Music
Hello and welcome to another episode of Upfront and Undivided with Luke and Dean'na.
Hi! Hey babe! How's it going? I am good, how are you? Doing well. Good.
We have a guest today. We do? I'm really excited! Yes! I'm so excited!
Heather, would you like to say hi? Hi guys.
I got too excited but I was trying to be quiet. Yes!
That's that fun little balance. Yeah.
Wait, there's an intro! I've heard the podcast, where's the music?
It's in your head. I didn't look around that much.
Ah, how was your day? Good, very good. Yeah? It's a nice Saturday.
It is a good Saturday. Yeah. The snow's melting.
Are you excited about the snow bouncing? I am so excited. I am not a snow person.
Really? No. It might be more coming in a few days.
Yeah. It should be in the 60s. It would be great.
But no, like after the 60s it will be...they're talking about it again.
Don't say it. She's rebuking you right on the spot.
Don't say it. I've got a lot of time for that to change. Weather could change.
It's true. I mean we are in the Midwest. That's what happens.
Yeah. Yeah. It changes like, you know, you change your mind.
Yeah. It's all good. Oh yeah. It's all good.
Do we know what we're talking about today? We do know what we're talking about today.
Today we're going to kind of talk about some trauma, some anxiety, some PTSD,
just kind of a special thing because I know that you and I have talked about it.
Yeah. And we know that Heather has some experience. Yeah.
So things might change, but for right now I'm going to title this episode,
Trauma is Not a Stop Sign. I don't think you need to change that.
I like it. I like it a lot. I like it. I like it a lot.
So do you want to give us some background on you real quick?
Kind of why maybe we asked you? Why you...I was born and now I'm amazing.
And no, I have a background in...I was in the Air Force for almost seven years.
I've done two deployments. One was what we would call a little traumatic.
Yeah. And I've struggled with some of that for years before getting help.
I just started getting help probably the last few years actually.
Prior to reaching out for any kind of help, I ended up attempting suicide.
Yeah. So there's also a little trauma from that.
Right. But I'm very glad to be alive. Yeah.
People go, do you feel anger? I felt angry about that for a long time,
but I'm actually quite glad that I was unsuccessful. Yeah.
So God was very successful. Yes. I love that.
I used to do law enforcement in the military. I worked in an Iraqi prison for 10 months.
It's a theater internment facility. That's nice and pleasant.
What does that mean? What?
It means that they can stay there for as long as the government needs
before they're even charged with crimes. Yep. Yep.
I don't believe my friends. I love me.
And theater because usually like a war zone or something.
It's a theater. Like the theater of war is...
Why are we making this pretty? I don't even understand that.
I mean, they've done that since what? World War I, World War II at least.
The Japanese were put in theater internment facilities here in America.
So yeah, not like the one I was in.
Wow. But yeah, usually like back in the day when you would go off to war,
you'd be like in theater, like in country, in theater. In theater.
And that's what, yeah, I don't know how that started, but yeah, it's...
Yeah, I don't know why. See, my brain goes into the whole like when you were in theater back in college
and it's like you're playing a part. Yeah, that was a different theater.
But is it? You know what I mean? It's like you're playing this role in this game and this stuff.
And I'm sorry. Maybe I'm going too deep in that.
But I... Wow. Yeah, you saw my face.
Again, these are videos that why we need videos sometimes.
It's like what? That doesn't even make sense to me.
Okay. So tell me some of the things that you've had to maybe overcome in the midst of.
In that aspect, in the deployment aspect of that particular deployment,
it was a prison. Yeah. And you could only respond with violence.
There's no... there was no way to respond any other way than to be more violent
and more mean and more aggressive and even more animalistic than the inmates, the detainees.
And they had a lot of riots. They had a lot of riots.
It was a really bad mixture of I can't really do anything, you can't really do anything,
so let's just hate each other and enjoy what we're doing while we're here.
And so there was a lot of violence. It's a prison. There's a lot of prison violence.
And it was an outdoor prison.
And that complicated things because you could see and hear things
that you could not actually stop from happening.
So like you couldn't go into the compound itself by yourself. You would be killed.
So they had a complete rule in the compound itself.
And they could do whatever they wanted to their own people.
And you just had to sit by and listen and hear it and deal with it.
So there was that.
So there's stuff there that you would have to do.
Oh yeah, and you don't know how to talk about that when you come home.
It's not combat, really. It is and isn't. I used to call it gang warfare.
Because it's two teams fighting each other.
I'm not shooting you with real live ammo, but we're still trying to kill each other.
And you go home and people are like, well, you could just talk to somebody.
And not a lot of people had heard of the place.
They didn't quite understand the mentality that comes with it.
You really entered a prison and you became a prisoner yourself.
And you lived with that.
Gotcha.
So that was fun. Life was for a long time.
Yeah. And then after you got out, you started working somewhere else with the teenagers, right?
Yes, I went right into another jail.
I worked with teenagers in a juvenile system in Arizona.
And they can be very violent as well.
But again, you're the adults, so you can generally be more violent.
And it was hard to try and find that line because I hadn't used to try and find a line in Iraq.
There was no line to be found. You just did what you could.
And so you can't do that with kids, but you have to find something.
But you're with them a lot.
And there was a point in time where I was on a teenage girls unit.
Not something I ever would have imagined as being something I enjoyed.
But I had a particular set of girls and they were there for a long time.
And we all kind of, they bonded a little bit to you.
You were the 40 hours a week.
They bonded to you a little bit.
You're their consistent.
Yes, yes.
And they slowly started getting released.
And a number of them have just disappeared off the face of the earth.
One was murdered, one overdosed.
So like that is also, it's a form of trauma in and of itself.
This is somebody that is not my kid, it's not my family, but I care about them.
Absolutely.
I'd kind of be sick not to.
I got to this job because I wanted them to have a better life.
And they're not going to have one.
And then, well, the secret in the military is the super secret that people don't like to talk about.
Is that my very first base I was actually sexually assaulted as well.
I was a cop.
I did not report it.
I couldn't.
I mean I could, but I couldn't.
Gotcha. Because I was, you know, I was underage drinking.
I was, there's all these things that was like, nope, this is going to end my career.
So what do I do?
So I buried that for at least 12 years before I even spoke to anybody about it.
And then when those things start popping up, they pop up bad.
Like they pop up wild.
And so, yeah, all this led to some trauma.
Yeah.
What are some of the ways that you dealt with the trauma?
Some unhealthy ways that I dealt with the trauma.
I mean let's get the dirt out of the way.
Let's get the dirt out of the way.
I drank an absolute lot.
I isolated myself by the end.
I keep saying that.
And by the end of my time in the military, I was isolated completely.
I just stayed home and I would drink from sunup until sundown.
On the days that I had to work, I would drink when I got home from work in order to sleep.
Because I couldn't sleep otherwise.
I'd have a shot or two to get myself back up.
Wow.
And then I considered that being sober at work where I grabbed a weapon and I drove around in a patrol car.
Wow.
Yeah.
I was very, very, very aggressive verbally, sometimes physically at the drop of a hat.
I was constantly on edge.
I went to the doctor.
They gave me some depression pills.
This is what I ended up using to overdose.
And it just, I didn't sleep for long periods of time.
And it triggered a bipolar diagnosis.
And so I ended up doing all sorts of weird things like I would shoplift.
At the time I was 30 something.
I work in a jail.
And I didn't shoplift. And I didn't even think like oranges.
Because my brain was so on fire from alcohol, lack of sleep.
I went to the gym like seven days a week for at least two hours.
I looked great.
You did not feel well.
I also didn't look great. People would tell me at work they thought I was sick.
Because I just, I didn't look my face.
I slept for 45 minutes.
And it ended up culminating, like I said, in a suicide attempt.
And a four, I almost said four month, dear god no, four and a half week stay at the local VA system.
And that at the time, as much as I hated it, saved my life.
Yeah.
So, but yeah.
Lots of alcohol, lots of aggression, lots of walling myself off and never speaking to people about things.
I like to make people laugh and it's easy to do that.
Yeah.
And cover up things.
Yeah.
So, that's some of the icky.
So, I love, because I want to talk about some of the good stuff.
That's kind of the reason why we asked you.
Because I remember I called you up on the phone, Heather.
So this is what I'm thinking.
And I feel this major pause on the other line.
Like, Dana, you've lost your mind.
I don't know what kind of Pandora box we're going to open.
But I also have seen what God has personally done in your life.
Right?
Like I remember meeting you the first time when you first came to church.
And how you looked then, the hollowness in your eyes and just, you were mad at the world.
And to hear just bits and pieces.
I mean, this is the tip of the iceberg.
I mean, you've sat and you've talked to us about things.
But to know you almost had every right to be mad, you know.
But you have some of the most beautiful writing.
And I know that that's been one of those healing factors that has kind of come to you.
So when did that start happening?
I actually started a blog before coming to church.
Before getting to know God.
It was a pretty angry blog.
Yeah.
And I started writing about my deployment as like a kind of a catharsis type thing.
I just wanted to get everything down to remember it as best I could.
Because by that point I started writing, my brain was so jumbled.
I didn't remember what really happened and didn't.
Yeah.
So I just started writing and it kind of helped clear out and make some of the way out for that.
And that's when I started to write.
Yeah.
It was very bits and pieces, nothing set.
And quite hopeless still at the time.
Yeah.
Quite hopeless.
It was when I moved up here, I was in church.
I was following God and I was working at a behavioral facility for children.
I can't get away from it.
Yeah.
And I started looking around one night and it was just like I was in this unit with kids that were four and five.
Oh gosh.
Like very young.
And it's a mental health facility.
Yeah.
And I'm like this is wrong.
Yeah.
This shouldn't be.
Yeah.
I shouldn't be seeing these things, these eyes, these kids are looking at me with these eyes that are way too old.
This is wrong.
Yeah.
And that's the first time I started writing and I was literally writing about like I see these eyes in there.
They shouldn't be.
Yeah.
I go to the teenage unit and these are kids that people have already called dead because of their drug use.
And this shouldn't be.
But I realize now that I have Jesus in me.
Yeah.
And these eyes can give life.
Yeah.
And that was where that very first one came out.
And I looked at it and I was like, what?
I wrote that.
I think I sent it to my mom and she was like, you need to share this.
Yeah.
And that was probably the first one where I really started writing.
Yeah.
About trauma and the redemption.
Yeah.
In Jesus.
That there's not one or the other.
But like you can have had both in your life.
Yeah.
And that's okay.
Like, yeah, you should.
If you're going to have trauma, I'd rather have the redemptive power of Jesus in my life.
Absolutely.
But like this one doesn't exist without the other.
Yeah.
You can have both.
Yeah.
And it's exactly what God wants for people.
Absolutely.
So I know with your writing that you're actually working on a book.
I am working on the book.
The book is the deployment.
Yeah.
That the book that started all this.
Yes.
So I am in editing and possible publishing phase here shortly.
Yeah.
I'm always afraid to say I'm going to get it done.
Yeah.
But I'm going to get it done.
Yeah.
You are.
I got to get it done.
And I really want to get it done this year.
I don't want to put a timeframe on it, but I do because there are other things I want
to work on.
Yeah.
And that's just, I feel it's an important story, but it is not who I am now.
Yeah.
So delving into it all the time is just not enjoyable.
So what would be your catalyst for the book then?
What is your end?
What do you want out of this?
Like somebody like me or somebody like any of our listeners, they pick up your book.
What is it that you want us to get out of it?
That's what we're working on.
I want people to see that's who I was.
Yeah.
There will be something afterwards as to who I am now.
It just would be too big to set in one book.
Right.
And, but if you can read and see what that looked like, the hopelessness in there, and
to realize one, that can be someone who you used to be and you don't have to be that person
anymore.
Right.
It's good for other people to know that.
It's good.
It's vital for military members to know that.
Yes.
You don't have to be the one thing that you got created into, however you want to put
that.
Yeah.
You don't have to stay there.
Right.
Because we have a lot of suicides in the military community.
I had two notifications this week in my career field.
And so it's like, I don't know them all.
These are lives worth saving.
And what's going to save them is Jesus.
That's right.
And knowing that you don't have to stay stuck in this hopeless ick of death that will pull
you into death.
Right.
And to learn how to be broken in a different way.
Learn how to be broken in a different way.
Absolutely.
You know, being broken under somebody, having the stuff broken off of you.
Maybe that's what it is.
You know?
And knowing that who God wants a person to become.
Yeah.
Regardless of what has happened in their past, if that person is willing, God will use that
for good.
Absolutely.
It is not fun to talk about ick, you know?
Right.
But if it helps someone, if it helps them to realize that that's, there's a future and
a future for you, then I'll talk about ick all day long.
Yeah.
And I know sometimes, you know, because we've experienced it with this podcast and other
things that we've done.
You know, with you finishing your book and getting it out there, you know, sometimes
the end goal, if you will, is just obedience.
You know, hey, I was told I need to write this book and put it out there.
You know, even if nobody reads it, even if nobody listens to this podcast, you were obedient.
You did what you were asked.
Yeah.
And you did it, you wrote it, you closed the book, you put it out there.
Yeah.
You know?
And I'm sure it's got a lot of healing though, too.
Yes.
And no.
Okay.
I mean, yes.
Absolutely.
I want you to be honest.
It's great to get it out.
Yeah.
But as you go through it and if you read through it, I'm not the hero of the story.
Yeah.
Like, I am the person who became something you don't ever want to become.
I wasn't good.
Yeah.
You know, not even a cool anti-hero.
I was just bad.
I mean, it's just that we had a saying that may or may not become the title.
Yeah.
But it was literally called Don't Let the Monsters Out.
And it was literally about not the people that I'm watching.
Don't let that thing make me a monster.
And it did.
Yeah.
It did.
I was, yeah, I was a monster and it was not pretty and it was not comic book friendly.
Yeah.
It wasn't cool at all.
But that's not the end of the story.
That's right.
Because I'm not supposed to be the hero of my story.
Yeah.
I'm not supposed to be the hero.
And it's okay that the actual hero came into my story and made me into a hero.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, while the gross of that is not necessarily, it is good to get out and it
isn't because I'm like, well, I don't want people to see like, I was not a very good
person.
Yeah.
But at the same time, we've all done things that we are not the good person about.
I was going to say, you're creating a place of hope.
It's almost like you're removing excuses.
You know what I mean?
Because it's like, I know a lot of times people say, you know, well, if you only knew my story,
if you only knew who I was, who, you know what I mean?
And then it's like, and you don't want to be in a spitting contest with somebody, but
you want to say, listen, I know, I know that I know that I know, I know what the redemptive
hand of God can do.
I know what it is to be completely lost in every sense of the word and then genuinely
be found by the one that loves me more than anything on the planet.
You know, I know that you had mentioned something that this is a way of also bringing some light
to some stuff because Luke had already always said like, back in the day when the soldiers
would march, they had a period of time.
Yeah, because it was, because I mean, as far as like the PTSD, and I know over the years
it's the what it's been called has changed over, you know, over time, you know, back
in the day it was shell shock.
Now it's PTSD.
And I was listening to somebody talking about, you know, what can we do about it?
You know, because again, it's it's here, it's people are dealing with it.
And it was this doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, he said, one of the downsides is nowadays,
you can have, you know, military personnel going from the battlefield back to home within
like 12 to 24 hours.
And there's there's no way to process this, you know, because some theory is PTSD and
all is what happens when we can't fully process or we don't really know what to do with these
motions and this this experience.
You know, but back in the day, you had to march home.
And sometimes that was a week, you know, or a month.
And so you had this time of, you know, this time where people had had the shared experience,
they could sit around the campfire, they could, you know, they could they could laugh, they
could, you know, have conversations and kind of get that out of their systems.
And then by the time they're home, they're home, you know, because I think sometimes
with that that speed that people come home, there's no transition.
You know, all of a sudden, it's like, OK, hand in your desert camis.
And now here's your greens in your home.
OK, you're fine.
Yeah.
You know, there's there's no transition.
There's no there's no where's that switch?
You know, where's where's the dial even?
That is actually my first deployment.
I was in Pakistan and then 60 hours later, flying wise, I was back at my home base.
Actually, I was on vacation in my home and I had no idea what to do.
Yeah.
Then in Iraq was about four days, five days.
And yeah, and you got home and you're like, everything's green.
Have these people haven't even done what I've done.
And I don't mean it in that special elite type way, but you're like, I don't know who
to talk to.
And I think that writing and sharing is cathartic for other people to hear.
Yeah.
But also for them to, how to put it, like realize that you don't have to only share
your story with people that have gone through it.
Yeah.
There's a whole plethora of people in a person's life that want to know, truly want to know.
They may not know how to say it.
They may not know the pretty way to talk about it.
Yeah, they they want to know how to connect with the person that they now have in front
of them.
And I think with this huge overlap of just, yeah, like you said, just coming home and
suddenly bang, everything's good.
And it's, it's not good.
And if people would be a little more open to sharing, they might find that there's a
lot more receptive audience amongst their family members and friends than they think.
I went for decades thinking nobody in my family knew, could understand or cared.
Well, you know what?
They didn't know because I didn't tell them.
They didn't understand because let's be fair, I went to do something so they didn't have
to.
Yeah.
But they did, they did want to know about because they did want to understand.
They do care.
And so it's this idea sometimes of I can't talk to you because we were in the military
a different time.
I've heard people say that.
I've said that.
I can't talk to those guys.
They were in Desert Storm and I was in, you know, Iraqi Freedom.
Same country.
War is war.
Well, same country-ish.
Yeah.
But it's still combat.
Yeah, it's still.
Right.
Okay.
Maybe they weren't getting huge rocks chucked at their heads.
They had bullets.
Yeah.
It's not a competition.
Trauma is trauma no matter what it is.
Right.
It was trauma to one person might not be trauma to another, but trauma itself leaves a mark.
Right.
That is identifiable in almost all people as far as you're going to, you feel ashamed
for living when other people didn't.
Yeah.
Or for surviving or however you want to put it.
And as a matter of if it's a rock or a bullet or anything else, there's still this awful
stigma.
Yeah.
And then the more we begin to at least just talk a little bit about it, it releases that
stigma that that poison comes out of the wound a little at a time.
Yeah.
Are there things that I haven't told my parents?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
But you know what, there are so much more that I have because I found out that they
did care.
They did want to know.
Yeah.
So while we can't do the overlap like years past, unfortunately, or wars past, we can't
do that overlap.
There's a way to do it here now.
Yeah.
I was going to say, and I know I've had the conversation because you brought up the whole,
well, it was a different era.
It was a different combat zone.
I know for me, some of the stuff that I deal with is I have the, but I was stateside because
a lot of what I deal with was because I was part of the team that would welcome fallen
service members home.
Yeah.
So I was carrying a lot of, you know, when we were in the situation, we're like, yep,
we're just carrying bodies.
You know, we would do our best to desensitize it.
And so it was like, when you're doing that for a year and, you know, I mean, you do this
two, sometimes three days a week, you know, and you know, I've explained to Dina that,
you know, and I'm sure you've seen it because you were over there, but when, when a service
member falls, they just take all their gear in the, in the aluminum transfer case, pack
with dry ice and put it on a plane.
And when it comes to Dover, you know, we'd be part of the team, we'd pick it up and it's
like pick up one and it feels like it's about 300 pounds.
Pick up the next one and you're sitting there wondering, is there, is there a finger?
Is this just a finger?
You know, and I thought it was going to be okay.
But I know one thing that being said, I know one thing that Dina's asked because one of
my things that I shut down because I isolate a lot.
But I know as far as I know, we talk about what we've gone through when we try to do,
but Dina's asked, she's like, what can family do?
What can friends do?
You know, especially those that, that are near to us that are like, I'm seeing something.
Yeah.
What can I say?
What, what can I, how can I reach out?
I mean, I know I've usually said, just, just talk to me.
I mean, it helps that I trust her with everything.
Um, but I mean, have, have you found anything that, or, or do you have a preferred approach?
Um, I have, long story short, when I got here, back to, back to home, um, my body just kind
of did this trauma overload and it just shut down for like months.
I couldn't drive anywhere by myself.
I couldn't go, I didn't do anything by myself.
And so I had to have somebody close by, um, which kind of cut through that whole isolationism.
Like I don't have to talk, but does, you know, somebody's going to drive Heather to Walmart
and make sure that I pick up cookies, like whatever.
Like I, and I had to have people and it was, it was embarrassing for a while.
Um, but I would have, uh, especially a good friend of mine helped me come up with like
a playlist of music that I could just put onto the car or wherever I was at and just,
I called it my foggy playlist and it had songs and it was just constantly songs either reminding
me who am I?
Yeah.
You know, God has, God has me.
I'm not gone.
Um, there were times where a family would read just, uh, Psalm 139 over me when I couldn't
sit up or do anything.
They would just come in.
They would, they would read pretty much most of Psalm 139.
Yeah.
Um, and just be close by, you know, sometimes talk to me.
Sometimes not talk to me at all, but, um, take me for a walk.
I know it sounds like, you know, like I'm a puppy on a leash.
Come Heather, let's go for a walk.
But it's kind of what happened and it was just, it underscored to me, um, the fact that
God is always there because he's putting these people in my life.
It wasn't always my mom and dad that was doing this.
It was friends too.
And, and he was putting people in my life to underscore the fact that I am going to
be with you.
Yeah.
Not because they are with you, but because I am with you.
And if for any, anything that I can come out of that entire really dark time, cause I really
thought that, Oh God, I'm going to end up in the hospital again.
I might, I might try to kill myself and I don't even know it.
Like I just was all sorts.
And I realized that through all of that, I can realize when I'm in the darkness alone,
God is there.
I can feel him.
I can feel him because he's been there this time and I know he will absolutely be there
should this ever happen again, which I hope it never does.
But and I have a family who is not going to sit quietly and friends who are not going
to sit quietly and just let me wander off.
They're going to sit with me.
They're going to be quiet with me.
Yeah.
They're going to go and they're going to intercede for me if they need to.
They're going to, they're going to be with me, whether I need them to be loud or be quiet.
Yeah.
So we did some family game nights.
We did some of that.
I did a lot of puzzling and just very simple things that can let my brain heal.
There you go.
That's a good way to put it because I was going to say, but let it come from and become
a brain again.
And I mean, I had my, one of my brothers, there was a particular person who kept trying
to not in a bad way, just ask a lot of questions.
I mean, I just could not handle it.
Sure.
I mean, at one point, one of my brothers just stepped in and said, you know what?
Now is not a good time and maybe you should come back in a few weeks.
Yeah.
Like, and it was, they sometimes just made themselves a buffer if they needed to.
Yeah.
And so that was really important to me because I was a person who lived off of, you have
to prove yourself to me.
That's not a way to live.
Yeah.
They did in and of just the way they treated me.
They proved themselves to me over and over and over again.
Yeah.
And so I hope that answered the question.
That did.
Yeah, definitely.
So what do you do, Luke?
Cause you do different things than Heather.
And again, this is one of the number one reasons why this was my idea to have the two of you
in the same room and say, these are two people that I care about deeply and I see the goodness
of God working in both of your lives and you both are doing it from different perspectives,
different ways.
You're on the side where you're seeing things, people's lives actually being snuffed out
in front of you.
You're the one that's taking them off of these planes and you know, and you're, you're both
feeling death basically.
And so it's like, what has been some of the things that you have done that has helped
healed or that like me, cause you've already said with me, but other people that are listening
that, you know, if they have a person that's in the midst and it doesn't even have to be
warfare, just something traumatic, somebody that's you nailed up, you know, a couple of
things that you personally have gone through.
I've actually gone through a couple of the similar things, just sexually, you know, trauma,
stuff like that.
And it's like, what are some things that you can say or that you have done personally that
have helped you?
I mean, it's kind of like, as a quick aside, I mean, when I first got out, I did the unhealthy,
how much can I drink?
Yeah.
That's, that never ends.
Well, so I did a lot of unhealthy coping, but it was when I, when I got to church, I
learned, I started to learn what, what healthy coping was.
Yeah.
What does that look like?
Well, I was going to say, and even, even then it was a long journey to try to figure out,
because I did, I didn't, I would have been jealous of you, Heather, because when you
came back, you had a family.
I didn't feel like I could communicate with my family.
I felt like we were too different.
So there were a lot of times where I felt like I was dealing with stuff on my own.
But it was, it was, it was a slow journey of starting to find people that I could be
around, that I could trust, you know, finding people that, that I would allow them to speak
into my life.
I think, you know, cause I tried the read this, listen to that, watch this, don't watch
that.
You know, I tried the Jim's a good outlet.
It's not because sometimes my anxiety would get the better of me and I didn't like people.
So it's like these people are in the people in the, ah, staring at me in the mirror.
Oh honey, they're staring at themselves.
But I think for me recently within the past, what's it been?
Two, three years now with me starting the woodworking and you know, similar to your,
you know, Heather, your book writing and your other writings and blogs, it's to get your
hand on something and to start to create, you know, finding, you know, it, sometimes
it is a long and hard process to find what is my outlet.
Yeah.
You know, and I think I do, I think that's the hardest part is trying to find that outlet,
trying to find where's that, where's that calm center?
Yeah.
You know, that, that even though the storm rages, where, where can I find my peace?
It's like, yes, I know that I can pray and I can, I can find that peace and the Holy
Spirit, but, but where physically can I go or be or do that, that helps hold onto that?
Yeah.
And, you know, because sometimes it does, it, it, sometimes the storm just rages that
dark.
Yeah.
And I think sometimes for me, I've had to let it, I've had to let it get dark.
Not because God can't reach there.
Right.
But it's like a grieving process.
I have to grieve.
Yeah.
And who I was at, at 19 was forever changed in one night.
Yeah.
Who I was at 22 was pulverized over and over again for 10 months.
I don't know your age was, so you don't have to throw it out there, but like who you were
at that time.
Yeah.
No, you're good.
That got changed.
Yeah.
And to say it didn't would be a lie.
And it would be demeaning the fact that you went through something and you survived.
And, and, you know, God isn't like, I've come to heal.
So you'll never remember anything ever again.
Like, I'm supposed to be nice, but I'm like a fairy.
You know, you just like flip the lamp on and I'm healed and nothing bad has ever happened
to me.
But this is naive.
I mean, Jesus didn't forget what the crucifixion felt like and looked like.
I'm sure.
Right.
Otherwise, I'd love to keep the nails in his hands.
I mean, the nail scars in his hands, not the nails.
The nail scars in his hand.
Because he remembers that stuff.
It might not cause him to stay awake at night.
Well, that's cool.
Cause he's the son of God and we're not there yet, but it's okay when it gets hard.
That's not a failure.
No.
There are times where I'm happy as a clam.
And then by the end of the day, I'm like, I can't get out of bed.
And I'm like, what happened?
I had a great day.
And then I remembered, you know, this is the day that my friend died or what it, or the
worst part is I forgot.
I forgot that this was the day that somebody died.
And then it puts a kill to one year.
And that's even worse.
But to let it go, I don't think is, is the key.
Yeah.
Cause you can't let go of your skin.
You can't let go of these things.
Like these are who, what make you who you are.
Yeah.
And it's important to acknowledge that, but not let it be the driving factor of your life.
Yeah.
Is there a day where it's going to be real bad?
Yeah.
Maybe you're still not alone.
Yeah.
You know, God is still, God is still with us.
He, you know, people are still with us, but it's okay to be like, you know, I'm going
to, you know what?
I call it today's redo day.
I'm just going to redo it tomorrow.
Like I just, it's not today.
It's not the day.
Yeah.
And I think those will get less and less of time.
For me, they've gotten less and less of time because I've acknowledged them.
I love that.
Instead of trying to power through and be turned into a word.
I just won't say, you know, like I haven't tried to do that as much anymore and I've
allowed myself, I need this day for whatever, or I need a moment.
Yeah.
It's not a day.
Maybe it's 10 minutes.
We're big advocates on everything that's in the dark.
Bring put a spotlight on it, bring it to the light.
And it usually loses at least part of the power that it had on you because those things
that live in the dark live in secret and then they can torment you however they want to.
But when you pull it out into the light, especially the light of God, you start, the power diminishes.
It starts to diminish.
So it can't group you.
It's like, yeah, it's like if you have an infection in a cut, the only way to get that
out is to open the cut up, which doesn't feel great.
Yeah.
Push all the ick out.
So it's terrible.
Yeah.
It's like you're dying at the time.
Right.
It's a paper cut.
Right.
But otherwise it will not heal.
Right.
And actually the infection will just grow.
Right.
And so it like you said, it's got to be exposed.
It has to be seen.
Yeah.
And for me, a lot of it was I had to let myself grieve over stuff I would not do years ago.
Yeah.
Was just to grieve.
I had two friends killed within six days.
Not where I was at.
Wow.
But but they were friends of mine.
Um, I didn't get to grieve.
I had to go to work.
We were deployed.
I had a job to do.
I had to go play with the inmates.
Like I didn't get to grieve with that at all.
And I never did because by the time I got home, I thought why cry?
I mean, they're dead.
Yeah.
And then I come and come back like my tears aren't magical.
So I didn't for I think 12 or 13 years.
I couldn't cry at all.
Wow.
And it's actually still a work in progress.
Most of the time people get teared up, I'm like, oh, but but I can a little bit.
But um, it's just like when that moment hits me, I'm like, you know, I just need to sit
and grieve for a second.
Yeah.
Or or or or sit and be happy for a second.
Yeah.
Even when I don't know that's what I'm feeling.
I'm like, why am I crying?
I'm so happy right now.
And then I've done it before.
I'm like, I don't understand.
My tears are coming out.
I gotta get these out of you.
You need to get them out.
Yeah.
It's again, I gotta get them out.
I gotta get them out and it's again, I got exposed it.
Yeah.
I had a lesson at the time.
Yeah.
But that doesn't mean it's just gone.
Right.
It's just lessened.
Right.
It's going away.
And I think it also helps.
I know with me, past yells past.
I don't want to put any words in anybody's mouth, but just those moments where you know
that these are life changing pinnacle times in your life, good or bad.
And then you have God come along and then it's that scripture where it says, you know,
I turn all things for my good.
I turn all things for my good because Heather, your testimony is going to be somebody else's
prophecy.
Luke, your testimony is good.
You know what I mean?
It's somebody's life is going to be rescued or changed or healed, or there's going to
be a catalyst that's going to say, I can breathe another day.
Okay.
All right.
There's going to be a reason to want to be here another day.
And I think that that's it's crucial.
Y'all stories are crucial.
So I appreciate you coming my friend.
Thanks for having me on here.
I do.
I appreciate it.
Did you want to do you have anything that you want to leave everybody with?
Because you girl, you got some stuff.
I'm serious.
I for our listeners, you Heather, you're one of our favorite people.
Our little boy.
After his bud, he thought you were coming here for him today.
It was so cute.
And I appreciate that.
Just like we can't always decide what's going to be traumatic in our life.
Yeah.
Because I would love to say that that wasn't traumatic, but it was, you know, we have the
power through God to change the trauma and to turn it into a resiliency that you can
then use.
If what we've done is able to reach out and grab somebody else, is it not worthwhile?
I mean, I wouldn't go back and do it over again.
But like, is it not worthwhile?
Like I have left some things behind me.
Luke, you've left some things behind.
You've left some things behind you.
And I'm doing that because I plan on taking some captives with me right out of hell.
You can keep that stuff.
Yes.
And it maybe affects me a little bit, but it's not going to change my life.
I'm grabbing some captives.
Absolutely.
Because at the end of the day, I'm still a warrior.
That's right.
That is who God made me be.
Yes, ma'am.
That's the kind of person I am.
I'll fight with love.
It's a learning concept for me.
But I want to learn how to do that because I want to be effective for Jesus.
I don't want to be stuck here.
I'll use this to move me forward.
I love that.
Anything else, babe?
I mean, I think just what I would leave people with is, you know, again, whether people are
dealing with it or you know somebody that's dealing with it, it's never too dark to start
over.
I know we love the saying, eternity starts now.
That's right.
His mercies are new every morning.
I know I've been in the bottom of that barrel where everything is hopeless and you cannot
see a way out.
But my biggest message is there's always hope.
You can always start again.
Yeah.
It starts now.
Yep.
The scripture that I want to leave everybody with is I don't have it in front of me.
So I'm going to get my Reader's Digest version.
And you kept saying it.
Neither death nor life nor principality nor power.
There is nothing angel or demon.
There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.
So no matter what you have done, no matter how far gone you think you are, he is right
there ready to reach out and rescue you.
Heather, we love you big.
Appreciate you my friend.
Have the best day guys.
Enjoy the journey.