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285: Leah Brown joins Pastor Plek and his wife Adrienne on the podcast this week to talk all things family and how ancient Jewish feasts outlined in Exodus can inform how we interact even in modern times. They also get real about the lifelines that have pulled their families back from the brink and reflect on the challenges and chaos that come with a bustling household.
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00:04 - Jewish Pilgrimages and Old Testament Traditions
07:51 - Counseling and Retreat for Family Relief
16:49 - Parenting Mishaps and Reflections
29:05 - Navigating Emotions and Logic for Healing
33:01 - Parenting From Fear vs Empathy
45:53 - Importance of Prayer and Scripture Engagement
50:21 - Building a Daily Devotional Habit
And welcome back to Pastor Plex podcast. I'm so glad all of you are here.
Speaker 2:What's so funny? What's so funny? It's that puppy.
Speaker 1:So Adrian has a puppy in her lap, and we'll talk about that later, but welcome Adrian, thank you. And then also Leah Brown, also known as the smartest woman in all podcast land.
Speaker 3:No, not known for that actually.
Speaker 2:Only vice, only vice.
Speaker 3:Maybe the smartest lady at Wells ranch community.
Speaker 1:Well, she was told that, so we just got to know what. Oh, you were told it's a big deal.
Speaker 3:Did they say podcast land doubt? It Sounds like a quick second.
Speaker 1:Kind of the person, the smartest woman they ever heard. So I kind of get that Ever heard is much better.
Speaker 2:I needed that little ego boost yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, here's something for your ego. We're talking about pilgrimages today and there's three primary pilgrimages in the Jewish calendar which were everyone was called to celebrate, that were in Israelite. That was the Passover pilgrimage, which was the feast of unleavened bread. That was a feast of harvest, aka Pentecost, which was the wheat harvest. That would happen in the summer. And then the feast of Tabernacles, which would end the year out with the harvest of grapes and olives, which all of you, I know, are amazed about that and we talked all about that on Sunday. How the Passover is really fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus, the Passover lamb. He is the unleavened bread that was perfectly clean and died on the cross for our sins and he is the first fruits. His resurrection is the first fruits of those that were to come. The Pentecost was fulfilled in Jesus time, in the harvest of the church, which is really exciting, and then the Holy Spirit was given to everyone else, or given to all Christians. But one of the things that we said was in the Feast of Tabernacles is that the Holy Spirit, or Jesus, stood, which I thought was really a fun one. Jesus stood at the temple, said come to me all you are thirsty and drink, and that fulfilled, really, the Feast of Tabernacles ceremony, where they would pour out water on successive days throughout the feast and on the one day they didn't pour out the water. He is the water, jesus is the lamb, jesus is the bread. So it's kind of wild how he fulfills all that. Now, the question that came up and I asked it for everybody because it's one of those questions that just is so out there, and it's specifically on the, on verses 20, Exodus, 23, 18, 19, you shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning. The best of the first fruits of your ground shall be, shall you shall bring into the house of the Lord, your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk. And this is all about in the you know, the pilgrimages and the festivals and specifically the sacrifices, how you were supposed to go about this. And the one thing that I thought was wild the whole kosher kitchen concept and I know this is where both of you, I think, are giving me eye roll looks already of the separating the meat and the dairy comes from this verse you shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk and I confirmed with my Israeli friend, our buddy Josh and Lena.
Speaker 3:We're so interested right now.
Speaker 2:Let's hear it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go. I'm doubling down on this. They separate all meat and all dairy. There's restaurants in Israel right now that if there's meat in the restaurant, there is no dairy. If there's dairy in the restaurant, there is no meat. They make sure it's all separate and it's based on this, and this, to me, is one of the greatest examples of how, in like Jewish custom, the traditions of men came to really get away from what God intended. The intention wasn't that you couldn't have a cheeseburger, although some Jews believe that you can't have a cheeseburger. The point was that you wouldn't have a fertility right by boiling a goat, a young kid, a goat kid in its own mother's milk. And so people would say you don't want to mix dairy and meat because if you eat it it might boil in your stomach, which is impossible because goat's milk boils at 150 degrees Fahrenheit. So that's an impossibility unless you're like, really, really, really sick, but then you'd be dead. So anyway, I wanted to bring that up because it's an important fact that I think all people, when they look at Old Testament and how it gets messed up and becomes a religion, that's specifically one of the ways that that happens.
Speaker 2:It makes me think of after Jesus went away, during like the first century AD. There's tales of like women boiling their own children and eating them because times were so bad. When was it Nero was persecuting the Jews and the Christians? Is there any relation there?
Speaker 1:None.
Speaker 2:No, oh, okay, it's too bad.
Speaker 3:That was really a good thought, like where are we going?
Speaker 1:boiling our own children, but the whole point is that we were called to remember. Now let's talk about things when we talk about remembering your salvation, remembering the God's daily provision, and then remembering your wilderness experiences. Now for you, ladies, has there ever been any? Your salvation experience? Is that your top thing to remember? Not that it wouldn't be your top thing, but daily provision, wilderness experience. I think I shared a wilderness experience of our parenting challenges in our first well, not our first year of marriage, but our whatever year of marriage, when we had packs and going into 2020 was really particularly rough. That was one of our super challenging moments as parents. Do you want to talk about that? When you were painting the ceiling?
Speaker 3:Oh, you did talk about that in the sermon. I always get a little misrepresented in the messages.
Speaker 1:Now, this is your time to. This is your turn to clarify.
Speaker 3:You can completely clarify all the misrepresentation. So there was. There was always a little bit, you know, but I'm so humble and gentle and spirit that I let it go.
Speaker 1:You have to share about your humility.
Speaker 3:You know, usually when people think about me, they think meekness, they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty much just quiet submissive, doesn't really say much. Not very many opinions, so talk about that time when you were.
Speaker 3:Yes, I remember, and the cool thing about this which you mentioned, as you kind of kept mentioning pandemic, but it was, it was in February, which, if your life was 100% normal, there was no pandemic. In fact, the COVID-19 was just this big eye roll that was happening in China, is all it was, and so there was zero like consideration that this could actually wreak havoc on our nation as well. And so, at that time, paxton, so our fourth child, we had all of our kids two years apart, and so there was never much of a reprieve, and I don't really know if it's our genetics or if it's just our personalities or the intensity of our home. It probably it's one of those three things. But our kids, just with the exception of our third born, no one slept through the night until they were two, and even the third born didn't sleep through the night until he was in for a whole year.
Speaker 2:I've been told that if your kids aren't sleeping through the night by six weeks, it's because you're a bad parent. Yeah, I was told that too.
Speaker 3:I was told that it's because you're not hardcore enough.
Speaker 2:So I don't worry, I do it right, right, then things would work out.
Speaker 3:Things would work.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so I let my child vomit blood. Because I let him scream so long? Yeah, because I was going to prove to the world that I was hardcore enough and the Lord had some humility in store for me. So, regardless, we're now like eight years into this whole ordeal and I'm exhausted. The fourth child was very challenging and at that point I was kind of over him, like I was like we have three others, like so I would sometimes call Chris and be like hey, I'm going to drop him off at Texas Baptist Children's home. So she did do that. You can either come home or you can send someone, but like I am leaving in 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:There were times I did send Micah, who was my assistant at the time. There were other times I came home.
Speaker 3:She was a guide sent. So, yes, it was a dark, those were dark days. I was, I was definitely depressed, you know rightfully so Was that postpartum depression? I think that was called fatigue exhaustion. A husband that worked a lot and um and yeah, and some a little depression too.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say that was a big factor. I worked a lot. I mean like, let's just, let's go down that road. How much did I work?
Speaker 3:Let's maybe not. Chris liked to do breakfasts starting at like 5, 36 am, which, can I just say, like To be in the demographic of the American male. Okay, what a privilege and honor, because it doesn't matter what stage of life you can, your wife can be in the hospital with a child and you have work like oh, everyone has to like submit, and so it doesn't matter what hour of the day, it's always acceptable for you, just like excuse yourself. And so, man, anyway, shout out to all the American men, and so he left and I would be then left for most of the day, and then whatever, it was. Fine, that's a whole separate life. We've worked through some counseling on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had a lot of counseling on that one.
Speaker 3:So anyway we are, I'm just not doing very well. We're like a couple of years. This child is two, so almost two yeah. Yeah, he was about to. So we still haven't gotten any reprieve? No, he wasn't even one, it was 2019.
Speaker 1:He was born 2019. So we're coming in February of 2020.
Speaker 3:So he wasn't even one yet. He was about a year. He was about a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right and there was no reprieve in the future either at that point.
Speaker 3:All right, yeah, and he had real bad reflex. Reflexes are problem. I actually think my womb was like not, they weren't developing right. So, regardless, it was horrible and I was struggling and at the time I had no job. I had no, it was just me and my kids all the time and anyway. So I would cope with stress by redecorating. There is some truth to that, because I was stuck in my house. So, like, what am I going to? I'm not going to read and you can't really read anyway.
Speaker 2:And you can't really. Oh, I did read my Bible every day, so don't even you want to be talking about those people that just like Kindle all day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then they post by the fireplace.
Speaker 2:They post about the books that they have read on their Instagram.
Speaker 3:Yeah, monthly reviews, monthly reviews. Oh, we should do, she's not.
Speaker 2:No, you should do that, I should.
Speaker 3:So, anyway, I was like I need to find something that's active, that's with my hands, that I can do and that feels accomplished Right Cause cleaning my house like that never feel you're never done, it's never, it's never complete. So painting is like the most satisfying thing ever because you do that for and it's like done and it stays done and it makes a difference. So I had repainted our whole old house. I had repainted this whole new house and I had like a couple bedrooms left, and so one of those is our downstairs room. So I was like this is a perfect time to like repaint this room. And painting was also great because something about painting like the kids are running around the house and like you're in this room and you can't really tend to them. However, you can go fix them a hot dog or fix them a snack and then resume. So it's kind of a good activity for like multitasking with your kids and providing you can keep them out of the wet paint, which I did not always do so successfully. So, anyway, I'm doing that and I'm like working hard and I'm tired, but also when I'm in the middle of painting, I have to kind of finish and I do get a little bit of this like insane, like I don't care if it's 2 am, I'm finishing this room. So I was definitely at that point and I was standing on the ladder and I think it was midnight and I was crying, I think, about who knows what. I was crying about something involving our life and Chris kind of acting like it wasn't I don't know me, feeling like he wasn't in touch with the reality, and Chris was like I think we need help. And I'm like, yeah, no kidding, we do need help. Like we need something, like something from the outside is going to have to come in, and in my mind we just needed a different job, like we need to move. Okay, that was what I thought, like we just need to get out of here, we need a different life. And Chris was like I'm going to pray that God will send something. And I'm like, yeah, go for it. And he better bring a different job. That was kind of what I thought would be the solution and instead God provided, like truly out of nowhere.
Speaker 1:It was so close. It wasn't like it was like close to any other retreat we've ever been to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like an hour away. It was this camp for 40 minutes.
Speaker 1:It was 40 minutes, it's 40 minutes.
Speaker 3:Oh really, yeah, it was this camp for, like military veteran families and the idea is that military veteran families have. The husband has probably some level of PTSD or just military effect that is probably affecting the family and so let's get your whole family out here and let's love on you and it's free. It's like free for this. I have something in my nose like I don't know if it's allergy, so I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I hope you're not allergic to your new puppy. Oh Well, she's. That's why it's poodle, so I bow.
Speaker 3:I do think that maybe I touched something outside. Anyway, I'm not sure. So, regardless, we go to this. It's for veterans and they, they really love you. Like the whole thing is like we want to serve you, want to love you, but it was not Christian, which actually was fabulous, because I was kind of out churched at that time too, like you get a little out churched in this job. I mean, chris would never be out church, but I was like I'm kind of tired of being around a bunch of Christians, like there's a there's something refreshing about being around people that don't know Christ and they they're living their life like, very genuinely like no one was a pastor. No one get cave cared at all and it was like and I was zero, I was in nobody, and that was amazing. Like I wasn't a pastor's wife, nobody cared, I wasn't responsible for everything that wasn't happening in the room, every moment of the whole time, like it was just this incredible thing. So we get to go and show up and just be like everybody else and and we gave the baby to Micah and Trevor they took, they took, they took back to Mike and Trevor had him. It was like three or four nights. It was kind of a long time. It was the longest I've been away from Pakistan and it was amazing and I was also part of my packs. It was so hard is because I I really couldn't be for my other boys what I wanted to be all of the time, and so it was like I finally had this chance to like play with them and engage them and you and I got to kind of have fun in the evenings and it was such a godsend and it took us out of this like really intense reality that was not working. And it gave us this reprieve right before we got the second reprieve, which was set at our house where you had to finally be home and it was that's. It turned around our entire family dynamic.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So it was almost like a pre, like before we stick your whole family in a crucible of like redoing life. We're going to take you away and like love you and serve you and give you a chance to connect. And it was the best, like looking at it in hindsight like God let us, he took care of us completely.
Speaker 1:It was a week, I mean, because it was an email out of nowhere. I mean, it was like it was.
Speaker 3:It was one of those emails that looks like spam a little too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and we had the counselor was great that just followed us around, like the fact that she would just kind of follow our family as we we would do like a high ropes course or play kickball or what else. I mean we, yeah, knitted things. I think there's kind of like an escape room thing that we even did and she would just sit there and follow and that's what she did.
Speaker 3:She was good and I think a lot of people were kind of is like she only followed you if you were well, if you were interested in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think we were one of the only family we're like, yeah, come on, please, please, yeah, yeah, we were all about. Well, we're kind of open people, yeah.
Speaker 3:It was really helpful. It was after that that I started taking ADHD medicine, which was good, kind of addressed a little bit of like my struggle with focusing, but like also she sort of spoke into just like patterns that weren't working, kind of an intensity that wasn't working. Yeah, it was good, it was definitely even her suggestion to go pursue ADHD medicine was like that helped me recognize like, oh wow, I do have some like for me. To stay at home with my kids all day is like that's genuinely really challenging for me. It's not like I'm just a broken person, like there are some factors in that that not a lot of like. I'm not like a lay around person.
Speaker 1:So yeah, let's talk about what we have going on in our house right now. Bringing the wilderness to the house, yeah, so yeah, I mean I feel like that was a great wellness experience, but now we actually have like a zoo at our house.
Speaker 3:When do we do it's kind of great. We have a bunny business and then we're a well being family for litter of puppies.
Speaker 1:If you don't know what well being is, that's just a dog giving birth. That's what well means.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and being a well being family means you help the dog give birth, then you take care of the puppies for two months until they sell. And but I don't have to. I'm working for a breeder. So if you're against breeding animals then we're basically Satan and his little handyman over here at my house. But it's pretty great and the boys are loving it and the puppies are taking care of the puppies right and I'm paying the boys. Paxton's actually made the most money. He's the best worker I don't know. He's like the only one that's like motivated by dollars. Everyone else, like I don't care about your dollars. Paxton cares about my dollars. All right, wow. So it's been great, it's been fun, it's made us some extra money and it's something to do with the boys made us money, yet, yeah, we have to wait.
Speaker 1:Betting on the company? Yeah, wait and wait on the come, all right. So, leah, how about you Will? There's experience.
Speaker 3:Have you ever felt this way? Like does anything I say resonate, or are you a little different?
Speaker 1:Are you? She's above that.
Speaker 2:I'm not above that, heck. No, oh man. Yeah, I mean the early motherhood. Sleeping stuff obviously resonates. Also, throwing up blood in the crib resonates. Yes, that's, that was my baby.
Speaker 1:Was that, corey yeah?
Speaker 2:No, that was Corey Calvin, totally different.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Totally different. Praise the Lord, praise him. Yeah, yeah, I felt that way. I feel like I'm finally coming out of it, though it's good to feel like you kind of know when you're coming out. Yeah, yeah, you always know that you're even in it until you're coming out In fact, I painted my master bedroom like two weeks ago and I felt that it's that same thing. It's like I got to stay up till 2am and finish this, but then the fever hit me and I couldn't quite do it.
Speaker 3:So Does it finish? That Is that when you got sick.
Speaker 2:That's when I got sick. Yeah, and it's unfinished. In fact, there are pieces of scotch tape all over the walls indicating spots that I missed while I was painting them.
Speaker 1:I did not.
Speaker 3:Isn't that helpful that someone let you know oh really.
Speaker 1:So you had a helper.
Speaker 2:Somebody else put them there to tell me what I did wrong.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one day I'll pull off all that scotch tape and repaint the whole bedroom because it's not good enough.
Speaker 1:So Okay, excellent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll share about a wilderness experience that I inflicted on my own child yesterday. Oh, wow, what'd you do Everyone has, like other child, got left experience right?
Speaker 3:Of course no, we don't you forgot a kid somewhere, left one.
Speaker 2:I come from a family of six and so I think I'm the only one that never got left or forgotten somewhere. But that's because I look out for number one. You got to. I took my daughter to ballet yesterday and I dropped her off in the room, like I always do. No, in the bathroom, when she walks out of the car she goes in by herself and I had to go take. I had picked up one of her friends from school, so I was taking her friend home. So I drop her off at ballet. I say I'll be back in a minute. I got to go bring her home. I bring the friend home, I come back to ballet. It's been about 30 minutes at this point and I go look in the classroom and she's not in there. And when I walked in the door all the other dance moms were no-transcript, she's not there. Like what are you doing here? We thought you guys weren't here this week and we all start scouring, looking for her. We can't find her anywhere. Were you panicky? Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3:I would have been panicky. My heart would have been racing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it's like none of them had seen her at all. That's what was kind of panicky.
Speaker 1:Were you thinking like she got taken?
Speaker 2:Like maybe she didn't even make it in the door. I was like did I watch her go in the door? I don't know, I don't think I did. Yeah, I was pretty panicky. Eventually found her like hidden back in the faculty bathroom.
Speaker 1:Oh nice.
Speaker 2:Curled up in a ball, sobbing. I mean, her hair was soaking wet, Face blotchy red leotard soaking wet and the strap from her leotard was busted. So I immediately knew what had happened. She was going to the bathroom, she tried to pull it back up, it busted the strap and she did not know what to do. Five years old which is that's on me Like at some point in life I probably should have told her if you ever can't find mommy and you need help, go find another mommy or a teacher. But I don't think I ever did that. So she sat in there for 30 minutes sobbing, scared out of her mind, and it was the saddest thing ever.
Speaker 1:Oh, that is sad.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Hopefully she'll recover. I took her to Chick-fil-A to play afterward and it seemed to do the actually no, I held her for 30 minutes while she sobbed and hyperventilated uncontrollably. This is a child that probably already came out of the womb with attachment issues, and that's why she never slept. Yes, yes we have one of those Because she needed that constant affirmation and touch and encouragement, and so I think I might have just irreparably damaged her.
Speaker 1:But man well. The counseling bill will come in handy in about a couple years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe Up until this point. I thought my lowest parenting moment was the moment that I found her water bottle and I took the top off and I saw that a colony of ants were living in it, and so for God knows how long she had been drinking ants.
Speaker 1:Hi protein.
Speaker 2:That's bad.
Speaker 3:Well, it's better than black mold. I've watched some kids that had black mold growing in their possibility I have too. That's disgusting.
Speaker 2:I've tried to wash out their water bottles for them behind their mom's back Me too but it hasn't worked. It's still there again. Well, here's a public service announcement.
Speaker 1:If your child has a water bottle, please check to make sure there's no black mold.
Speaker 2:And ants, or ants, or ants, do we?
Speaker 1:leave somebody at the library, or do you just lose them at the library?
Speaker 3:We never left anyone anywhere, except I have left, like packs, to sleep in his car seat as an infant, like after I unloaded groceries and then, like 30 minutes later, I'm like where's? Oh, shoot, and then he's in the car.
Speaker 2:That's bad.
Speaker 3:I've done that a couple of times, but I usually just don't close my doors. That was my solution, like leave the van open all the time.
Speaker 1:Every time I come home, the van door is open. Even the driver's side door or the driver's door is open.
Speaker 3:It's not every time sometimes, but yeah, that became a good solution for that problem.
Speaker 2:So if you needed any like humble parenting, here you go.
Speaker 1:So God's faithfulness in that. What would be the like the I need you to like. Take that story, make it mean something, yeah.
Speaker 2:I actually can make it mean something.
Speaker 1:Let's see the, but I don't have time to get into all of it. Yes, you do, but I'll tell you yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:That earlier yesterday I was actually an unemployment. I booked an appointment with my counselor because there was something that I wanted to talk to her about, some childhood trauma that I wanted to hear her say this is fixable. I hadn't talked to her in many months but I was like, all right, we gotta go. I need to hear some truth. I need her to tell me that I'm not it probably broken. So I had booked this counseling appointment and I spent an hour with her and it was really good and she kept saying something that was really helpful to me. She was like if that same childhood traumatic experience happened to your daughter, what would you say to her? What would you do? How would you comfort her?
Speaker 1:She's like you gotta do that to you too, yeah, which I hate hearing because I'm like or allow the Lord to do that to you, because the reason why I got as a father and there's a familiar aspect all the things you've been screwed up as a kid. You need to hear yourself saying that to your child and then receive that from the Lord. And what was the words?
Speaker 2:Well, she didn't give me the words, she just said think about it as if you were comforting your daughter and helping your daughter.
Speaker 1:And what would you say to you or to your daughter?
Speaker 2:Well, I ended up basically saying the same things later. It was not the same trauma, but like, like it's an hour later I'm holding my daughter in the car and she's crying and weeping irreparably, like hyperventilating, because I mean to her 30 minutes alone in the bathroom is the end of the world. And I'm like telling her it's okay. I know you felt alone. I know you felt scared. I know you didn't know what to do. You felt it was your fault because you broke the leotard string and you were worried. Am I gonna get in trouble for this? Is anybody gonna understand? I was just kind of saying all of those things over here and I was like you didn't do anything wrong. It's okay to be scared, it's okay to be alone, but mommy's here now and you're safe. You're safe with mommy. And I just kind of did that for 30 minutes and I was while I was doing it I was like huh, like how, like what are the chances that this is happening? An hour after I was asked that question, I was like that's very sweet, very um, that's powerful.
Speaker 1:Riya, I do think someone needs to hear that specific thing and I know you got a role, so feel free to just follow the podcast. But one of the things that we've been saying is that, at least in my counseling, when people have traumatic experience from their childhood especially dads, because it really connects to the father the father's love is so powerful but you can't really tap into it. And I'm not saying you can't if you're a single guy or you don't have kids or whatever, but I think sometimes we can't tap into that because we don't understand how we're loved until we have our own children. This isn't to say you are somehow less than if you don't have kids. Just makes the experience more real. And so if you've got trauma from your childhood, that is like unmet. What Leah said was so powerful. Think in terms of how you would comfort your own child, and I guess this is the part where you go. If I had a kid, this is what I would do, and then hear your heavenly father love you, just like that, and that is how he loves his kids. In the wilderness, especially on times when you're involved in something that's not your fault, there are a bunch of Israelites in the wilderness who had no say in the whole. Hey, let's not go into the Promised Land, let's spend 40 years in the wilderness. There's a bunch of people that were not on board with that, that got stuck in the wilderness, and so God was with them. What I loved about God is he doesn't send them to the wilderness and doesn't go with them. He sends them to the wilderness as punishment. That's clearly punishment, but he goes with them. And this gets into now. I'm gonna be in my parenting mode, like when you send your child away. Right, there's a part where you go to your child in a time of timeout, but you go be with him in that experience for a little bit, because that's what God did for his people. So, adrian, any thoughts on that sort of parenting aspect of being with your child in the wilderness?
Speaker 3:Yes, so I think that, okay, this is kind of where I've decided. So I've done some of my own counseling over just various things. I think that everyone is accustomed to having some I don't really like the word trauma because it sounds so dramatic. Yeah, I have a doctor that calls it little T trauma, and I guess that's a good way of putting it. But it's basically, I think, as a child, when you're developing and growing, things are gonna happen that are very significant to you, that are formable, and they're not always gonna be. I think trauma sometimes sounds like you're a very big victim in a situation, or it sounds like somebody was very negligent, like an adult must have been very negligent, and that's just not always the case Not always true right. It's really not Like. There's a lot of times where I think God allows sin to affect you.
Speaker 1:Well on that one, because in John nine, whenever there's the blind guy, the disciples go up to Jesus and they go like, hey, who's fault was it? Was it this guy's sin or his parents' sin? And he goes it's nobody's sin, but this was done so that God might be glorified in this and so there might be opportunities. Small T trauma or any trauma happens so that God might be glorified.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, that's good. So I think that God allows things to happen and and that's part of just living in a broken world, and so I think that's important to me, because I think, especially our generation is really good at becoming like real big victims of our parents or victims of our upbringing, and I just don't think, I think that's a big mistake, because our own kids are gonna be victims of our perspective. No matter how much we try and have the right one, it's not you know. So I think that's a silly. I think it's silly to extrapolate it into like feeling like there was a big negligence on someone's part. However, I do think that I have worked through some things in my life, growing up that were very formable and hurtful, and I've gone back and considered like what could I have been said, like what could somebody have said to me during this time? And that's an emotional experience, because if you have something that hurt you or that affected you, going, imagining your five year old self or your eight year old self is emotional. Just that alone is kind of emotional. And then consider, okay, what would I have told me back then? And knowing what you know now, like that's an extremely emotional exercise and for me to lean into that was hard because kind of like what Leah was saying earlier, like it just feels kind of so cliche. And so you know, there's certain women that just love to kind of relish in their emotions and feelings and it feels kind of like you're just becoming one of those people and it's an unproductive process but it's very productive. There's more to it than just feeling. There's a thing.
Speaker 1:Well, feelings are not. Feelings are not bad, and I think sometimes we can go one way or the other. We like we're life's all feelings, or like feelings are dumb. But it's facts, not feelings. And feelings are, I call them, like dashboard sensors that tell you something's good or something's bad and you don't just like wallow in the sensor, but you go figure out what the problem is because they alert you there's an issue there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that also there's a point where they can inform you of something to consider, like to me. Well, they do inform you, but they're not to be trusted. I think emotions aren't to be trusted. I think feelings are something to lean into and I think that when you're leaning into feelings, you need to also lean in with a little bit of logic, a little bit of circumstance of reality. And so this is where, if you're going back to like a childhood version of yourself and kind of thinking through what would have been beneficial to hear as a child in that situation, there's a logical like you're combining a right and a left side of your brain in the problem. You're combining some emotions that you had along with some logical thoughts, and I think that's where you can often find healing and breakthrough is when you combine both sides. And so, anyway, I think that what I have experienced, anytime I'm in that situation, in that exercise, talking myself through what I wish I could have heard as a child, is often things that are very simple, but also things that are not gonna come out of the mouth of a parent who is parenting from a place of fear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, explain that? Because I think there's a lot of parents that parent out of fear like, oh my gosh, this kid's gonna make me look bad, or this kid's gonna turn out bad.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot, or just I don't wanna mess this up and I don't wanna be like. We all have fears. We all have different fears. I don't think there's like not a cookie cutter fear main fear I think that there's just. We all have fears that are specific to our. What we've been taught is something to avoid or not, and so I think anytime I've imagined myself and as a child, the things that I feel like I wanna hear are some of the things that Leah just walked us through, like what she told Corey like you didn't do anything wrong, you're not in trouble, you felt alone. You felt like as a scared parent, you don't wanna tell your daughter, oh, did you feel alone? Cause she wasn't alone. Technically, she was at a dance studio where there's like 50 other moms that would have loved to help her, and so a scared mom doesn't really wanna put into her daughter's head that she was alone, even though that might be the in empathetic response that's necessary. Or a scared mom doesn't wanna say, isn't thinking oh, you thought you might be in trouble. The scared mom is like, oh, we should probably tell her that you shouldn't pull your leotard up that way, or you might break a strap. A scared mom doesn't want the strap to ever break again. So she's gonna take this opportunity to let the daughter know there's a different, there's a better way to pull up your leotard Instead of just instead of just like giving in to, like, wow, you felt scared, you did nothing wrong, because those things don't ensure a solution in the future. And I think when we parent from a place of fear, we parent from a place of like. We wanna guarantee that our child isn't in this situation ever again, and so you focus on. You should have come out and you should have talked to the other moms, you should have pulled up your leotard. This way, why are you crying? This isn't a problem, and I think that when we parent from a place of fear, we don't meet the pain of our children where it's at. We instead try and secure, give them, offer them peace for the future, and that doesn't heal and give them the confidence. The confidence in the future is gonna come from them feeling fully connected and understood in that moment.
Speaker 1:To your point though, because I think they're, because I think something like well, you're just like feeding the victim mentality oh, it's so bad. But what I think you're saying is in an emotional moment they need empathy and then later on, when it's not emotional, they need correction and direction. Hey, next time, if you're ever alone in the bathroom and you can't find mommy, go find another mommy. I think that's like there's gotta be some instruction here that doesn't leave them like I guess I'm just a victim of my world, cause I think that somebody hearing that might go. Well, when do I ever correct them? When do I ever tell them the right thing to do? But I think what you're saying is like you've gotta have intuition in the moment to go. Oh, this is an emotional moment and emotions laughing or crying are indelible marks on the soul that you will remember for life. So think about if your child is crying, then that's probably a great time to instill that sense of you are always secure, you're always safe, you're always, whatever cause. They'll remember those words for forever, and which is what you're trying to, as a proxy of God, give the fathers words to them so that they are secure growing up. So later on. In moments of wilderness experience, they have resilience because they go back to their highest level of training, which was when I'm scared and hurt, I can hear my mom or dad's voice, and actually they were just a proxy for our heavenly father.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, I agree, and I think you can't hear the instruction until you've been met halfway with your emotion. And I think that that's where, like, you've gotta meet those kids halfway with their emotion and then follow up with instruction. Like I even feel like with one of our kids one day, something happened with lunch and like he didn't get lunch and I was like man, I felt horrible and I was like, and so for me as a mom, part of me wants to be mad, right, like I'm gonna email that teacher and email that lunch lady and make sure. And then I'm like, no, he's okay, like he was okay not having lunch that day and he's not scarred for life and I'm. But I told him I was like man, I bet you felt so embarrassed and sad and hungry and he gets emotional and I hug him but then I'm like, hey, next time that happens, I gave him some things he can do. But it's like you can't even hear those things that you can do until you've been met emotionally and also helping them realize like it's okay to feel super sad that you were hungry. And it almost makes you like when someone gives you permission to feel sad that you got hungry. Now you're not afraid of being hungry again. But if you didn't get validation and feeling sad that you were hungry at lunchtime and you didn't have lunch, well then now you're super scared to ever be there again, cause you don't really. It's like you're, it's like a processing problem, it's like I don't know how to process.
Speaker 1:There's instruction, there's affection and there's discipline. And so when you, when there's moments of pain, you need to give empathy, which is the instruction and the affection combined together. That's the empathy, and then they learn empathy of here's what it's like for someone to say to feel your pain, and that's what a mom is really great at doing. And then the other, on the flip side, there's the instruction and the discipline of like, hey, next time we're going to do the right thing, and that's training. That, when those two come together and they're now trained to go forward and I think for a lot of us as parents or as children, you may not have had all of that and so you don't know how to express that of understanding there's both, there's the both and the empathy from the instruction and affection, and then the or the training from the instruction, the discipline. Both need to come in here, or else the kid's going to kind of go to once I'm a victim or I'm just angry and I'm going to make sure the world pays for whatever. So, okay, I think we landed the plan on that. I want to talk about, then, the daily provision of the Lord and what your quiet time as a mom. You and I do it differently. Like I get up at, like you know, five, 10, sinews to five, 20. And then I'll spend about 30 minutes just in prayer with the Lord. Then I bring up my Bible and then I do my journaling time. What is that like for you on the regular? And this is something you've been way better at me in the past, like when we got married I was kind of like the sporadic devotional person where I'd spend two hours at a coffee shop, but then quickly I learned I couldn't be like that. But talk to me about how you've had a consistent quiet time for a long time.
Speaker 3:Yes, so this was just, I think, a blessing of, like, an addictive personality and also parents that modeled really well. I think it was both honestly so.
Speaker 1:you grew up with your parents, your mom doing a quiet time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, every morning of my life, like I would wake up and they would be in our downstairs room Usually they'd be in separate spots but they would have their Bibles and they would have had quiet time and they talked about that time. And my mom was really big into journals and so she had different journals for each of us and so I grew up with it modeled as like this is like adults have to do this. So that helped. I mean, honestly, that's probably largely where it came from, but I also do have a very addictive personality and so when you get me in a routine, I'm in, it's locked down, and so it's not like and I can't, I don't the whole day I'm thrown off if I haven't had a quiet time, and so that's where there's like today. Today I was like man, it would have been really easy not to put it in, but I knew I'm like this whole day is shot if I don't do this right now because it just messes me up. I think when you have a personality that kind of needs a little bit of structure, or you have these habits that your body kind of needs, it's like. So that helps me, like just I mean, that's my own flesh. There's like a flesh wiring. It really helps when it comes to quiet times because all it takes is it like centers me and it helps me engage the rest of my day, and I think that you could argue that there's spiritual blessing in that too, like I think, when I make that time, I think God blesses that time and so it helps. I feel like the rest of my day, the way I spend my time, the way I think about things, is informed from a place that is like peaceful, and it's a Holy Spirit piece, it's a Holy Spirit energy, it's a Holy Spirit clarity that I don't otherwise have.
Speaker 1:So I think one of the things that I always like to mention is that because sometimes and I think I was like this I was like there is like seven course meal quiet time, where you get this great devotional and you read so much of the Bible, you journal, and that for me was like if it wasn't that, then it's not even worth doing at all, and I think I learned from you really there's three types of quiet times. There's the home cook meal quiet time, which is the steady constant. You need to eat this every day. There's the seven course meal, which you can kind of get a more of a fasting experience or a prolonged thing where you're just gonna get some time with the Lord. Maybe it's a long walk, maybe, however, you're gonna engage, and then sometimes you just need some fast food to just kind of survive for the day. Talk to me about through some of that and how you've seen maybe some people not have, I don't know, daily provision or trust in the daily provision, and they don't eat at all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I don't love fast food. I would call it like a power bar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay fine.
Speaker 3:Because fast food. That makes the analogy break down a little bit, but I think that it's like it's eating a power bar versus eating a home cooked meal, and a home cooked meal is better. It's better for you, it tastes better, it's more enjoyable. But that power bar is gonna get you through and it's not gonna feel as enjoyable, it's not gonna feel as satisfying, but it's providing you with the nutrients that you need.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I guess you're right. Fast food makes it sound like it's just trash.
Speaker 3:Yeah, fast food and it's not good for you, but it's something. And that is where that's not the case. I think the word of God doesn't return void, and I am such an advocate in the season of young kids that if Satan can win in your life as a young mom, it's convincing you that you need that there is some standard to reach in your time with God. That there is like, if you don't have X amount of time or if you haven't read this much, or if you haven't filled out whatever discussion questions for the group, or if you haven't prayed for everything in your life, it's like then you've failed and that you might as well have just not tried it all. Like that's a. I don't talk about Satan very much, but I'm telling you I feel so convicted that Satan's number one stronghold of young moms who are believers and who understand the power of the word is to kind of get in their head and convince them that now is not the time, because they honor and revere the word of God so much that they're waiting and they're pushing it off for a time that it will be better and longer and more quality. That is a lie from the pit of hell, because it keeps you out of it. It pushes it back. It pushes it back and and the thing.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing you gotta remember the term quiet time is only it's relatively young in the Christian or even the Jewish life. Okay, having a piece of paper Bible or now a digital Bible has only been around since the 1600s, okay, remember so there's 1600 years where people were having times with the Lord without a Bible, without anything other than their own scripture memory that they heard from the pastor or the priest on a Sunday. And so I think there's a reality here of understanding that this is something that, because of how fast paced our life has gotten because in a day of churning butter you probably got to think through some scripture a little bit more it was a mindless activity, but I think there's a part of which where we have so busy and so many things competing for our time that it is imperative that we focus and start our day, and I'm gonna push for the starting of the day, start a day with God's word, not just because Mark will in 35 says that Jesus got up before it was daylight and had time with the Lord, but I think that's where it just starts your day. It sets the rhythm of the day and it's an intentional way to spend the day and when you're thinking and contemplating of the things of God.
Speaker 3:Yes. So I don't think that the butter training people were trying. I think that they had less inputs, and so we have a lot of inputs, and so if your only input is your corporate worship time once a week and the rest of your life there's no inputs, well then you have the luxury of being less intentional. I don't think that they had a more rich spiritual life necessarily because they weren't. I think discipline and intentionality is what creates a rich spiritual life, but I do think they. Maybe in a basic time of life there was, you had the luxury of fewer inputs. Therefore, the few inputs that you did have were permeating in your mind, and that is not true in our culture.
Speaker 1:You don't have the like Because the inputs that are coming out are coming through social media.
Speaker 3:And I don't care if you have no Facebook on your phone and you're not on Instagram. You're still receiving an insane amount of inputs just by driving in your car and by walking into a grocery store. There are more inputs than your brain is able to like. To stay focused on the things of God and on scripture without a discipline, time and like forget it, it's just not. That's unrealistic, and so I really do believe. So my advice to young moms is to, if someone comes up with a better system, they need to start talking about it, cause this is my only system and I tell everybody and I feel like people are kind of resistant to it, but this is it okay, is the U version app, because it's a good app, like there's a lot of other apps that aren't done well. This one's done well, this is made for the thing that we're needing it to be made for. And so you get on there and there is a verse of the day. If there have been seasons in my life where I just used that verse of the day because I would get too distracted in trying to find a plan or find when it said read the Bible, and then it would open up to some big chapter that I last read on the U version app, and then I would be distracted and I'd be off and I would not, I wouldn't engage. And so if at basic level you just read the verse of the day and then you pray and you say God like help me open.
Speaker 1:Tell us what you, what people cause. I think where people get stuck is they don't know what to pray.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I would. Always, when I engage the scripture, I say God, like, open my eyes to something you would have me hear today from you, and I say it every single time. I never read the Bible without like in my head acknowledging that prayer to God. Because the only way I'm getting anything out of this scripture is by the Holy spirit activating it and helping me recognize it. So I always pray that prayer and then I engage and then I go through a time of like reflecting. I follow that acts prayer model. I feel like a broken record on this thing. I don't think it's like the only prayer model. I think there's a lot of other great ones, but this one's an easy one and it starts with adoration. A is adoration, praising God. So that for me will be literally one sentence of something I am praising God for. It refocuses my mind from all Sometimes it's more than that.
Speaker 1:but you're saying, if you're getting down to the brass, tacks yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes, so it refocuses my mind from everything that's a problem for today that I'm stressed about onto the character of God and just one sentence about the character of God does is powerful. And then I will go into a confession. I'll come up with something that I can confess and I have found it's very this is a very hard thing for a lot of people to do, they if you haven't had like a big, obvious, glaring, like external sin in the last 24 hours, you don't think of a sin to confess.
Speaker 1:Well, and let's just be real. I think this is where, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us we are most of us are living lives of self deception.
Speaker 3:Right, and so I would this. I go to head and heart sins Like where in my head have I wished, have I coveted, have I been jealous, have I been unsatisfied, like those are all sins, so find it that's not hard. There's always something where I've been unsatisfied or I've been short or I've been. The standard is holiness. There's a lot of, there should be a lot of things that you can choose from is to confess regarding sin, and then, moving on to Thanksgiving, is the seat, the T in acts and thanking God for something, and then I get to the S where I pray and I ask him for things, and so I very quickly will fly through.
Speaker 1:This is the stance for supplication.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a tricky one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sublication says that should be something. Pray for something.
Speaker 3:Ask for something, acta. Anyway, I think that that I go through that very quickly. But there is something if I'm in a huge rush and I don't have time, in my years where my kids were young and they were just incessantly having needs, I would sometimes have to just shut myself in the bathroom and they would scream and they would bang on the door and they'd stick their fingers under the crack of the door and I wouldn't come out until I would have done that. What I just said and that has turned into now. I'm able to read more. I'm able to read more than just a verse, I'm able to read a whole chapter. I'm able to spend a little bit longer on my prayer time and reflect a little bit more on the scriptures and how the scripture that I just read applies to this Acts prayer model, and pray a little bit of a longer prayer. But I still have days, like today, where it's probably a seven minute thing. But those seven minutes I really believe are so powerful and changing my perspective on the day, changing the sensitivity that I have to conviction, and so, man, I think that it is like I think that's the hugest deal and I think every Christian needs to probably like experience, a blessing of discipline in this area, but as young moms, there is something about it that is so.
Speaker 1:You have no routine in your life for yourself, like you really just don't, and so and honestly to men as well, like it's not just young moms, because I find men are like I'm so busy, I have so much to do, I don't have time for that. And I don't wanna try and just say like you are a pathetic human being, because I think that's the like. What you sort of get from most people is like, well, just do it and I get it. I'm not gonna say you're pathetic, I'm not gonna tell you, but start small. So what I've told people is do the 5-5-5, and it doesn't have to be consecutive, but the five minutes of listening to God, five minutes of reading God's word and then five minutes to praying, all right, that's the 5-5-5. And then whenever I look at God's word and for me, like when I started out I had to do a 5-5-5, it was just literally that short because my brain can't, it wasn't disciplined or trained to go longer. Now it takes me an hour and I do 30 minutes of just listening to God and then it's like 15 minutes of reading the scripture and praying through it. And then and I do a pair I'll paraphrase the scripture, I'll find a principle in the scripture and then I'll put that scripture into practice. I'll use it to ask myself a question like how will I like? Today was Luke 3, john the Baptist points to Jesus. God the Father points to Jesus. The genealogy points to Jesus. How am I pointing to Jesus? That's kind of that was my. I need my life to point to Jesus. And then then I prayed, actually for Adrian in my prayer journal and. Liz Mitchell actually was on my prayer list, so that's kind of how I went through that. But I started with a 5-5-5, and now it becomes 30, 15-15. So I have an hour with the Lord to start the day and of course you're like, you're a pastor, of course. So, sure, start small. I had to start small so that I could get to a place where I would be disciplined enough, where I wouldn't be like wanting to be antsy, to leave the room. I'm actually wanting to do more, but because I know I have the rest of the day coming, I've gotta put down the Bible and put down the pen and get off to the gym or the next thing, because I gotta take the kids to school at 730. So I think that's sort of like the reality I think that I've found myself in. And I wanna challenge all the men out there who are so busy, because I get it, you're busy, you've got mornings and evenings and late nights, but I'm telling you, if you could do this one thing, and for me, what do I go through? I just do whatever the next chapter is. I started the Bible in Genesis, february of 2021. It's now. We're now in February of 2024. I'm gonna finish the Bible in three and a quarter years, so I'll be done by September and so I'm excited. I just do one. I don't try and do one of those. It's like Psalm, I think, like 1-18, like the shortest chapter of the Bible. I didn't try and go into 1-19 after that, which is actually the longest chapter in the Bible, but I went and just did one chapter a day and tomorrow I'm gonna do Luke four and it's gonna be awesome and I think that's one of the things I wanna challenge everybody in their walk with God of do the regular rhythm.
Speaker 3:One thing I would say to that is like habit stacking. I talk about this at the anytime I do these women's retreats. I always talk about stick this new habit as something that you already do. And, like I said a second ago, like I sometimes have to shut myself in the bathroom while everybody banged on the doors, I think like there was a season in my life. I'm never on time anywhere and I know people have a lot of opinions about that. That's fine. But one of my things, what I would do is I would be 10 minutes later than I already was to my first thing. If I did not make time to have my quiet time at home before I left the house, then I would like there was a season where we went to. I went to a different church for a Bible study and I would drop my kids off at the childcare and then I would go sit in the bathroom there. Or I would go back to my car and I would spend 10 minutes having a quiet time by myself reading my Bible and I would just be that much later to the actual group study. Or I would get to Walmart and I would. Sometimes that would work Like if I had a kid that would fell asleep or something, but if not, they're all screaming and killing each other. We can't stay in the car. But if I could ever, if there was ever a situation where I could stay in the car, sitting out in front of the place that I'm already late to, and be 10 minutes later or be just 10 minutes late, say you got there on time, like even, like it's worth it. It's worth it to take away from literally anything else in your life to try to build this in, and so if you get to the point that you can't stack it with a habit that you're consistent on, then stick it on the first thing that you're doing and just be now 10 minutes late to it. But there's no reason to feel like your life is happening to you and it's kind of like to me.
Speaker 1:Don't be a victim of your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and if you didn't wake up early, great. Now go without something, don't do your-.
Speaker 1:I think I was a person that would have said to you I can't, I have. I was a constant victim. I think and I think that's probably what our issues were in our marriage early on is I was a constant victim of everybody else and all these things. I never was intentional about stuff, and because I lived my life responding and I'm an opportunity person, always looking ahead oh that sounds great. And so I didn't have an intentionality built in that I think you had built into you, which was such an advantage from seeing your parents really just worship God in that way, and so I had to learn, I had to train myself in a much different way, and it really didn't come until really making the regular rhythm, discipleship of like, oh, this has to be every single day.
Speaker 3:Well, and also, like you, have to experience the benefit to fight for it. To that level. Like the people that are, like the people at the gym that never miss a day. Part of it is probably they have an addictive personality, probably they saw it modeled, but also they experience on a daily level the dopamine and the like the euphora that comes from their time in the gym that they don't miss it Because they can't. It's like I also never missed breakfast until this year, when I've been trying stupid intermittent fasting. I don't even do anymore, don't I? I'm not plugging for that, but until then I never missed breakfast because I'm like I need this, like my brain is on 5,000 planets and I've got it centers my whole body if I have breakfast. So it's like there were certain habits that like until you are consistent in life in something that is good for you, like eating food. Like people that are like not it's about what they eat, some of it's addictive personality, some of it's routine and habit, but a lot of it is they feel the benefit of it, so they're self motivated from a selfish place.
Speaker 1:Like I can't go back from my quiet time experience now, like your days messed up.
Speaker 3:If you don't have it, I can't yeah.
Speaker 1:I can't. In fact it's hard. So, like, even sleeping in on a Saturday kind of messes me up. If I don't, I'll have to figure out like, okay, I need to get my Bible time in now and it's in a weird time and, sorry everybody, I'm out and so that's why, like it's almost easier, just don't sleep in, just keep the regular rhythm. But I feel like that's been a blessing for me, so much so that I'm advocating like we've talked about on Sunday. I talked about like the blessings like if you read your Bible more than four times a week, then you are not gonna struggle with porn. Okay, 61% lower odds that you're gonna struggle with porn. And this is where all my porn people are, because I know that's just a huge thing of sexual addiction at our church. If you're going to like I'm gonna go to this group meeting, that's awesome. I'm gonna go to this like in men's intensive awesome. But if you're not doing the every day, then it's like you might be spending a lot of time and a lot of money when the healing is gonna come from. One, obviously, prayer and confession, but two, just the regular rhythm of statistically proven four times a week. Your desire for sin is gonna go down when you start your day with God's word. Yep amen All right so, man, we've gone a while. We thought we had nothing to talk about.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:Oh, hey, listen, this last one, which was our salvation. That's always about sharing your testimony, something I love to do, and if you want to share your testimony, every Monday night we have an evangelism team that goes out with Robert Sass, and if you want to be a part of that, just email us infowellsbranchedchurchcom. We would love to help you out and get in connection to that, but that's how you can be reminded of your salvation and why it's so important to share your testimony. And so, for me, how I remember my salvation is I'm sharing it constantly with other people. And what's really great I'm not sure what it is, but there's been a lot of people who are Catholic or Lutheran that come to our church, probably because I don't know, god knows I have that background, and so I'm able to say, well, yeah, I was baptized as a baby too, and it wasn't until I understood that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose from the dead that I was like oh, that's what saves me, not a water being put on my head. That transaction of Jesus being on the cross for me has been powerful, and so that's why it's always on my lips, because it's fresh, and I think God's putting people in my path, and I'm praying for those opportunities to have more opportunities to share my faith with others. How about you, as far as you're remembering your salvation? Does that come to you when you share your faith, or how do you remember that?
Speaker 3:The confession time and my quiet time. Oh awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's where you're saying Jesus, you died on the cross for that and I'm so grateful to have that Well.
Speaker 3:I think forcing myself to come up with a sin, like sometimes it's a little bit tricky to like think of, okay, where and have I sinned in my head and my head. It's not fun to go back and analyze conversations where I probably did have some sin and something that I said or did, and I think forcing myself to go do that and recognize sin and say God, I confess this in a prayer time, like that. I mean, all it takes is that mental thought of intentionality and clarity of confession of sin to recognize like I'm I needed a savior and everyone that I interact with that sucks needs one too.
Speaker 1:What I love about that, I think.
Speaker 3:I'm no better than them.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things that's really unique about Adrian which is one of the reasons I love you specifically, but then I think everybody loves you is you're so free, and I think that freedom comes as you're not walking around with any guilt or shame in the back of your head Right, absolutely, and if you notice this, if you've ever had carried guilt or shame your face is downcast. You're wearing the weight of the world on your shoulders, and one of the things that Adrian just rarely ever is is like that You've gone through moments of depression and sadness, but there's been a freedom, and even sharing that, you're sad, like there was never a point where you sucked it up.
Speaker 3:Well, no, because I mean the worse I am, the better God is. So it's like, and this is true for all people, which is why I'm like. So the people that don't do well with me are the people that aren't super comfortable with their own depravity. Like if you're not real comfortable with your depravity you're not gonna like Adrian. You're not gonna really want it, cause it's too uncomfortable to rub up against somebody that is, like, very aware of their depravity and still sorry for it. I'm not gloating in my depravity, but I'm very. I'm acutely aware of my depravity and I'm acutely aware of the fact that my heart is every bit as dark as the darkest people on this planet and that I need Jesus' salvation just as much as they do. And so stick me with a girl fresh out of the strip clubs from our strip room industry that we had a year ago, and I can connect with them. It's like I feel like I resonate so deeply with them.
Speaker 1:Well, when we went to prison, you were like I can be here.
Speaker 3:Yes, in prison ministry I'm like I feel the same as all the women sitting in prison and I'm like and I often leave feeling like, oh no, I'm gonna end up here, cause I'm just like them.
Speaker 1:I always feel that Every time we got to prison you were just. She had a moment of like I'm gonna go to prison.
Speaker 3:I deserve to be here and I always leave feeling like man. My sin and my struggle just isn't illegal, and that's the only difference, and I'm just like these women. I feel that so deeply, physically almost. Yeah, I feel it. Yeah, I do feel physically and so I think that that's where that confession, that consistent confession time, I think, constantly brings me back to that place and it helps me. So then if somebody has issue with me, I'm like, yeah, well, I am that bad, yes, I am, I do sin and I do make mistakes. So my heart is that dark and I am that selfish. And then rubbing up against other people who are those same things, it helps me. I still get fired up, I still get irritated, but like it helps me have an understanding. But I think that people that kind of feel like they're not that bad. They have a hard time. I don't have a hard time always with them. They have a hard time with me and there's like a it's like it feels like tension in the air a little bit whenever I another female, that's that way, or male actually.
Speaker 1:Or you just have a really forceful personality.
Speaker 3:No, I'm really gentle. Remember me Meekness.
Speaker 1:Hey, thanks for watching. This is pastor Plex podcast. If you have any questions, just text them in at 737-231-0605. We would love to hear from you, or just go to pastorplekcom. Thanks for watching. Make sure to like, share, subscribe, put it on this, whatever platform you're watching, and we just are so grateful to hear from you. So, from our house to yours, have an awesome week of horses. Glebís, friday, april 7.
