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Welcome to the God's Goodness podcast, where our mission is to encourage and highlight God's

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Goodness and modern-day miracles.

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We are your hosts, Josh and Shelley Hankins.

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Today we have a special guest with us.

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His name is Ben Akers.

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And Ben and I met through the buckles.

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And if you haven't listened to the buckles episode, it was our first episode of season

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two.

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We highly encourage to listen to that and what a story they have.

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But Ben leads worship when they have miracle services.

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And he's going to tell you a little bit about that.

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And it's going to be really good.

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You'll hear how God's worked in his life.

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And hopefully it can inspire somebody.

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And we'll have him start us off with an opening prayer.

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All right.

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Dear Father God, Lord, we are just so blessed and honored to be here today in the midst of

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you, Lord.

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You say we're two or more gathered, God.

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So we got three.

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So, God, we're just, we are so, so, we stand in awe, God, as we are gathered here today,

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God.

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And we just lift up your name, Lord, through our testimonies and our stories, God, because

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they're all true, God.

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And they're all about you and your goodness and how you've dragged us out of Pids, God.

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So, Lord, we thank you.

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I thank you for Shelley and her husband, God, to be here to see fit to bring me in, Lord,

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and to have this time with me, God, and to have this time with you, more importantly

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and most importantly, to have this time with you, Lord.

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So we thank you.

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We love you.

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We lift you up, Lord, in Jesus' name.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Thank you.

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Amen.

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So where would you like to start?

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Well, let's start with the buckles.

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Okay.

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Because, you know, they definitely, that's how we connected.

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They are just a power couple for God.

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And I honestly don't, here's the crazy thing, like God remembers, right?

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But sometimes we don't remember exactly how relationships form, but it doesn't matter

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how we met.

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You know, it just matters that we connected.

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But I remember being with them the first time at this like school in Houston, PA, and it

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was off Cherry Street, I think it was.

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And it was in the basement.

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That's where they kind of, that's, I don't know if that's where they started out, but

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that's where, that's where my journey with them began.

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And they had me lead worship there for the first time.

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And it was, I mean, I felt the spirit of God.

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I mean, I got goosebumps right now.

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So I just felt the spirit of God just all over that place.

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And then when, you know, Pastor Delice, when she came up and started speaking, it was like

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everything just fell so hard.

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The Holy spirit fell so hard and Justin came up and gave, you know, his testimony and his

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message and everything of hope and restoration and, you know, what God can do.

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And just his testimony is ridiculous.

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You didn't see that coming.

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No way.

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Like my jaw hit the floor the whole time.

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I'm sitting there listening to him and I'm like, whoa, no way.

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That's where I met them.

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And there's such a joy to be able to call there.

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They're like family to me, you know, and to my wife.

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And so, but yeah, God is good.

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God is good.

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And I'm so, I'm so glad that we made that good that God made that connection with our

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family and their family.

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So every time I get the opportunity to minister alongside of them, it's, oh man, I jump for

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joy.

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Yeah, we really like them too.

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Yeah.

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And you know what, too, I've noticed too, like I could be having a really bad week, like

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the enemies just all over it for some reason.

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And so then I get a call from him and he's like, Hey, I got a miracle service when we

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worship.

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I'm like, yeah, let's go, man.

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I needed this.

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You have no idea how my week just went.

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So no lie.

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The last time I was with them was in Pittsburgh at a church, Grandview church, and they had

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me, you know, kind of leading worship alongside of their another worship team, which was amazing,

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by the way.

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And so I had that was on a Sunday, I believe, or it was a weekend.

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And then on Monday, I hit a deer doing 70 miles an hour, or tour the entire front end of the

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Nissan up.

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It was a Nissan Altima was driving.

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I hit the deer going 70 miles an hour because I was on the interstate and the legal speed

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limit was 70 and I was doing 70.

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And the deer just came out of nowhere, jumped out of just jumped out of nowhere.

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And I smacked, I hit that thing going 70 miles an hour.

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And it was really bad air.

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But the airbags deployed.

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Sure.

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Yeah, I mean, when police showed up, they thought somebody had died.

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And just for us to walk away from that, somebody had.

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Right.

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But I'm telling you, that deer didn't walk away.

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You know, the deer didn't walk away.

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In fact, the third, my wife, she was in the, you know, she was with me too.

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She wasn't hurt.

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Thank God.

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But the cops praise God.

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Yes.

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And the cop, the third cop, there was three cops that responded.

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And the third one was looked at my wife and he's like, I'm going to go make sure that

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the deer's dead.

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And it walked away.

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But anyways, that's another testament to how good God is.

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He protects us.

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He's our Jehovah Jireh provider.

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And he was with me that day.

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He's with me every day.

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But that's the thing about God.

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You know, he's sometimes we think that he's not there, but he's always there.

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He's always there.

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Some days it's more evident than others.

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Yes.

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Yes, absolutely.

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So that actually was recent.

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That was like two weeks ago.

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Wow.

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That happened two or three weeks ago.

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And so the goodness of God has been all over it.

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And so, but anyways, yeah, Justin and Daly's power couple, I love anytime I get to be with

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them and minister alongside of them.

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Awesome, awesome children of God.

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So.

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I love when they preach together and she follows in Spanish.

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Yes, that's amazing.

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You can almost feel the spirit around being torn open literally as they preach together

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in that it's such an effective way.

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I just, it's, you know, it's just amazing.

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Yes, absolutely.

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It's beautiful.

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Yeah.

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It's a wonderful thing.

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And so, and you don't see that very often in the world.

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So when you do come across a power couple like that, it's like, man, you just, you want

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to be where they're at.

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Because you know that where they're at, the spirit of the Lord is.

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Yeah, she's just as powerful and moving as he is on a spaniel.

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It's perfect.

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I don't know what she's saying, but I know it's God.

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Yes.

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I'm just following along.

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I know a little bit of Spanish and so I'm like, yep, yep, yep.

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I think those are all holy words.

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I'm loving it.

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Yeah.

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You know, the funny thing is, you know, I'm, my heritage is I'm Cuban.

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So you would think being Cuban that I'm not full Cuban, but I have enough, I have enough.

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And so you would think being like Latino being Cuban that I would know a little bit of Spanish,

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but I do not know a lick of Spanish.

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I know one word and I think it's like, oh, yeah, that's it, man.

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But also I can say, you know, I can do a citation in Korean or South Korean to, you know, come

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sabida.

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That just means, you know, hello or whatever.

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Right.

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Don't, don't quote me on that.

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Oh, that's what I know who told you that.

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Well, as a buddy of mine years ago, I worked for a company and as a driver and he was my

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helper, we drove, I drove a 26 foot box truck for this company and I don't know if I can

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say the name because of, you know, but it was out of Wintersville, Ohio and they paired

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me up with him and he was in the army and he went to South Korea for a little bit and

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he said he picked up some of the language and stuff there.

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So, yeah.

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I would definitely not trust that from someone in the army.

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Right.

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Probably does not mean what you think it means.

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No, no, no, no, I would translate on that right away.

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Yeah, I did.

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That's like a, it's just like a salutations, like just a common greeting.

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We were speaking before I was in the service and I, you know, that can go a lot of bad

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ways.

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It can.

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So, absolutely.

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You can edit that out if you want.

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No, no, it's fine.

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It's fine.

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It's perfect.

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I'm not just messing with it.

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I don't do anything.

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It's fine.

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Right.

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All right.

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What's your journey taking from there?

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So I was signed by a Christian record label for five years and during the time that we

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had met, our paths had crossed me and Justin and Delise in my wife, I was signed with the

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label and, you know, things were, that's kind of, I'm glad you asked that because that's

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kind of where I was going next.

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But so being with the label, there was ups and downs, but a major part of it was temptation.

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And so when I say that, so my wife, let me start with my wife.

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I should start my wife because she is the pinnacle.

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She's the pillar of me and, you know, so we'll start there.

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So I met my wife.

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I met my wife in 2009 on MySpace back in MySpace days.

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Yeah.

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Forever ago.

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It was gracious.

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And it was great, you know.

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And so we dated from 2009 until 2013 and then I started to marry me and we got married and,

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you know, we weren't ready for kids, you know, but oops.

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No, I'm just kidding.

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She's definitely not an oops.

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Bailey is my world.

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My wife is my world.

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My daughter's Bailey and my wife's name's Donna, but Bailey is my world.

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Donna's my world.

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But unfortunately, when you're signed by a label or you have any kind of like status

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or any kind of, you know, hey, you know, I'm this or I'm that, it's like, you know, sometimes

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God allows that to kind of take root just to kind of temperature check, gauge where

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you're at.

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And I let it go to my head for a while and my phone, and I'm saying that with humility.

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Not like that now.

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And I had to repent, but we all have a saw, right?

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The saw before Paul.

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And so my saw was that, you know, I got signed by the label, got discovered by LBM Records

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in August of 2018.

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And from August of 2018 to August of 2023, that was my time with the label.

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But before we get to God's glory part about it, how he turned me into Paul, we'll talk

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a little bit about where I would work, you know, what happened before, so give us some

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context.

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But so I was with the label for five years in the beginning.

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It was great.

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I had a couple albums.

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I have three studio albums.

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They, you know, they made it to Walmart.

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My, you know, some of my music made it to K-LOVE.

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So some pretty cool things.

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I've shared stages with, you know, names like Ann Wilson, Seven Time Down, what, Seven

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Day Slumber, Phil Wickham, some pretty big names.

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And so I'm not discrediting that by any means.

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And I'm not complaining because God did move on my time with the label.

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But there was a dark side to that.

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And so a lot of times, you know, our Facebook page, I had like 30,000 followers at one point.

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And so if you elevate yourself, you're taking God out of the equation.

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But the crazy thing is, is that when you do elevate yourself, you're not thinking about

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God.

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You're not thinking about his purpose for your life.

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You're not, you're thinking about you.

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Your focus becomes you.

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And that's a very dangerous place to be in.

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And unfortunately that was the place I was in.

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So that was where I was at.

248
00:10:50,440 --> 00:10:54,480
And I was ignoring my wife, doing, you know, stupid things.

249
00:10:54,480 --> 00:10:59,800
And so, and saying stupid things and just forgetting where I came from and forgetting

250
00:10:59,800 --> 00:11:01,400
where it all came from.

251
00:11:01,400 --> 00:11:06,040
And so I began to fall deeper into this like, you know, temptation.

252
00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:11,200
And these women would message me on Facebook and just really stupid stuff.

253
00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:14,280
And not even local, just women from like the Philippines and stuff.

254
00:11:14,280 --> 00:11:18,120
And they would be like, hey, honey, you know, why don't you come over here?

255
00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:19,280
I'll take better care of you.

256
00:11:19,280 --> 00:11:21,400
Just stupid stuff.

257
00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:25,480
And so you have to look at that from my wife's point of view.

258
00:11:25,480 --> 00:11:26,480
Absolutely.

259
00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:32,600
And it angered her and it got it, I got underneath of her, which rightfully so.

260
00:11:32,600 --> 00:11:37,480
But instead of me seeing that for what it was, it was like, I allowed myself to like

261
00:11:37,480 --> 00:11:41,080
become enthralled into that, you know, and it was horrible.

262
00:11:41,080 --> 00:11:44,320
It was, I believe that it was a demonic possession.

263
00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:49,080
Or if it wasn't demonic, I believe that I was wrapped up in myself.

264
00:11:49,080 --> 00:11:54,360
And so this went on for a couple of years and my wife would always tell me like, why

265
00:11:54,360 --> 00:11:55,360
are you doing that?

266
00:11:55,360 --> 00:11:56,360
Why are you giving me this?

267
00:11:56,360 --> 00:11:57,360
Why are you just block up?

268
00:11:57,360 --> 00:12:00,120
And she was right by saying that.

269
00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:01,120
Absolutely.

270
00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:05,760
But at the time being, you know, me and just my focus was all about me.

271
00:12:05,760 --> 00:12:07,040
It was like, oh, it's in your head.

272
00:12:07,040 --> 00:12:09,360
You're just, you know, you're just jealous or you're just this or that.

273
00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:12,400
And so it became a choke, a choke point.

274
00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:20,520
And so a long story short, everything came to a head in June of 2023.

275
00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:26,880
And so, you know, she basically told me, she was like, you know, you got to make a change,

276
00:12:26,880 --> 00:12:29,600
you know, because some things were said and some things happened.

277
00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:34,080
And she said, you know, you need to, you really need to think about where you want to go and

278
00:12:34,080 --> 00:12:39,720
what you want to do because, you know, and she was totally right.

279
00:12:39,720 --> 00:12:41,080
She was totally right.

280
00:12:41,080 --> 00:12:46,640
And so for the first time, I kind of snapped out of that, I cried out to God and I realized

281
00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:50,240
like, oh my God, you know, what am I doing?

282
00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:51,920
Why am I doing this?

283
00:12:51,920 --> 00:12:58,760
And so God told me through my wife, you know, it was not, and please, when I say this, this

284
00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:00,160
was not my wife.

285
00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:01,160
This was God.

286
00:13:01,160 --> 00:13:08,240
And he was speaking to me and he said, listen, if you love me and you, you know, you actually

287
00:13:08,240 --> 00:13:12,120
are serious about the calling that I had placed on your life, because he did, he put a calling

288
00:13:12,120 --> 00:13:14,040
on my life for worship.

289
00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:20,720
He said, don't forget the things that I pulled you from back in 2007, 15, 20 years ago.

290
00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:26,760
Don't do not forget that because, you know, I did it then, I can do it again, but it's

291
00:13:26,760 --> 00:13:28,080
going to take a humble spirit.

292
00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:32,200
It's going to take a spirit of repentance and not just the kind of repentance where,

293
00:13:32,200 --> 00:13:36,440
you know, because some people say, oh, I'm sorry, God, I repent and then they do it again

294
00:13:36,440 --> 00:13:38,560
a week later or two weeks later.

295
00:13:38,560 --> 00:13:40,820
That's not the kind of repentance that God was wanting.

296
00:13:40,820 --> 00:13:48,240
God was wanting requiring of me a total repentance, a total walking away, doing a 180 and never,

297
00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:49,800
ever going back.

298
00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:51,560
And that's exactly what I did.

299
00:13:51,560 --> 00:13:57,760
And so it's almost two years later and God has been doing some amazing, amazing things

300
00:13:57,760 --> 00:14:02,680
because of my obedience, my sacrifice, my repentance and my wife, you know, great is

301
00:14:02,680 --> 00:14:06,480
her reward for putting up with me and sticking with me through that.

302
00:14:06,480 --> 00:14:12,080
You know, any other woman would have been gone, would have been gone and by all rights,

303
00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:15,720
you know, but the right woman God had for you stayed.

304
00:14:15,720 --> 00:14:16,720
Correct.

305
00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:17,720
Correct.

306
00:14:17,720 --> 00:14:23,840
And, you know, looking back on it, I try not to, you know, I try not to live in the past

307
00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:28,960
because it's like all I think about when I think about the past is my shame, my guilt,

308
00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:33,280
you know, just what a rotten person I was because I was getting on stages, you know,

309
00:14:33,280 --> 00:14:37,040
a different, I was in a different church every weekend and getting booked by all these different

310
00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:38,040
churches.

311
00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:42,120
My name was going high, high, high, but God, where was God?

312
00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:44,440
I was neglecting my wife.

313
00:14:44,440 --> 00:14:45,440
What is that?

314
00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:46,440
You know, singing glory to God.

315
00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:47,440
Singing glory to God.

316
00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:48,440
Yeah, exactly.

317
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:53,960
So, you know, yes, God did give me a calling, but I just wasn't in the right place and I

318
00:14:53,960 --> 00:14:56,360
can admit that with humility.

319
00:14:56,360 --> 00:15:00,160
And so when I, when I think about that, I think, man, I don't like it.

320
00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:04,400
I don't like, I get sick because I'm sick of the sin.

321
00:15:04,400 --> 00:15:10,800
And so that really is a testament of what God can do with a humble spirit with a repentant,

322
00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:13,040
a truly repentant spirit.

323
00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:20,560
And so, yeah, it just, it blows my mind every time I think about it, but my wife, you know,

324
00:15:20,560 --> 00:15:22,160
the healing has started.

325
00:15:22,160 --> 00:15:23,400
So praise God for that.

326
00:15:23,400 --> 00:15:29,480
I still give, I still, you know, get booked and play different places and stuff, but I

327
00:15:29,480 --> 00:15:31,680
will never sign with another label.

328
00:15:31,680 --> 00:15:35,840
I just won't because I know what it, what it can do.

329
00:15:35,840 --> 00:15:39,840
And I'm not saying at all that LBM Records was a bad label.

330
00:15:39,840 --> 00:15:42,200
In fact, they were not, they were not a bad label.

331
00:15:42,200 --> 00:15:43,200
Just the industry.

332
00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:44,920
Well, the industry, yeah.

333
00:15:44,920 --> 00:15:47,320
All you have to go into it their way.

334
00:15:47,320 --> 00:15:52,800
Or the way that you handled it, well, wasn't, wasn't a very biblically Christian way to

335
00:15:52,800 --> 00:15:53,800
handle it.

336
00:15:53,800 --> 00:15:56,480
So it's not on anybody, but the responsibility on you.

337
00:15:56,480 --> 00:15:57,480
It was on me.

338
00:15:57,480 --> 00:15:58,480
Correct.

339
00:15:58,480 --> 00:16:01,440
And that's what a lot of people do when they're in their sin.

340
00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:03,800
They find ways to put the blame on somebody else.

341
00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:08,000
They say, well, I wouldn't have done that if like, if you go to any prison and just to

342
00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:11,320
take a poll of the inmates, they'd all say the same thing.

343
00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:13,840
Well, I wouldn't be in here doing a sentence if it wasn't for someone.

344
00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:17,000
So they got in my face and then I blasted him.

345
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:22,280
No, you're in here because you made a decision and, you know, so.

346
00:16:22,280 --> 00:16:24,120
But that's where I was different.

347
00:16:24,120 --> 00:16:26,320
I was willing to own my mistake.

348
00:16:26,320 --> 00:16:31,280
I was willing to say, okay, you know what, you messed up and, and, but God's goodness,

349
00:16:31,280 --> 00:16:34,160
God's grace is always there, always there.

350
00:16:34,160 --> 00:16:39,560
If you're serious and you want to change your life, you know, give, give it to God, repent

351
00:16:39,560 --> 00:16:42,640
and truly repent and never, never do it again.

352
00:16:42,640 --> 00:16:45,280
And God will honor that in the, in the craziest way.

353
00:16:45,280 --> 00:16:47,280
And that's what he's been doing in my life.

354
00:16:47,280 --> 00:16:51,320
So, but, you know, I can't put the blame on anybody else.

355
00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:52,600
I can't put it on my wife.

356
00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:54,040
I can't put it on the label.

357
00:16:54,040 --> 00:16:58,800
I can't put it on any of the churches or the, or the leadership at the churches.

358
00:16:58,800 --> 00:17:00,200
I have to put the blame on.

359
00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:06,480
That's the first, that's the first step on the road to healing is owning your mistake.

360
00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:07,480
Absolutely.

361
00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:10,160
You know, saying, okay, yeah, I messed up.

362
00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:11,160
It would, you know.

363
00:17:11,160 --> 00:17:12,600
How can you accept forgiveness?

364
00:17:12,600 --> 00:17:15,960
How can you accept forgiveness if you won't admit you did something wrong?

365
00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:16,960
Yeah.

366
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:17,960
Right.

367
00:17:17,960 --> 00:17:21,080
How can you give Jesus, how can you get Jesus's forgiving grace if you're like, I

368
00:17:21,080 --> 00:17:22,080
didn't do anything.

369
00:17:22,080 --> 00:17:23,080
Yeah.

370
00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:24,080
Well, there's nothing to forgive Jesus.

371
00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:25,080
We're good.

372
00:17:25,080 --> 00:17:26,080
Right.

373
00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:27,080
That's foolish.

374
00:17:27,080 --> 00:17:28,080
That's so foolish.

375
00:17:28,080 --> 00:17:29,080
That's really foolish.

376
00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:31,280
And so, but that's the place I was at for a long time.

377
00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:32,520
Oh, we all, we all do it.

378
00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:33,520
Oh my goodness.

379
00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:34,520
Do we all do it?

380
00:17:34,520 --> 00:17:35,520
It's like a toddler.

381
00:17:35,520 --> 00:17:40,320
You know, it's like, you know, what's when a mother, you know, tries to discipline

382
00:17:40,320 --> 00:17:42,560
a toddler, first thing is, I didn't do that.

383
00:17:42,560 --> 00:17:44,560
It wasn't me.

384
00:17:44,560 --> 00:17:45,560
It wasn't me.

385
00:17:45,560 --> 00:17:46,560
Dog.

386
00:17:46,560 --> 00:17:47,560
Yeah.

387
00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:52,120
I'm thankful that my wife decided to stay with me and see me through it because she saw

388
00:17:52,120 --> 00:17:55,760
the good in me evidently enough to stay.

389
00:17:55,760 --> 00:18:00,680
And so every day I'm proving her right that, you know, I am changing and I have changed

390
00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:04,360
and that, you know, I'm not going back to that way.

391
00:18:04,360 --> 00:18:09,720
You know, and so just honoring her in that sense, just honoring my wife is the only thing

392
00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:12,320
I want to do at this point for the rest of my life.

393
00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:16,080
And yes, I know that, you know, the Lord has put a calling on my life.

394
00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:20,360
I know he's put, you know, the call to worship on my life and that's fine.

395
00:18:20,360 --> 00:18:21,360
I can use that.

396
00:18:21,360 --> 00:18:24,320
But now I can use that knowing that, you know, hey, things are different.

397
00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:25,320
I'm a new creation.

398
00:18:25,320 --> 00:18:26,320
I'm born again.

399
00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:32,800
So question, when you discovered that you had an amazing ability to sing, did you sing

400
00:18:32,800 --> 00:18:34,640
like after you had found Jesus?

401
00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:38,720
So all your songs were worship centered or did you start singing before you met Jesus

402
00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:44,040
and you had a bunch of other, you know, worldly kind of songs that you would have felt out?

403
00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:45,760
No, that's the crazy thing.

404
00:18:45,760 --> 00:18:48,160
So I never really sang any like worldly songs.

405
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:53,240
I really didn't start singing until I met, well, you know how you say you met the Lord,

406
00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:58,640
you know, but we all, we all meet the Lord in our, in our life at various parts, points

407
00:18:58,640 --> 00:19:01,560
of our life, but, you know, we fall away too.

408
00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:06,040
So I'll say that that kind of goes back to my testimony.

409
00:19:06,040 --> 00:19:11,600
And so before, like I said, I never really got involved with any worldly music or singing.

410
00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:15,480
I mean, I would listen to worldly music, but I would never sing it or never try to like

411
00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:17,200
do covers of it or anything.

412
00:19:17,200 --> 00:19:21,880
I might like jam out to some green day every now and then, you know, before, but now it's

413
00:19:21,880 --> 00:19:25,560
like, you know, I don't surround myself with that music anymore.

414
00:19:25,560 --> 00:19:31,040
But back then it does tie into my testimony because back in, so I was adopted, my mother

415
00:19:31,040 --> 00:19:33,480
and father, you know, my dad was in the Navy.

416
00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:35,080
My mother was had cancer.

417
00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:39,400
She couldn't have kids because she had to have, she had to have a full hysterectomy.

418
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:45,720
But my biological mother, she, you know, I have two sisters, but she, she, I'm the middle

419
00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:46,720
child.

420
00:19:46,720 --> 00:19:48,880
So when she was pregnant with me, she knew that she couldn't take care of me because

421
00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:52,040
she, I guess she was mainly retarded is what I was told.

422
00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:54,560
Cause when she was born, she was delivered with forceps or something.

423
00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:56,080
I don't know.

424
00:19:56,080 --> 00:20:00,840
But she just, she already had my sister, Stephanie, so she couldn't, you know, she knew, and

425
00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:03,120
she was having a hard time taking care of her.

426
00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:06,240
So she just knew right off the bat, she couldn't take care of me.

427
00:20:06,240 --> 00:20:11,600
So she gave me up for adoption and growing up, I always struggle with that because I

428
00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:13,600
always had like a sense of survivor's guilt.

429
00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:16,840
Like, why did you take me out of the equation?

430
00:20:16,840 --> 00:20:24,200
Cause it's, this is kind of like an Oprah story almost after 30, after like 33 years

431
00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:27,760
of growing up and like knowing about each other, we finally met.

432
00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:32,440
I finally met my two sisters after like 33 years, but we'll go, we'll get into that

433
00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:33,440
later.

434
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:39,400
You know, so growing up when I was about seven, my adoptive mother, you know, she told me

435
00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:44,840
right off the rip, as soon as I was old enough to know or old enough to understand, she told

436
00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:49,320
me, she said, you know, Hey, you're adopted, you know, and you have two sisters.

437
00:20:49,320 --> 00:20:53,400
And so I always know, I've always known about my two sisters.

438
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:57,080
I just never met them until later in life.

439
00:20:57,080 --> 00:20:59,640
So I got goosebumps.

440
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:05,760
So in, well, I think I was 33, 35, 38 now, but I mean, this was like maybe five or six

441
00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:06,880
years ago.

442
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:15,960
I met my, I had found my, my biological sister who we have the same mom and dad, but my others,

443
00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:19,800
my second sister, the other sister, she, her name's Stacy and we have different dads,

444
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:21,920
but Stephanie, but I still consider her my sister.

445
00:21:21,920 --> 00:21:22,920
Cause she is absolutely.

446
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:23,920
She's my sister.

447
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:24,920
Yeah.

448
00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:28,400
I don't look at her any different than Stephanie, but Stephanie is my, my other sister and

449
00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:29,720
she was born first.

450
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:32,600
So Stephanie was born, then I was born and then Stacy was born.

451
00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:38,680
That's kind of the order chronologically, but Stephanie was born and I was separated from

452
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:41,040
Stephanie as soon as I was born.

453
00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:46,040
And so growing up, I knew about my sisters, but I didn't get the chance to meet them until

454
00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:47,240
later in life.

455
00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:51,640
So when I did get the chance to meet Stephanie, she told, I said, you know, how was that?

456
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:53,480
Cause, you know, how do you catch up?

457
00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:57,280
You know, cause it was just a couple of days until lead Ohio, cause her partner that she

458
00:21:57,280 --> 00:22:00,960
was with, she had, I guess family in Toledo.

459
00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:02,760
And so she was like, well, let's just meet in Columbus.

460
00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:04,000
How far from Columbus are you?

461
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,040
And I said, like three hours.

462
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:09,960
So we met in Columbus one day, a couple of years ago in person for the first time after

463
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,120
like 33 years.

464
00:22:12,120 --> 00:22:14,960
And it was crazy.

465
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:19,120
So I, you know, I said, you know, how do we catch up in just a couple of hours for 33

466
00:22:19,120 --> 00:22:27,120
years worth of, you know, but I, one of the questions I asked her was how was your childhood?

467
00:22:27,120 --> 00:22:30,200
And she was going to tell me, she said, you know, it wasn't good.

468
00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:33,880
There was a period in time where she lived out of the back of a pickup truck in Waco,

469
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:36,280
Texas for a couple of years.

470
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:42,040
But I will tell you this, Stephanie's trials and Stacy's Stephanie and Stacy's trials

471
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:47,240
growing up as kids, being homeless in the back of a pickup truck, they molded that molded

472
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:50,040
her into the, into who they are today.

473
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:51,040
For sure.

474
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:54,720
And so when I heard that, I became angry at God.

475
00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:57,920
Because I was like, God, why did you allow that to happen?

476
00:22:57,920 --> 00:22:59,400
Why did, why did you pluck me?

477
00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:01,640
Why did you take me out of that environment?

478
00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:04,600
I'm the man of the, you know, those are my two sisters.

479
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:07,160
You could have, well, why me?

480
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:13,680
That's, so I began to have this like negative feeling towards God of like, you know, almost

481
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:14,680
like survivors guilt.

482
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:17,640
Like you took me out of the situation that I should have been in.

483
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:23,240
I should have been there suffering with them as the brother, you know, the only brother.

484
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:24,240
Why wasn't I there?

485
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:26,640
And I dealt with that for the longest time.

486
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:32,000
I mean, still even at this day a little bit, but then God began to tell me, you know, I

487
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:33,200
had different plans for you.

488
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,720
It doesn't mean that I don't love them.

489
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:37,320
God loves us all, right?

490
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:39,280
John 3 16.

491
00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:43,320
But it just means God had different, he had something different from me.

492
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:45,160
It reminds me of the story of Joseph.

493
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:46,160
Yeah.

494
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:47,160
Right.

495
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:48,160
Absolutely.

496
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:53,080
And so he's, he's separated from his family, different circumstances.

497
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:58,200
And his family goes through hardships without him, including a famine, you know, and maybe

498
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:02,200
your story is not done and there's something going to happen that's going to put you in

499
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:05,640
a position where you're able to help certain people that you couldn't help before.

500
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:06,640
I love that.

501
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:07,640
Yeah.

502
00:24:07,640 --> 00:24:09,120
And it was going to come full circle.

503
00:24:09,120 --> 00:24:14,160
And that's the reason why they suffered and you didn't because you needed to be a place

504
00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:15,960
of refuge for them later.

505
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:16,960
Wow.

506
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:18,000
I never thought of that.

507
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:19,000
That's crazy.

508
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:20,000
Two on that.

509
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:21,000
Two on that.

510
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:22,000
Yeah.

511
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:29,800
So they, they had a very rough childhood emotionally, physically, spiritually and every single way,

512
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:31,480
but it made them stronger.

513
00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:32,880
It made them very strong.

514
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:37,720
Like Stephanie, you know, she's very entrepreneur minded business, you know, just like myself

515
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:47,280
and she's very, I mean, amazing, amazing life right now and just live in life and not struggling.

516
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:49,720
And so, I mean, we all struggle, but you know what I mean?

517
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:54,040
The, the experiences that she went through as a kid, you know, molded her into this hard

518
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:55,560
working individual that she is today.

519
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:56,560
And I'm so proud of her.

520
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:57,560
Did she follow Christ now?

521
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:00,240
No, but that doesn't mean I don't love her.

522
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:01,240
You know, I don't know.

523
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:02,240
Absolutely not.

524
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:03,680
I'm not saying, she's not a Satanist or anything.

525
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:04,920
She's a wonderful person.

526
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:08,720
I respect her and I look up to her in the most, you know, sincere way.

527
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:10,760
And I can say that about Stacy too.

528
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:12,680
I'm very proud of them both.

529
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,440
Stacy has amazing accomplishments as well.

530
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:22,160
And so she, you know, I guess what I'm trying to say is that they did not allow their past

531
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:27,000
to define their future and that, that speaks volumes.

532
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:32,880
So whereas me, you know, growing up, I had the, the exact opposite experience that my

533
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:33,880
sisters had.

534
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:36,600
I was spoiled rotten because I was an only child.

535
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:41,040
I was adopted, you know, imagine, you know, my mother who couldn't have kids adopted me

536
00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,520
and because of that, you know, she spoiled me.

537
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:49,320
And it often caused arguments between, you know, my mom and dad, you know, my dad would

538
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:52,440
say, you're spoiling him, you know, huh?

539
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:54,800
But growing up, I had everything I wanted.

540
00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:56,280
You know, Christmases would come and go.

541
00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:59,040
My mom would spend thousands of dollars on me just from Christmas.

542
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:01,280
And so I had a very, you look spoiled.

543
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:02,280
Right.

544
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:07,720
And so, you know, I, I did, I had a very good childhood.

545
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:13,160
And so when I became an adult, I went the other way, you know?

546
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,400
And so I was very disrespectful.

547
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,160
I was extremely disrespectful.

548
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:25,120
My mother's cancer had came back and instead of being there for her, I was out all hours

549
00:26:25,120 --> 00:26:28,040
of the night doing whatever I wanted to do.

550
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:33,080
Coming home, you know, at 430 in the morning, trying to sneak in, waking my parents up, just,

551
00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:36,960
just being the selfish person that I was.

552
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:42,200
And I didn't care what I had to do or whose toes I had to step on as long as I could get

553
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:43,480
what Ben wanted.

554
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:45,480
And that's who I was, you know, for the longest time.

555
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:49,560
But one day my dad, he said, you know, I had enough with you Benjamin and he kicked me

556
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:50,560
out of the house.

557
00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:54,240
And I was, this is where I'm kind of going into my testimony.

558
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:58,360
And so I had nowhere to go because we had just moved to the area.

559
00:26:58,360 --> 00:27:00,120
I didn't really know anybody.

560
00:27:00,120 --> 00:27:03,080
So I was literally homeless and I was living in the street.

561
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,920
I remember a truck had drove by and a tarp blew off the back of the truck and that's

562
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:10,000
what I, I ran over to it and that's what I used to cover up with at night.

563
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:11,320
I was sleeping in a playground.

564
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:12,800
I remember the first night that I,

565
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:15,600
What are the chances that truck would have drove by when the tarp had blown off?

566
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:16,840
Right. I know, right?

567
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:20,040
I mean, I didn't think about it at the time, but now I think that, yeah.

568
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:20,880
And so I,

569
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:24,680
It's like a movie plot, you know, it just doesn't happen like that.

570
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,120
But, but see, that's the thing about God.

571
00:27:27,120 --> 00:27:31,400
Even in our worst time, God still provides.

572
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:32,400
You know what I mean?

573
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:37,320
Even though I was laying in my filth, living in the street, sleeping in a playground and

574
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:41,960
under bridges and wherever, God still somehow gave me a blanket.

575
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,280
Isn't that wild? Isn't that crazy to think?

576
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:45,280
Like, come on.

577
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:47,240
It's like a bird's dropping food.

578
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,360
Yeah. It's like that verse in the Bible that says, you know, even while we were in, yet

579
00:27:50,360 --> 00:27:52,800
in our sin, Christ died for us.

580
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:56,720
Even when I was at my lowest, Christ still loved me enough to die for me.

581
00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:00,480
And so he's going to provide, you know, he never leaves us.

582
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:01,480
He never forsakes us.

583
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:03,920
We're the ones that kind of back off.

584
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,360
We're the ones that go wayward and, you know,

585
00:28:06,360 --> 00:28:08,080
because we don't think we're forgivable.

586
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,280
Right. We think, man, how crazy is that?

587
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:14,480
Exactly. You know, we think, man, how could God forgive all these things that I've done?

588
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:16,680
You know, and that's, that's a lie straight from hell.

589
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:17,680
Absolutely.

590
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:19,480
That is a lie straight from the enemy.

591
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:21,080
I can't stress that enough.

592
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:23,880
But yeah, I remember the first night I laid my head in a park.

593
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:28,440
It was the, it was the same night that I got kicked out of the house earlier in the day.

594
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,880
And I remember laying underneath the swing set, looking up at the, at the stars.

595
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,840
And I'm thinking, you're 19 years old and you're homeless.

596
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:36,080
What are you doing?

597
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:37,080
How did you get this?

598
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:38,560
Get to this point.

599
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:43,000
And so I wandered for about a week, well, maybe almost two weeks.

600
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:47,960
I wandered around and I slept in parks and in, you know, underneath bridges and Steubenville,

601
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:52,360
Ohio and just wherever I could find a place that, you know, would provide some sort of

602
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:53,880
cover, you know.

603
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:56,080
And so I did that for about two weeks.

604
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:57,960
And then I kind of had a revelation.

605
00:28:57,960 --> 00:28:58,960
It dawned on me.

606
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:03,920
I thought, then you were adopted, right?

607
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:07,840
Your parents chose you, you know, they love you.

608
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:09,600
This is just tough love.

609
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:17,240
Go home, walk your butt back home, be the prodigal son, fly straight and repent and

610
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:18,240
repollack.

611
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:19,240
Cause I grew up in church too.

612
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:21,240
They, and I was churched.

613
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:23,800
And so, but anyways, so I did.

614
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:25,280
I walked all the way back home.

615
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:31,000
I was about a two and a half, three hour walk from where I was, you know, staying just underneath

616
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:32,240
a bridge in Steubenville.

617
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:36,280
And so this was about two weeks of being into home, being homeless.

618
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:37,440
And I smelled like death.

619
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:38,440
I look like death.

620
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:41,440
I hadn't had a shower, you know, horrible.

621
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:45,360
I was using public restrooms, you know, here and there or whatever, you know, committing

622
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:47,280
some little crimes just to survive.

623
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:48,280
And so I did.

624
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:54,400
I walked back home and my dad and he met me with, you know, why are you here?

625
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:59,760
And it kind of shook me because I'm thinking, I've been on the street for two weeks.

626
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:05,720
You don't even know if I'm dead or alive and you chose me, you and, you and mom chose me.

627
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:08,920
And he basically was like, you know, we don't want you here.

628
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:10,400
Go get out of here.

629
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:20,520
So now, now not only am I back on the street, but now I have this hatred, this dangerous

630
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:25,600
resentment toward my adoptive parents because I'm thinking to myself, they don't really

631
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:27,240
love you.

632
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:28,720
They really don't love you.

633
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:30,080
You haven't seen them for two weeks.

634
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:33,560
You've been on the street, you know, you could have been dead.

635
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:37,200
They didn't know, but they don't, they don't love you.

636
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:42,720
And that was the lie that I believed and that I fed into for, you know, a long time.

637
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:46,480
But anyway, so now I'm back on the street again, still nowhere to go.

638
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:51,320
And now I'm there with these feelings of, you know, suicide and, you know, I almost

639
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:55,240
committed suicide, almost jumped off the bridge, but I didn't.

640
00:30:55,240 --> 00:31:01,760
And so one night after about three weeks now into being homeless, one night this car drove

641
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:07,400
by and he came back, he turned back around and this big, you know, black guy got out

642
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:11,520
and he says, he looked at me and I was laying in the underneath the bridge and underpass

643
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,440
and he goes, what's your name, man?

644
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:18,400
And I'm like, Ben, why are you, he's like, Ben, yeah, he's, yeah, man, you're, what

645
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:19,720
are you doing in the street, bro?

646
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:20,720
You homeless?

647
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:21,720
Are you homeless?

648
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:22,720
I said, yeah.

649
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:25,360
And he was like, man, get in the car.

650
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:30,920
And I'm like, it's a total stranger trying to tell me to get in his car.

651
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:34,360
But at the same time, what other option did I have?

652
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:36,840
You know, so I did, I got in his car.

653
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:38,960
He says, man, look, I got a construction company.

654
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:40,160
I'm gonna put you to work.

655
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:41,560
I'm gonna give you a place to stay.

656
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:43,600
Man, you're too young to be on the street.

657
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:45,680
You know, you're 19 because I told him I was 19.

658
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:47,400
He's like, yeah, you're too young, bro.

659
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,920
We'll get just straightened out.

660
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:55,720
And I'm like, all right, so I did that and he put me on his one of his construction crews

661
00:31:55,720 --> 00:32:01,440
for about a week and a half and long story short, one day he rolled up and I was doing

662
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:04,360
drywall and he says, Hey, come here.

663
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:06,160
So I'm like, oh, so all these things are going through my head.

664
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:07,160
Like what did I do?

665
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:08,760
You know, what, what in the world?

666
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:11,920
So I go back over to him and he says, get in the car.

667
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:12,920
We're gonna take a ride.

668
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:13,920
I'm like, all right.

669
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:15,640
So we go for a ride.

670
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:19,000
And for the first time in my life, I've seen this guy sell heroin.

671
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,280
I've seen heroin sold, you know, and he gave me some of the money.

672
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:25,120
He said, this is what you're going to do for me from now on.

673
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:29,200
You're the construction and that was just, you must have been pretty bad at drywall.

674
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:30,200
All right.

675
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:32,200
Yeah, probably instead.

676
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:33,200
Right.

677
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:36,160
So he gave me a gun that wasn't even registered to me.

678
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:38,040
I drove a car that wasn't mine.

679
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:42,160
And so I sold heroin for about two weeks until one night everything came to a head.

680
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,000
This was kind of the come to Jesus meeting that I had.

681
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,560
And so every single run he would send me on.

682
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:52,160
I always knew the description of the vehicle, you know, the street name of the person I

683
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:53,800
was meeting with and everything.

684
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:58,000
And on this particular night, you know, he sent me kind of late at night to a parking

685
00:32:58,000 --> 00:32:59,880
lot in Cleveland.

686
00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:06,560
And I'm thinking, okay, but you ever get this feeling in the pit of your stomach like, I've

687
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:10,280
done this a thousand times, but it's going to be different this time.

688
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:11,280
Right.

689
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,400
Well, that was the exact feeling I had in the pit of my stomach when I was heading to

690
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,160
meet this guy to sell heroin.

691
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:22,800
Even though I had done it, you know, 40 times before, there was something different about

692
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:24,240
this time.

693
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:29,200
And so anyways, so I get there to the, to the meeting spot and no one's there.

694
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:33,080
The description of the vehicle that I was supposed to look for wasn't there.

695
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:34,480
Something and all right, dude's late.

696
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:36,480
I'll just give him five minutes if he doesn't show.

697
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:38,960
If I don't see anything, I'm out.

698
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,760
So five minutes comes and goes still, still no show.

699
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,520
So I start to leave.

700
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:49,240
Well, as I'm turning the corner, a description of the vehicle that I was told pulls in.

701
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:53,200
And I'm like, man, all right, I got to do it.

702
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:55,120
I can't go back now.

703
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:59,480
So I kind of turn back around and, you know, meet up with him and I get out of the car,

704
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:01,520
he gets out of the car and we come together.

705
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:06,760
And as I'm reaching in my pocket to get the bags out of nowhere, he takes a gun out of

706
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:11,480
his waist and puts it to my head, to my forehead and pulls the trigger, but the gun jammed.

707
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:15,520
And to this day, to this day, I still remember what the cold steel, the barrel feels like

708
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:16,720
pressed against my forehead.

709
00:34:16,720 --> 00:34:17,720
Wow.

710
00:34:17,720 --> 00:34:19,200
And my life flashed before my eyes.

711
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:20,200
I thought I was dead.

712
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:21,200
I didn't know.

713
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:22,200
He should have been.

714
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:23,600
I should have been.

715
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:24,760
But I was in shock.

716
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:28,520
And then as soon as I realized that I wasn't dead, I just ran.

717
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:29,520
I booked it.

718
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,040
I don't know why he didn't pistol with me or I don't know.

719
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:33,040
He was probably stunned too.

720
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:34,040
He was probably stunned.

721
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:35,320
Yeah, I don't know.

722
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:38,640
But looking back on it, that was God intervening.

723
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:40,640
That was God working on my behalf.

724
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:42,720
And so I remember going back to the car.

725
00:34:42,720 --> 00:34:43,720
I remember getting in the car.

726
00:34:43,720 --> 00:34:45,760
I remember just booking it out of there.

727
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:50,600
And as I was running back to the car, you know, I could hear him firing the weapon more

728
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:51,600
and more.

729
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:55,760
But each time he pulled the trigger, it was like the click sound of like the sound a gun

730
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:57,760
makes when it jams.

731
00:34:57,760 --> 00:34:59,000
So he was even firing.

732
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:03,360
He was trying to get the gun to he was trying to shoot me as I was running back to the car.

733
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:07,120
But the Lord intervened, you know, Isaiah 54 17.

734
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:11,480
And so even though I wasn't walking with God at the time, I knew God, I had given my life

735
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:13,040
to God as a child.

736
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:16,400
So once you're in God's family, you belong to him.

737
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:20,760
Even even when you're at your worst and your wayward God still loves you, he still protects

738
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:21,760
you.

739
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:22,760
He's still there.

740
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:27,780
So with all that said, I remember I ended up going in the Navy.

741
00:35:27,780 --> 00:35:31,400
And so there's a book I have on Amazon that you guys can check it out.

742
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:33,800
It's called Overcome and it's got more of the details in there.

743
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:40,240
But I remember I went in the Navy and that was a miracle because when I walked into the

744
00:35:40,240 --> 00:35:44,160
and at that time, the recruiter's office, they were all in the same space in the mall.

745
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:49,160
So you have like the Marines, the Army, the Navy, all that separated by cubicles.

746
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:52,560
So when I walked into the mall, I smelled like death, looked like death, didn't have

747
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:53,560
a shower or nothing.

748
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:56,640
And so my goal was I'm just trying to get to boot camp.

749
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:59,640
Whoever can get me to boot camp the first is the branch I'm going to go with.

750
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:01,440
So I went in, talked to Marine guy first.

751
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:05,040
He was like, Hey, we'd love to have you, but there's no room and it's like a year and a

752
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:06,040
half wait.

753
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:07,040
Boom.

754
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:08,040
Okay.

755
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:09,040
So Army guy, same story.

756
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:10,040
Coast Guard, same story.

757
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:11,440
Air Force, same story.

758
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:15,440
The Navy recruiter was the last one and he said, Hey man, sit down.

759
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:17,760
I heard it the first four times.

760
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:18,760
He said, you're homeless.

761
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:19,760
I get it.

762
00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:20,760
Can I tell you something?

763
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:21,760
I said, yeah.

764
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:23,920
He goes, when I went in, I was homeless too.

765
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:29,120
I was you and I'm a Christian and I told God that the first chance I get to pay this

766
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:32,440
back to pay this forward, cause he pulled me out of this the same way.

767
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:33,720
I'm going to do it.

768
00:36:33,720 --> 00:36:40,080
And it may have took him some time, but looking at you, I got to pay it forward.

769
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:42,520
He says, I got a kid coming in here in about two hours.

770
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:44,560
He's going to fail his drug test.

771
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:48,840
And not only is this the drug test that's supposed to be the final one, but this is

772
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:52,360
supposed to be the one that's going to determine whether he goes to boot camp or not.

773
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:54,840
And I know he's going to fail it because I know, I know this kid.

774
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:55,840
I know his mom.

775
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:56,840
I know his dad.

776
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:57,840
I know his family.

777
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:01,880
And, you know, he's not really cut for the military life anyway.

778
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:03,280
So here's what I want you to do.

779
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:04,560
I want you to go take this money.

780
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:05,560
He gave me like 20 bucks.

781
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:10,160
He said, I want you to go to the food court and chill, get some food, get some chow.

782
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:13,280
And I want you to come back after about maybe two and a half hours.

783
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:14,800
And then I'm going to put you in his place.

784
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:21,160
And if everything I'm saying happens, I can have you to boot camp within two weeks.

785
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:23,680
He says, otherwise it's going to be like a year wait.

786
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:25,600
I said, Hey, what are their, what are their options?

787
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:26,600
Do I have?

788
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:27,600
So I did.

789
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,160
And then, sure enough, the kid came, he failed his drug test.

790
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:31,520
And so I got to be put in his place.

791
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:32,840
So I went to boot camp.

792
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:34,800
He let me stay on the couch there in the mall.

793
00:37:34,800 --> 00:37:36,600
He said, look, do I have your word?

794
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:41,720
Just don't go out in the mall during the closing hours from, you know, from like nine to nine

795
00:37:41,720 --> 00:37:42,720
a.m.

796
00:37:42,720 --> 00:37:44,320
You know, and I was like, I'll stay right here.

797
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:47,360
Whatever you want me to do, you know, because I'm trying to get off the street.

798
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:50,840
And so by the grace of God, that was all orchestrated.

799
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:57,480
So God has had his hand on me my whole life, even, even when I didn't want it.

800
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,240
Even when I didn't see it, you know, it's like that song waymaker, even, even when we

801
00:38:01,240 --> 00:38:04,640
don't see it, he's working, even we don't feel that he's working.

802
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:09,160
And so the funny thing about God is when he pulls you out of a pit, he gives you a calling

803
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:11,880
to, he doesn't just pull you out and be like, Hey, here you go.

804
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:14,360
You know, no, he pulls you out of something.

805
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:16,640
He's going to give you an assignment.

806
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:22,400
He's going to use you as a testimony to his goodness, to glorify himself.

807
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:27,800
And so when he delivered me from that, that's when I ended up, you know, picking up the

808
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:32,360
guitar, I taught myself guitar and started to sing Christian music, like, you know, answering

809
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:33,360
the question.

810
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:35,520
And so that's how that kind of all ties in.

811
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:42,120
And so then I got discovered by LBM Records in August of 2018 and did five years with

812
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:47,440
them and the whole time God's just been in it and just making the connections.

813
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:51,720
And there's been some down times, you know, I'm not, I can't say it was all, you know,

814
00:38:51,720 --> 00:38:52,720
peaches and cream.

815
00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:53,720
It definitely wasn't.

816
00:38:53,720 --> 00:38:59,360
There was, I mean, there was a time where my marriage was, you know, pretty much gone.

817
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:03,760
But again, this is a testament that there is no mountain that is high enough that God

818
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:08,720
can't move, you know, there's no storm that he too big that he can't calm.

819
00:39:08,720 --> 00:39:09,720
Right.

820
00:39:09,720 --> 00:39:10,720
Oh, yes.

821
00:39:10,720 --> 00:39:14,360
With a humble heart and a willing heart, God can do anything, a repetitive heart, most

822
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:15,360
importantly.

823
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:16,840
Yeah, it's important to change that mind.

824
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:17,840
Change that mind.

825
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:19,280
Don't be set on the ways it's dragging you down.

826
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:20,280
Amen.

827
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:21,280
And that's what I did.

828
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:27,200
I humbled myself, repented and not just really truly repented.

829
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:31,360
And now, you know, my walk with God is so much different now.

830
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:34,920
So much different because I'm not, I'm not bound by temptation.

831
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,640
I don't have the chains that were dragging me down.

832
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:39,440
I don't have those chains that were holding me down.

833
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:41,360
I don't, I don't, I don't have it.

834
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:44,600
It's just like he took it away completely.

835
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:48,960
So when I hear of testimonies like, you know, drug addicts and stuff, and they're like,

836
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:49,960
you know, God broke the chains.

837
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:51,520
I get it.

838
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:53,400
Yeah, he's a chain breaker.

839
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:56,240
You know, it's just the only difference is your chain was something and my chain was

840
00:39:56,240 --> 00:39:57,240
something else.

841
00:39:57,240 --> 00:39:58,240
Oh, yeah.

842
00:39:58,240 --> 00:39:59,740
But it's all the same to God.

843
00:39:59,740 --> 00:40:02,400
There's no chain that's stronger than another to God.

844
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:03,400
Right.

845
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:06,320
But we're all individuals and God loves us all individually, right?

846
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:08,880
And he centers all of his care around us individually.

847
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:09,880
Yes.

848
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:12,480
And amongst us at the same time, because he can do that.

849
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:13,480
Yes, absolutely.

850
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:15,000
He can do anything.

851
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:16,000
Anything.

852
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:20,440
He's the server God of the impossible becoming possible.

853
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,760
And that, that's what my song God is capable is all about.

854
00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:27,000
It released like a month or two ago and it's everywhere.

855
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:30,840
You can stream music, like, you know, I heart radio and all over the place Spotify.

856
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:33,680
But even some of the Christian radio stations play it locally.

857
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:35,800
But that's what that song is about.

858
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:39,440
It's about God is capable of doing anything.

859
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:44,400
If you're addicted to crack, you know, heroin, whatever, if you have a pornography addiction,

860
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:49,480
if you have a whatever it is, God can break those chains, but you have to humble your

861
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:50,480
you have to want it.

862
00:40:50,480 --> 00:40:52,480
Yes, you have to want it.

863
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:54,080
Otherwise, you just fall right back in it.

864
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:57,200
Yeah, you have to want it to be gone or you'll turn right back to it.

865
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:58,440
Oh man, that's that.

866
00:40:58,440 --> 00:40:59,440
That's that.

867
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:00,440
That'll preach.

868
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:02,440
That is all that is a whole sermon.

869
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:04,840
Yeah, a thousand times.

870
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:05,840
Yes.

871
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:10,480
And I don't find it any coincidence that God put the people in my life, you know, that

872
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:14,200
surrounds me on the daily, especially my wife.

873
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,840
Like God put me and my wife together for a reason.

874
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:20,240
She loved me at my worst.

875
00:41:20,240 --> 00:41:24,280
So now I got to be there for her.

876
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:25,280
Absolutely.

877
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:26,280
I'm sorry.

878
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:27,280
No, you's all right, man.

879
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:29,480
This is a same base to be a great.

880
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:30,720
I'm just you're good.

881
00:41:30,720 --> 00:41:31,720
My man.

882
00:41:31,720 --> 00:41:32,720
I'm trying to keep it.

883
00:41:32,720 --> 00:41:33,840
I'm trying to hold it back, man.

884
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:35,120
You don't have to.

885
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:38,760
You know, when I look at my wife, that's love.

886
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:39,760
That's loved.

887
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:49,000
To love somebody that much, to stand by them at their worst and give you chance after chance

888
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:50,000
after chance.

889
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:54,800
I look at God and I see the same love.

890
00:41:54,800 --> 00:42:01,400
So if it wasn't for my wife and for God, like, I don't know where I'd be.

891
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:02,760
But you have a few guesses.

892
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,560
I bet that guy at Pistol would have worked.

893
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:06,560
Yeah, yeah.

894
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:07,560
Yeah.

895
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:08,560
Yeah.

896
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:10,600
I'm sorry, we're a baby right now, but no, no, no, no.

897
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:11,600
Hey, you are okay.

898
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:13,400
Shortest verse in the Bible.

899
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:14,400
Jesus.

900
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:17,040
You were in a safe place in this place.

901
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:18,040
Right.

902
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:20,680
And I know this is going out live and I don't care.

903
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:26,240
People need to hear this because it is just further evidence and further proof that God

904
00:42:26,240 --> 00:42:27,240
can do anything.

905
00:42:27,240 --> 00:42:31,640
We serve a God of a God of we serve a God of anything like he can do anything.

906
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,680
There's not an infinity infinity.

907
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:36,680
He owns all the cattle on the hill.

908
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:42,120
Or you can think of things that you didn't even consider in color.

909
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:43,120
Can imagine.

910
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:45,120
You could think of sound you can't imagine.

911
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:47,200
Like instruments, you don't know.

912
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:51,640
There's so much that he can imagine that you can't even fathom with our finite minds because

913
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:52,640
he is infinite.

914
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:53,640
Yeah.

915
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:54,640
And that's why I love that song by Mercy Me.

916
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:58,560
I can only imagine because it makes me think like when we do get to heaven, it's like,

917
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:02,960
we're going to experience things that we never even thought about here on earth.

918
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:04,480
Like you said, there's going to be.

919
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:06,200
God loves us as children, right?

920
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:08,240
Never once has he referred to us as adults.

921
00:43:08,240 --> 00:43:09,240
I'm telling you.

922
00:43:09,240 --> 00:43:12,440
And one of the key factors with children is the wonder.

923
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:13,440
Yeah.

924
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:16,680
You don't think he's got a bunch of wonder waiting for us in heaven?

925
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:17,680
Come on.

926
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:18,680
We're going to be like children.

927
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,200
The Bible says have childlike faith.

928
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:23,680
I'm telling you, my wife, she's going to have a mansion.

929
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:24,680
I'm going to have a doghouse.

930
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:27,520
I was kind of hoping for a hobbit hole.

931
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:28,520
I'd be really great.

932
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:33,800
Maybe a cardboard box somewhere in the corner, you know, I'm looking for cozy, you know,

933
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:35,560
you know, I have to ask God.

934
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:39,000
Can I go see my wife?

935
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:40,720
But yeah, great is her reward, man.

936
00:43:40,720 --> 00:43:47,240
And, you know, I just, I look back at everything and I'm like, wow, for her to love me and

937
00:43:47,240 --> 00:43:48,240
to stand by me.

938
00:43:48,240 --> 00:43:50,800
That's the same kind of love God has for us.

939
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:51,800
Yes.

940
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:56,880
You know, and I'm not trying to compare her to God, but I'm saying like God loves us

941
00:43:56,880 --> 00:43:57,880
enough.

942
00:43:57,880 --> 00:43:59,480
He loves us enough through her.

943
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:00,480
Yeah.

944
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:01,480
Yeah.

945
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:02,480
I see the love of Christ through her.

946
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:03,480
Right.

947
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,360
And he shows us examples of how he loves us through other people and interactions.

948
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:09,040
And you're not comparing it to her, but you're comparing it to him.

949
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:10,040
Yeah.

950
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:11,040
We get it.

951
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:12,040
Yeah.

952
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:14,040
We understand it's not the same, but it's the same feeling.

953
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:15,040
We get it.

954
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:16,040
Yeah.

955
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:18,040
And so, and let me tell you, she's Irish, so.

956
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:19,040
Oh, yeah.

957
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:22,040
Don't make her mad.

958
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:23,040
Right.

959
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:24,040
No, I'm just kidding.

960
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:28,480
She's a beautiful person and I, I understand fully why God put her in my life and put us

961
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:29,480
together.

962
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:30,480
So.

963
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:31,480
Because you needed it.

964
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:32,480
I definitely needed it.

965
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:33,480
I'd be dead.

966
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:34,480
I would be on the street.

967
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:35,480
I'd be, I don't know.

968
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:36,480
I think that's the truth.

969
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:37,480
Our helpers.

970
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:38,480
Thank God.

971
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:39,480
The ones that God gives us.

972
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:41,320
Otherwise, who would we be without?

973
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:42,320
Come on.

974
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:43,320
Hmm.

975
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:44,320
Come on.

976
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:45,320
Oh, no.

977
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:46,320
So good.

978
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:47,320
I'm gonna big head about that.

979
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:48,320
You know, you're awesome.

980
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:49,320
Yeah.

981
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:50,320
Yeah.

982
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:55,600
And I'm just again, man, every time I look at her and just the fact that she's still

983
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:59,640
by my side today is the love of Christ.

984
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:01,360
You know, love is patient.

985
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:02,360
Love is kind.

986
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:07,320
You know, love keeps no record of wrongs and it's, it's been, it's been a crazy ride

987
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:11,800
and a crazy journey, but I know that if I was to die right now, you know, I'd go to

988
00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:12,800
heaven.

989
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:13,960
My sins are forgiven.

990
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:19,760
And I also would die a happy man knowing that I died married to the woman that actually

991
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:21,000
truly loves me.

992
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:22,000
Yeah.

993
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:25,200
I mean, love me am I worse if you want to know if someone really loves you, say what

994
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:29,400
you said again in Corinthians, except replace love with that person's name.

995
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:34,480
If that's all still true, right, if Donna is patient, if Donna is kind, right, if all

996
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:37,560
these things are true, then Donna is love and God is love.

997
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:41,360
And therefore Donna is expressing the exact qualities of God, which is what we're made

998
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:42,360
in the image of.

999
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:43,360
Amen.

1000
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:44,360
Amen.

1001
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:45,360
Right.

1002
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:46,360
Yeah.

1003
00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:47,360
Amen.

1004
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:51,840
And yeah, so I feel a Holy Spirit in this room right now.

1005
00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:54,440
You see, it's very thick a lot of times.

1006
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:57,280
I receive a lot of messages in the bathroom on the other side of that wall there.

1007
00:45:57,280 --> 00:45:58,560
So I mean, it's always close here.

1008
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:00,200
It's like the black mac right there.

1009
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:01,840
I mean, do you feel him?

1010
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:02,840
He's here.

1011
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:03,840
Definitely.

1012
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:04,840
Oh yeah.

1013
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:05,840
I can feel it.

1014
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:06,840
Yeah.

1015
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:07,840
We stock up on tissues.

1016
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:08,840
Yeah.

1017
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:15,360
I mean, I've been, you know, being on being on a label and stuff, you know, you get interviews

1018
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:19,040
and stuff and I've had many interviews, but I've never really cried on one.

1019
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:20,880
So first time for everything.

1020
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:21,880
That's right.

1021
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:23,560
I'm glad you feel safe here.

1022
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:24,560
I do.

1023
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:25,560
I do.

1024
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:26,560
I'm very thankful for both of you.

1025
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:31,120
And I know we kind of talked, you know, about it, but I would love for somehow for us to

1026
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,760
get the band in here, maybe in the near future.

1027
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:35,560
And you know, I'll share a mic.

1028
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:36,560
I'll not.

1029
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:37,560
That'd be cool.

1030
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:38,560
Yeah.

1031
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:39,560
Yeah.

1032
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:40,560
Yeah.

1033
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:41,560
There's three of us.

1034
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:42,560
Yeah, not a problem.

1035
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:43,560
Yeah, we can figure something out.

1036
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:44,560
For sure.

1037
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:46,560
And that's something else that God recently changed in my life.

1038
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:50,640
You know, he said to me, he said, Ben, it's no longer Ben Aker's music.

1039
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:52,680
It's tri-state worship.

1040
00:46:52,680 --> 00:46:55,240
And so, because, you know, Sonny, he's the drummer.

1041
00:46:55,240 --> 00:46:56,720
He's from West Virginia.

1042
00:46:56,720 --> 00:46:58,200
Carl, he's the bass player.

1043
00:46:58,200 --> 00:46:59,200
He's from Pennsylvania.

1044
00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:01,040
And then there's, you know, I'm from Ohio.

1045
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:02,400
So there's three states.

1046
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:03,400
So tri-state worship.

1047
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:05,520
And it's biblical, you know, the Trinity.

1048
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:12,040
And so God, God really has just been doing some mind-blowing things.

1049
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:13,880
And you know, that's the thing.

1050
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:20,040
When you're stuck on yourself and you're just all about you, you don't see those things

1051
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:21,840
because they pass you by.

1052
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:24,640
They're there, but you don't see them because you're choosing not to see them.

1053
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:25,880
Just because you're focused, right?

1054
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:30,360
If I'm focused on this lamp over here across the room, am I really going to notice everything

1055
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:33,600
else going by on my way to it?

1056
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:35,720
And so, yeah, it's easy.

1057
00:47:35,720 --> 00:47:38,800
What you put your focus on is where your direction is going.

1058
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:43,200
And so when you're focused on God, some of the nonsense distractions disappear because

1059
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:44,480
your focus is on God.

1060
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:49,400
But as soon as you put your focus on your nonsense distraction, now God is in the blinder.

1061
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:50,560
And that's not a place for him.

1062
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:52,200
That's not the place we want to put God.

1063
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:53,200
It's a dangerous place.

1064
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:55,880
Like in dirty dancing, nobody puts baby in the corner.

1065
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:57,040
Nobody puts God in the corner.

1066
00:47:57,040 --> 00:47:58,040
Right.

1067
00:47:58,040 --> 00:47:59,040
Don't do that.

1068
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,040
That is a wrong move.

1069
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:04,880
Not because he's going to get mad and angry with you, but because you're going to fail.

1070
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:07,280
You're going to stumble and you're going to fall and you're going to look back and blame

1071
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:08,280
him for a second.

1072
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:09,280
Like, why weren't you there?

1073
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:10,280
Why weren't you holding my hand?

1074
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:12,000
He's like, no, no, no, no, you put me in the corner.

1075
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:13,480
You tell me when you need me back.

1076
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:14,480
Yeah.

1077
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:16,320
And I just kind of wanted to clarify something too.

1078
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:20,440
I know earlier I said, you know, when I was homeless, I tried to go back home and it's

1079
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:22,800
not that my parents still love me.

1080
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:23,800
They do.

1081
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:24,800
They love me.

1082
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:31,800
They love me unconditionally, but it was just I was so, you know, just so far deep in my

1083
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:33,840
sin, just all about myself.

1084
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:35,520
And that was even before I met my wife.

1085
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:39,360
I was single and just deep in my sin, just doing Ben.

1086
00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:41,680
And so my parents had enough, you know?

1087
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:43,440
So I get where they were coming from.

1088
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:47,440
But at the time, stinking thinking, we're blaming everybody but us.

1089
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:48,800
But I just wanted to kind of clarify.

1090
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:52,680
They didn't want to enable you to continue that path.

1091
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:53,680
Right.

1092
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:54,680
It's the hard love.

1093
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:55,680
It is.

1094
00:48:55,680 --> 00:48:57,200
That's how we did it in the 80s.

1095
00:48:57,200 --> 00:48:58,200
Yeah.

1096
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,200
Well, you didn't have all the crazy stuff going on in the world to worry about either.

1097
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:02,200
No.

1098
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:03,200
It's a little different.

1099
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:04,200
It's a little different now.

1100
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:06,200
Yeah, we get threatened to run away and they're like, bye.

1101
00:49:06,200 --> 00:49:09,920
Yeah, don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.

1102
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:11,080
You won't even come after me?

1103
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:12,080
Why?

1104
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:13,080
You made it pretty clear you don't want to be here.

1105
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:14,080
Yeah.

1106
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:15,080
It sounds like Roseanne.

1107
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:16,080
Oh, man, that's great.

1108
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:23,680
So, well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story with us.

1109
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:27,680
I really enjoyed getting to know you and your story a bit.

1110
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:30,000
And I think it'd be great to have your band on at one point.

1111
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:31,000
Absolutely.

1112
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:32,000
Just let me know.

1113
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:35,680
Let me know when it's good for you and I'll coordinate with them and make it happen.

1114
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:38,120
So thank you for having me for real.

1115
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:39,120
Oh, absolutely.

1116
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:40,120
You're a treat.

1117
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:41,120
You're an absolute treat.

1118
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:43,280
It's been a therapy session for me.

1119
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:44,280
No.

1120
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:46,800
I have words of encouragement as a gift.

1121
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:49,000
So I use them as often as I possibly can.

1122
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:51,000
So they're yours.

1123
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:52,200
They're not for me, right?

1124
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:55,400
So a pear tree doesn't eat pears and a lemon tree doesn't eat lemons.

1125
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:56,400
So these gifts aren't for me.

1126
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:59,360
These gifts are for someone else, for the people that are eating the fruit that I'm

1127
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:00,360
dropping.

1128
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:01,360
Amen.

1129
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:02,360
I love that.

1130
00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:05,040
We have a lot of people say that this was their favorite interview.

1131
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:06,040
So.

1132
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:07,520
I see why.

1133
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:08,520
Absolutely.

1134
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:09,520
Absolutely.

1135
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:12,400
And you can tell that humility is really top on our list too.

1136
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:14,640
We're a pretty good at humility and humbleness.

1137
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:15,640
Yes.

1138
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:16,640
Yes.

1139
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:18,920
But it's amazing what God can do when He's in the mix, you know?

1140
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:24,120
When He's the center, man, it's like watch out because strongholds will come down and

1141
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:27,360
entire kingdoms of the enemy will just fall.

1142
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:28,760
I mean, it is.

1143
00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:32,600
I love that song, Victor's Crown, you know?

1144
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:37,360
When we, I do worship different places, I love to pair it with the shout to the Lord.

1145
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:40,440
So but it's a powerful song.

1146
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:41,440
Agreed.

1147
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:45,760
Well, if this episode has been a blessing to you, we ask that you pass it along and

1148
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:47,600
share it with a friend.

1149
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:50,280
And we also have a fundraising campaign.

1150
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:52,120
The links are in the about section.

1151
00:50:52,120 --> 00:50:56,200
So if you want to come alongside us and support the ministry, that would be great.

1152
00:50:56,200 --> 00:51:01,160
And also, if you would do us a solid and rate the podcast and Spotify and Apple podcast,

1153
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:03,160
I don't know where else you can do it.

1154
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:07,660
But if you could rate it, that would encourage the algorithm to push it out to more people

1155
00:51:07,660 --> 00:51:10,240
and then more people can be encouraged.

1156
00:51:10,240 --> 00:51:12,680
And we would greatly appreciate prayers too.

1157
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:41,640
And with that, we'll talk to you next time.