverbs 31 is a perfect example: the virtuous woman wasn’t afraid of the winter because she had her household ready. Many passages show that if we are prepared—spiritually with God in our hearts and physically in our lives—we’re far less likely to panic. We live in a broken world. Catastrophes, both big and small, will happen, and traumatic experiences are inevitable. But panic comes from fear of the unknown—and God has not given us a spirit of fear. When we look at the strange, confusing events in the world through a biblical lens, we can prepare for the worst while still hoping for the best. I don’t teach self-sufficiency because I don’t believe in it. I believe in God-sufficiency. He is enough. Wherever He places us, it is sufficient. We are called to be Him-reliant, not self-reliant.

I also teach the importance of rest. Many churches today teach that the Old Testament doesn’t matter or that Jesus did away with the law—but He didn’t. He came to fulfill it—something as simple as Sabbath was designed for our benefit: our rest. Yet so many people are constantly overwhelmed and stressed because they’ve forgotten how to pause. I tell people, “I don’t care what day you take it—just take that one day of rest.” When you do, your life begins to change. We were never meant to work 24/7. Jeremiah 6:16 talks about “the ancient paths,” and then laments, “But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” It’s sad because God told us to follow His ways, but we often ignore them. Rest isn’t just a break—it’s a way to refill our cups. We don’t fill the cup ourselves; God does. And when our cup overflows, that blessing naturally spreads to others. Too often, especially as women, we try to pour from empty cups. But God designed it so that first He fills us, and then we overflow into the lives of others.

Watch how being prepared saved Dawnita's children's lives during a catastrophic Oklahoma wildfire.  

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Founder of The Christian Rebel YouTube Channel & Ministry

These are Bret's favorite scriptures...

Heavy responsibility and emotional pain marked your childhood. Please share about your childhood and the pressure you felt growing up. How did this affect you? 

Well, it started back in 1984. I was only 11 years old when my dad relocated his whole family to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to attend Bible college. The first year went okay. But when we moved right into town, to Colorado Springs, that’s when it started going downhill. I’m the youngest of three, and my oldest brother, Brian, had muscular dystrophy, so he couldn’t take care of himself. And my next-oldest brother, Pat, got involved in drugs, alcohol, and all kinds of stuff. So, at a young age, I had to take care of my oldest brother while my parents were away at Bible college. And my other brother was never home, so I was 11 years old, having to help my oldest brother use the bathroom, get him any food he needed, and just about anything. And there were times my other brother would come home so high that he couldn’t even take care of himself. He basically would stumble down the stairs and go to sleep. It was tough. And I felt the pressure at a young age to take care of my oldest brother because no one else did during the day. For years, I felt bitterness and resentment towards my mom, dad, and brothers. There were times even when my dad had to defend himself during fistfights between my brother Pat and him. One night, they ended up in my bedroom. My dad was holding my brother down, saying, “I love you.” And my brother would say, “I hate you.” So here I was at 10, 11, and 12, and all this was going on at home, and it was so hard at such a young age. Additionally, a doctor diagnosed me with an overactive thyroid. My heart was beating 175 times a minute when they discovered it, and at 12 years old, they told me that I might have thyroid cancer on top of everything else going on, but I thank God I didn’t have cancer, and the doctors could bring it under control with medication. My dad graduated from Bible college in 1987 or 1988, and we moved to Maine, where he got his first church. To me, this was the happiest time of my life because my brother Pat stayed in Colorado. I was glad to get away from him, so it was just me, my older brother, my mom, and my dad in Maine. The pressure was immense, but it was better, and I would take care of my oldest brother all over again if I could. 

What kind of things did you do during that hard time to try to cope? Did you use healthy coping mechanisms? How did you do that at that young age? 

I would go away and escape by going to my bedroom a lot and playing with my toys. My bedroom was my sanctuary. I would go in there and shut the door, and sometimes I would cry. I said, “God, please end this. I don’t want to be here anymore.” And, I thought about ending my life at a young age, but I didn’t dare to go through with it, thank God. You mentioned that a puppy played a surprising role in saving your life during that season of deep depression. Can you share more about that moment and how God used something so simple to bring hope?Yes. In 1989, my brother Brian, the one who had muscular dystrophy, passed away. So I was around 15 and I was in deep depression because there were times that I wasn’t nice to my brother Brian, which was wrong of me. I would look back on the past and feel sad that I didn’t do more for him, and I felt so awful when he passed that I wanted to end my life. The very day I was going to take my life, I got home from school, and there was this little puppy dog named Mason there. I ran down the hall and I said, “Mom, is this our dog?” And she said, “It’s your dog.” So I thought to myself, I have to take care of this animal now, and I couldn’t end my life. I think my mom knew how much I was struggling. The dog helped save my life, and we saved Mason’s life too because his former owner abused him. It was the owner’s wife who called my mom to ask her if she wanted a puppy. And she said, “Yes.” We saved each other’s lives. 

At one point, you had one foot in the world and one foot trying to follow Christ. How did you get to the point where you stayed solid in your walk with Jesus and completely surrendered and never looked back? 

I was flip-flopping back and forth, basically from when I graduated from high school in ‘92, for about five years. I would go to church on Sundays and then live like the rest of the world, drinking and doing some drugs. Thankfully, I didn’t get into the hard stuff because, even though I wasn’t a Christian, I knew I didn’t want to live like I was. In 1998, my dad scheduled a revival week at the church. Believe it or not, it was the same week as my birthday, and on August 13th, 1998, we had extraordinary ministers come in to share. I don’t remember the preacher’s name. I wish I did, but he preached a powerful service, and the message was about counting the cost from Luke 14. And it made me think, “Am I willing to follow Christ?” And that day, I made my first confession. I repented of my sins and began my journey with Christ, and it happened to be on my birthday. I experienced two births on my birthday. I was born and reborn. In Luke 14:26-27, it says that you must hate mother, father, brother, sister, and daughter, and even be willing to give up your own life. So that means you put Christ first. You count the cost and deny yourself. You take up your cross and follow him. Whatever that cross is, my cross was my childhood and what I went through, because I believe God can turn your mess into a message where you can help other people. And whatever that cross is, sometimes you have to embrace it because if I didn’t go through what I went through, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. 

What encouragement or practical steps would you offer to someone who wants to live boldly for Jesus, but they’re still feeling stuck? Can you give some advice or encouragement? 

Seeking guidance and help is number one. Especially over the past 5-10 years, I’ve been mentoring people and talking with them and saying, “Hey, if you need anything, give me a call.” Be a friend and an ally for them. If you’re fighting an addiction, go to someone you trust, like a friend, and say, “I need help.” And there are also recovery groups, like Celebrate Recovery. I used to go there with a friend as moral support when he was struggling with an addiction. So, seek help and guidance, and if you need to see a therapist, I recommend a Christian therapist and getting into God’s word. I use the verse Romans 12:2 for The Christian Rebel, which says, “Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Then you will be able to test and prove what God’s will is.” So when you do not conform, it means you stop doing what the rest of the world’s doing and you get into God’s word and renew your mind and pray. I came up with my channel’s name from this verse because what does a rebel do? They don’t conform, so I thought, okay, there are two ways to be a rebel. You can either rebel against God and conform to this world or rebel against this world and conform to Christ. I want people not to conform to this world anymore, but to follow Christ. And I hope that through our channels, we can help people deepen their walk with Christ.

You’re teaching and encouraging others now through The Christian Rebel YouTube channel. What is one message of truth that you believe the church and especially this next generation needs?

That you do not conform. You don’t live like the world. You deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Him. That’s the problem with this world—many people are conforming. You can search on the internet anywhere, and you can see other denominations and churches allowing sin into our churches, and they’re going along with the culture. They’re conforming to the patterns of this world, preaching false doctrines and gospels, and going along with the rest of the world. And now if the church would follow this one simple Scripture—"Do not conform"—I think it would be a whole different world because the outside world is seeing all these so-called Christians living like the world and thinking they’re a bunch of hypocrites. Now, am I perfect? No, I make mistakes. But with Christ’s help, I do my best because I want to follow Him. There’s that Scripture verse that says, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways…” from 2 Chronicles 7:14. If we conform to Christ and follow His ways and Scripture, we will humble ourselves and repent of our sins—revival starts right here with me and with you. If we repent first and say, “God, I need your help.” I repent of my sins, and then that’s where revival starts, with us, and then we can share our message with other people—this is what Christ did for me, and He could do the same for you. 

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Kimberly Larsen

Coaching, Online Training, Counseling, and Author of Soul Set Free

These are Kimberly's favorite scriptures...

Kimberly, can you share a bit of your early life and how events like your parents' divorce and relocation impacted you and your emotional journey?

I was born into a Christian home, which provided an excellent upbringing in a small farming community. In my early childhood, I don't have any memories of ever feeling anything but loved, safe, and happy. When I was 9 years old, though, my parents divorced, and my world got a little shaken from that.

We moved off the farm and into town. So, that was a whole new world. And that is when I started to feel anxious and insecure. I knew I was loved, so nothing was terribly wrong, and yet my heart felt bruised—I had a hard time getting started again. And then as soon as I got comfortable in that place, we moved again. And I think it was like a double whammy where that pain I had already begun to feel was reinforced. And I didn't fully realize at the time that I had a broken heart because of that. I was trying to keep up with what was happening and do the best I could. And so there wasn't like one big accident or anything like that, but it was just this doubling up of the same type of pain happening twice. Kids are resilient, and so I think that, from a parent's perspective, they're doing pretty well. Even if you asked them, they would likely say, "I'm okay." I think a lot of what was going on was deeper than I understood, and it started to show up later on when I started hanging out with the wrong friends. So as a teenager, I began to walk away from my faith kind of—I never completely left my faith, as I always continued to believe in God, but I was looking for attention and friendship and love, and, you know, I didn't have a lot of parent supervision because my mom was a single mom working and my dad wasn't in the picture. We did a lot of things to keep ourselves entertained, and none of it seemed all that bad at the time. However, it eventually got worse.

You experienced an abusive relationship in your teen years that led to the beginning of spiritual battles. What were some of the doors that opened that may have caused demonic influence and oppression, and how did that affect your life?

For a long time, I thought that it was because of the abusive relationship as a young teen that the demonic oppression came, and that was the door that I had opened. Still, then, the Lord brought me back to some other memories and showed me that I started having these demonic nightmares right before the relationship began. And so that helped me to understand that it was probably a generational door that had been opened even before me. There was similar abuse in my mom's and grandmother's lives, so what happened is I started having attacks in my dreams, but then I would wake up, and I would still feel the attack. So I would feel choking happening, and this extreme, intense fear in the room. It happened over and over, almost nightly, where I was having terrifying dreams, and it went on for years and years. There were times when I woke up, and in the dream I was dreaming that somebody was banging my head, and I woke up and it was actually happening, and then I would have a headache the next day. So it was a dream, yet it was also becoming a reality. They were spiritual attacks in my sleep that are known as sleep paralysis. 

Were you able to talk to your mom about what was happening?

I kept a lot of this a secret because when I talked about it at all with people, I could sense right away that they were kind of like, What? And I just was afraid to talk about it. I didn't discuss it much. I would say to people that I was having nightmares, but I wouldn't explain to what extent. Sometimes I would have wild animals in my dreams that were chasing me. Those I would talk about. So, everybody knew that I had bad nightmares, but the actual experiences with the spirits—that part I wasn't sure how to talk about. It wasn't until later in my life, after I got married, that I started speaking up about it. And even then, people did not know what to say to me. And so, I thought it was just spiritual warfare and that this was one thing that Christians had to deal with. I learned that if I said the name of Jesus, it would stop, so I thought, 'Okay, this happens to people.' You speak Jesus' name, and then it stops. But I did not realize that I could get free of the nightmares. If you speak the name of Jesus, in that very moment, the evil one needs to flee from you. There’s a Bible verse that says… “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7. I always thought it was resist the devil and he will flee from you. And it was later that I realized I truly understood the beginning of the verse: 'Submit to the Lord.' And so your life needs to be submitted right to Him. And when you submit to Him in your everyday life, you will not receive the same attacks as if you're only using His name to ward off a nightmare. As I walked daily with Him, I learned that I was more in authority and dominion. I had to overcome a spirit of fear because I was terrified of these evil spirits, and I'm not afraid of them anymore. If I have even the smallest experience with them now, I'm ready to fight them, and I know my authority, and I know they have to flee in Jesus’ name, but it took years of building myself up to understanding my authority, and there was a lot that I didn't understand about Christianity—there were a lot of missing pieces for me, and as those pieces came together, the stronger I became. Now, I'm not just fighting my own battles. I'm helping other people fight theirs. And we can think we know who we are, but we need to study who God says we are in Him and truly know and understand it. And in fact, I realized that it was wrong of me to believe anything less than who God says I am. And I was pretty insecure, and God doesn’t want us to have a spirit of fear. He wants us to have a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. So if you’re somebody who is walking in timidity, you need to actually repent of that and then ask the Lord to help you grow into boldness and to be who you're called to be as a son or daughter in Christ. 

What was the turning point for you—when did you realize you needed to surrender to God fully, and what did that surrender look like?

There were a couple of turning points. One was that I got lost in addiction. I was drinking and partying all the time with my friends. I was smoking. I was even, I would say, even addicted to my friends because I felt I needed to be with them. I think I was looking for attention and love, and that's why I loved my friends so much - because I just felt like I was part of something. You know I could not stop on my own, and I got afraid and then rededicated my life to the Lord, and I was delivered from those addictions overnight. I'm so grateful that the Lord pulled me out of that. 

Secondly, when I was diagnosed with cancer for the second time—the first time was hard enough, and I prayed my way through that and survived. And then two years later, it had returned in a different area, and I kind of just gave up. And I just said, “I give up, Lord. If you want my life, take it.” I was tired of hoping and trying to stand on my faith, only to feel like it was when I received bad news. In that moment, I said to Him, "But if this is an evil attack on my life, I refuse to die early before my time." And that is when I started to experience deliverance, without even knowing what it was, because I began to cough and almost dry-heave. Then, I felt a beautiful presence come into my room. I couldn't see anything, but it was as if I were enveloped in a cloud of peace and joy. I had a beautiful experience, and the spirit of fear left me; I was no longer afraid of my situation. Even though it was still a terrifying diagnosis, I felt a presence from heaven. I just knew God was doing something, and that I needed to trust Him. So, I Googled… “Can Christians need deliverance?” Or something like that, and this YouTube channel came up that said how to be self-delivered. And as I followed through with that and prayed for renunciation, asking God to deliver me, I experienced even more deliverance. 

And for a week after that, I felt like I was walking on clouds. I was so excited—it was the most wonderful feeling, like nothing you could experience on earth, that is for sure, and so I had this self-deliverance. Then I became curious: I needed to understand what had happened to me more, and I wondered why nobody had told me about this before. I searched through the scriptures, and it's all in the Bible; Jesus performed many deliverances. Then I embarked on a longer journey, and I experienced many more significant and minor deliverances. After that, it set me on a path of inner healing because a lot of the places I needed deliverance were tied to emotional pain. And when I had that emotional pain healed, then that was when I no longer needed deliverance anymore.

Is there anything else you can encourage others about if they need deliverance, based on your experience? 

Yes. Deliverance is truth chasing away lies, just as it is when Jesus says, 'I came to set the captives free.' Much of our captivity lies within our minds, and even a tear rolling down someone's cheek who has just realized that when they thought they weren't loved, they are loved. I see that as deliverance. Some people are stuck in addiction like I was and they can't get out and when they truly ask God for help, and He makes a way for them, that's deliverance. Someone who is constantly emotionally triggered by people or circumstances. When they realize that there's a reason for the trigger that's causing them to feel angry, jealous, or insecure, if they can find out where their soul was hurt and go back to address it, they will find that they're set free and no longer triggered. And so I think a lot of deliverance has to do with emotional health. There are many things that deliverance is. God could deliver you from one place to another, or He could deliver you from believing a lie to understanding the truth. He could deliver you from a toxic relationship. Deliverance is vast, and it’s something that God has for us. He wants us delivered, set free, and walking in who we are meant to be. He wants the things that hold us back to come off of us so that we can then do the things that we are assigned to do on this earth and do His Kingdom work. And until we personally experience the deliverance we need, we are held back from reaching our full potential. Deliverance doesn't have to be scary. Some people are highly demonically oppressed, and they need serious deliverance. Others simply need to be guided through exercises using Scripture that help them with forgiveness and other aspects of their lives, because Scripture is truth. If we don’t fully understand scripture, we might need someone to help us unpack that truth. 

How is inner healing different from someone simply moving on, and what practical steps helped you walk it out?

Yeah, it's so different when you invite the Holy Spirit into a situation, like you can have freedom from a problem that you've been getting counseling for, for 20 years, in one second with the Holy Spirit. So, I would say that inner healing is about asking God to reveal the hurt places in your heart and to search your heart to find them. And you'd be surprised. They're not always the big, bad, scary things. A lot of it comes from when you're young because you don't yet have the capacity to cope emotionally. And you know, time does not heal you. In fact, it often buries and compounds issues. Jesus is what heals us. And so because He is not in time, He can go back to that place when you were a child, and you can invite Him now to come back there and have Him heal you. He can heal your memories and triggers—He’s in the business of healing people, and every time I work with someone, He shows up. So, I don't even feel like I'm doing a lot, other than facilitating an encounter that they're having with Him and encouraging them to know that, 'You think you can't hear Him, but you can.' And teaching them this is how you hear Him. And as soon as they're connected to hearing God's voice, they can move forward. When they need help with something, they simply go to Him and listen to Him. And then, so my program is actually only 3 months long. It's not a long program because we jump in and I connect them to the source, which is the Holy Spirit. And once they learn how to work with Him, they no longer need me, as they have exercises that they can use with the Holy Spirit and Scripture. 

Could you share how your ministry began, who it serves, and how you help people find freedom in Christ?

It's only been two years since this happened to me, when I experienced deliverance for the first time. Within those two years, I have taken a double degree program. I now hold degrees in business and ministry, and the Lord has also asked me to write a book. I couldn't believe God was asking me to do all He's having me do, and yet here I am, two years later, and the website is up and running. I am working with clients and getting seriously transformational results. I am always so surprised at how God shows up. 

For someone who feels stuck in pain, fear, or spiritual bondage, what word of hope would you share with them? 

Have faith in God. And if you feel that your faith is weakened or small, you need to find ways to stir it up, because it is real—the promises of God are real, so I would say, have faith and grow in your faith, your relationship with the Lord, and His Word. 

Kimberly shared her story on...

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