No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
Rebuilding a Life After Abuse | Interview with Denise Morris
This episode includes conversation around mature and heavier subjects. Listener discretion is advised.
In this episode, Brody and JB sit down with Denise Morris as she shares her testimony. Denise speaks honestly about her experiences with grooming and assault and how they led her down a path far from the life she was raised in. Her story centers on one pivotal night, leaving her job as a dancer and wrestling with the desire to end her life, when she hears the voice of the Lord in a moment that changes everything. Tune in to hear Denise tell her story and share how that moment became the start of a new life.
Identity Beyond Victimhood | Interview with Katie Hays
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I'd like to get into what I really want to do in this episode is just walk through your testimony and where this is coming from. You had mentioned to Little and I once, uh sometime let's sit down. I'd love to share my testimony. And um then you got to do that with Laley. And but I want to walk back where this started was that I even everyone has a testimony who has a relationship with the Lord, but that I knew sort of the nature of your story came from about a year ago, you approached me and said, Hey, I've got a couple of young family members, two girls that have endured some really traumatic experiences, but there were two young ladies that have had some really tough experiences. They're young teenage girls, and you wanted to get them to Snowbird for a week of camp. When I heard their story, I was like, absolutely, whatever we got to do. And I know the girls that I want to have work with them, both girls that come from a really difficult uh background, who have just testimonies of God's grace. So we were able to do that, and um those sweet girls are still in an uphill battle fight for their lives. Um, but they had a good week here, and I saw I saw progress. I saw them soften to the gospel, their hearts became receptive to me as a man, and it but in a healthy way.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um I saw that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and it was interesting because sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't. You know, the guy on the stage, the guy that's kind of a figurehead, either it can be unhealthy in that they cling to that, or it can be unhealthy in that they resent that guy because of what he represents, but you're praying for and looking for that that help feel like hey, it's okay. Everybody's not out to get you or get something from you.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_01:But what we want to do is give something to you that you know, and I felt like we had some conversations. I had a couple conversations that I felt like we made progress, you know. And but Katie did a phenomenal job with she did. Katie, who was was on NSR recently, a couple episodes back, and so recently Katie and Laley, well, funny backstory. Denise was here at the house, called me or texted me, I don't remember one evening.
SPEAKER_02:Text.
SPEAKER_01:Texted, and we were at our house and Tuck Denise was here alone. This was back right before Christmas. Me and Tuck were uh summons to come out here because somebody had been snooping around her barn, and something had happened, something was off because the barn was locked, the lights were out, she came in that night, and the lights were on in the barn, and they don't turn their shelves on. So me and Tuck came out and we got, you know, we kind of went through the whole house, went through the barn, everything's good, locked Denise in. And I said, and on the way home, I was talking to Layle, and or I got home and was talking to Laley Laley said, Me and Katie will ride out there and spend the night. Um Laylee's a gangster.
SPEAKER_02:I know.
SPEAKER_01:And uh she's like, we're right out there. She's like hoping somebody would try to, you know.
SPEAKER_02:She's her daddy's daughter.
SPEAKER_01:She is. But so Laylee said, Hey, me and Katie will go out there and spend the night. Because Katie lives with us um for the pretty much lives with us when she's not in school. And but Denise said, I'm good. I'm settled in, I'm in bed for the evening. I'm good. But how about how about they come back uh tomorrow night? And so it wasn't the next night, but uh It was last week. Another, yeah, another night. They came out, spent the night, had a girl's night over here, and Laylee came back and said, Man, have you ever heard Denise's testimony? And I said, This much of it, you know, just a little bit when we were dealing with the girls last right last summer. I said, I know there was some some trauma, some abuse, and I know that God's grace has been really big in our life. So Laylee said, Oh, I just kind of dumped a bunch of the detail. She just burst into tell, you know, and said, It's just amazing what God's done. And and I was like, I looked at her and I said, uh, we gotta go, I gotta go interview Denise. And she said, Yes, you do. So that's how we got here, and then I texted Denise and she said, I get stage frightened. I was like, Oh, we'll leave the cameras at home.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No cameras. Which is valid, yeah. Take a few pictures, but we'll just do do audio.
SPEAKER_02:So that's how we got here, but what's so funny about that is I got up the next morning and um I was I had these uh chocolate croissants to put in the oven for the girls. And then I went outside just to have some quiet time with the Lord, and all of a sudden this fear enveloped me. I was like, what did I do? Uh why did I share my story with them? That was probably I just know their parents are gonna be like, what is she doing talking to my kids about that kind of thing? And and I voiced that to the girls. I was just like, maybe I should not have shared. But what motivated me was the I just felt compelled to encourage Katie. And well, you know that I always want my story to be beneficial, but there have been a couple times when I have given my story and it has been twisted, and the enemy has used it to persecute me or pass judgment on me. And so that morning with girls, I was just like, I'm coming to a new place. Do I really should I have said anything at all? But I do believe that that is fear of the enemy, and the Lord said to me a long time ago, do not fear. And I've made a lot of decisions over the last 30 some years that were based in fear, and I regret them now. So I'm not gonna make this one, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think that years ago, one of the best lessons I ever heard and learned, I was a pretty young Christian. I was in my 20s. And a guy he said, Man, I'll tell you one thing that's wrong with the church. And he was a pastor. And he said, I'll tell you one thing that's wrong with the church. There's there's no real transparency. He said, in our prayer services, we'll ask for prayer requests, and the only time people really raise their hands is when you ask for an unspoken request. And he said, Now I know there are some requests that need to remain unspoken because of confidentiality. He said, but I've there's a there's a like a protective, there's a lack of transparency. And if we're to bear one another's burdens, if we're to allow God to use our story in someone else's life, if we're if we're gonna rob Satan of his thunder, then we're gonna stronghold either. And stronghold, yeah. If we're gonna demolish the strongholds that that that could be in our lives, then we have to brag on what God's done. We have to shine the light of God's glory into the darkness. And there's no brighter display of God's glory than through the gospel work he does in a person's life, which is redemption, healing, peace where there should be no peace, reconciliation. And Romans 5, 1 says, Therefore, since we have peace with God, I'm like, that is one of the best sentences I've ever heard in my life. Because three chapters later he says in Romans 8, 1, therefore, there's no condemnation. Like, we have peace, there's no condemnation. Let's tell folks about this, you know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I think what the devil wants to do is say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
unknown:Shh.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he's done it to me a thousand times.
SPEAKER_02:Because in that silence, that's his playground. Yeah. He can do so much. But scripture says to bring things to light. And in my story, I didn't know that until many, many years after. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I also think for me, it's always so encouraging to talk to people older than me that have gone through, you know, like their fights, their struggles, their battles, and seeing, like, man, they're still faithful. Like all of that horrible stuff happened. And yeah, they're still dealing with it and they're still fighting it, but they've just made their life a faithful life. Like, even hearing like the testimonies and stories of my parents, you know, sometimes I can just be like, uh, my parents, you know, whatever. But then it's like so humbling to realize, like, oh, the Lord is working in their life too, and have like made them the people that they are. So I really appreciate you sharing your story from like wherever it starts to wherever it ends, like just sharing whatever you choose. Cause I think that's really encouraging for me to just see like the longevity of like your faithfulness, if that makes sense. But yeah, I don't really know her story yet. I've just heard sniff it. So I'm excited to really get in. Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_01:Let's just start. Like, you're born until fourth grade, you lived in Illinois, then you moved to Wisconsin. So kind of what was that? Why did you move? What was your family dynamic early on? And just let's just go from there.
SPEAKER_02:So my mom was 15 and my dad was 19 when I came along. Um they struggled financially um with jobs and things like that. And in the 60s, a woman didn't really go work. If you had children, you stayed home. So we lived most of my life until I was 15, I think it was. Until I was 15, we lived with my grandparents, my dad's parents. Um and their marriage was rocky. My dad was an unfaithful man. Um but his mom and dad were faithful and um they knew the Lord, they loved the Lord with all their heart. And I had told somebody the other day that my dad was number 11 of 12, and that's not true. My cousin and I went back and forth, and she's like, No, my mom was. Your dad was number 10, and I was like, Oh. So 10 of 12 kids. So I always had a bunch of cousins around all the time at my grandparents. Um, there were several times a month where my brothers, my brother, my sister, and I would go stay with my mom's mom. And I think it was just to give them a break, or maybe give my grandparents a break.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. Was it were y'all, is it rural? Were that is it like a farming community or did you live in town?
SPEAKER_02:It was yes. Um yeah. With my dad's parents, we lived in the country. It was just north of Chicago. Um, very rural area. Um best memories of my life were there. Um so I think when I was eight is when my mom's mom, her husband. We're gonna call him Ted because that was his name.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And he was a step. He was a step-father to your grandfather.
SPEAKER_02:He was never in my mom's life.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:My mom was married and had three kids by the time the two of them met. And her mom worked for Cherry Electric and she worked third shift. And so we were home alone at night with this guy. Um he started probably at eight just grooming me. And I can't I use that term because there was just this slow manipulation of a mindset that he did that um kind of put images in my mind, and um he'd put words in my mouth and just things like that. And so anyway, um this went on for a while. And then when we moved across the state line to Kenosha, um we we would be shipped down to my grandmother's. Or Ted's granddaughter would come up and they'd want me to go down there and stay with her because we were close in age. And we were pretty close. And that's when things started getting really bizarre. Um he never penetrated any of us, but he did other things. Um I was ten, I think, he he started coming to my room at night and I'd have to fight him all way. And and people would say would probably ask. I'm not saying that people did, I'm just saying you would think that people would say, Why didn't you say something? In that grooming process, he made it he made it very intentional for me to believe that if I were to say anything, that I was the naughty girl, that I was the one who instigated that um I would be hated. And let me tell you, I was daddy's little girl. And I never ever, if my dad looked at me crosswise, I would just cry. Because I wanted to please my dad. I was just he was he was my world. Um so I remember this one day. I was down there, my grandmother was off at work, and Ted and his granddaughter, we were playing in our room, and he put this magazine in front of us and told us to copy the letter that was written in this book. And I was known for my nice handwriting. And so I didn't think anything of it, but as I was on the second paragraph, I started to register what it was that I was writing. And it was a Playgirl magazine that this woman was detailing what she would want to do to whomever the reader was. And I took that and I ripped it up and I crumpled it and I threw it in the trash. Um and and that was that. Um these were the kind of things that he did. This is going to play into the latter part of the story because um I had told my closest friend about what was happening, and I think I was I just turned 16. Or maybe a little later. It was in the summer. So um she told her mom. Now we were a close I should back up a little bit. My grandparents, my my grandfather built the church that I grew up in. And he was in my different grandfather, not this guy. Not my step-grandfather, my left.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. The one you lived with.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Um, and he was the elder at that church, and um he had when we moved across the state line, they would they were going to church there less and less. Um because they were so m they were elderly. I mean, my they were when I was born, probably 60s, 70s, probably 70s. Um so um my closest friend, her family, they lived their their home was just up the street from ours. And we were like a big family. They had five kids. Um, their son was a couple years older than me. And I was never allowed to date until I was 16. And I was one of those little girls that I loved the Lord with all my heart. I was always at the altar. Lord, use me however you want to use me. I want to be your missionary. I was a missionette, I was all these things.
SPEAKER_01:And let's let's pause.
SPEAKER_02:All right.
SPEAKER_01:The Lord is answering that prayer of that little girl today.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, right now.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, he's answered it, I know, along the way a lot. But this, I mean, your story is gonna reach a few hundred thousand people. But in my mind's eye, I go back to that little girl saying, You didn't know what you're praying. No, you think you do as a little kid.
SPEAKER_02:I thought I was gonna be off in some remote country.
SPEAKER_01:Being a missionary. You're like, Lord, use my use me. What do you want to do with my life? And now, I mean, people, Denise, people are gonna come to faith in Jesus because you're telling your story. Like, that's what a like, yeah. And my my mind goes, if you know, God is eternal, he sees the beginning from the end. He hears the somehow in his sovereignty, he's hearing the prayer of that little girl, and he's and he's today spreading that message of gospel hope, you know. That's really cool to me. Really, really cool to me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's my heart's desire. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But anyway, go ahead.
SPEAKER_02:I forgot where I left off. You were a missionette? Yes. Yes. And if anybody knows what a missionette is, that is a program where young Christian girls learn the scriptures. They they write it on their hearts, they memorize, and you get rewards for the different levels of missionette. My mom and uh the lady that lived down the street, they were like best friends. And they decided. I'm 16, that their son and I should be paired together. So they were kind of arranging being married down the road. Um, which I have to tell you, I was always, I always had kind of a crush on him because he was he was so good with the horses and just I don't know. So when they told me one night after church that I was going out for ice cream with him, I freaked out. I was just I I think all of my extremities went cold. I I had no idea what what that was gonna look like. And um, so we had a couple dates and and it wasn't like we didn't know each other, we've known each other our whole lives. So this is your best friend's brother?
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, gotcha. So anyway, she was going through some stuff. And I I told her, I said, I'm not I'm not unfamiliar with some of the things you're going through. This is what's been happening to me. And I think that she was a little bit jealous of my relationship with her brother. So she told her mom and the whole family.
SPEAKER_03:And she was the first and only person that you had told up to that point.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and so her mom told my mom, and my dad flipped, and marched all of us kids down to my grandmother's to confront Ted, and um he was raging at Ted, and Ted pulls out this piece of paper that was taped together and ironed out, and it was that letter that he had asked me to write many, many years ago. Yeah. Wow, that is crazy. Wow. And my dad read it and he looked at me and he said, This is what he said. Is this your handwriting? And I wasn't gonna lie. Yeah, yes, that's my handwriting. But I wanted to say, but but I didn't get that opportunity. He looked at me in disgust and threatened Ted if he ever come near us again. That he was a dead man, pretty much. Um we never spoke of it again. We had holidays together again with everybody. My grandmother never left him. You know, it was all just kind of brushed under the rug.
SPEAKER_01:So Ted would be at those.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I one of the things I don't want to derail this, but one thing that for listeners, I want them to know is in 30 years of student ministry, the number of young girls and and boys, but it's predominantly it's it's a lot higher percentage of girls that have been through um sexual abuse, especially grooming that leads to sexual abuse. And the grooming piece is critical to understanding this because it's how a predator gains control of the situation. Gains trust, gains trust, and that's how he gains control of the situation because uh most of the abuse cases we deal with are not violent. It's not like now we do we deal with that, we we do mandatory reporting, and I don't know, I've I don't know how many interviews I've done with detectives and police officers, and or someone's being you know, physically abused, beaten, or whatever. But most of these situations, what makes them so diabolical and evil and demonic is a predator has mastered the art of manipulation of a small child or a young girl, young boy. And um like I've shared, I've shared very briefly, only ever once, and Katie Hayes talks about this, but I had an experience when I was six years old where an older teenage boy took advantage of me. And and and when I think about that situation, I think he was it was more animalistic behavior. He was just acting out, he was probably being abused sexually.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I remember when I was about 19, I determined I was gonna go deal with this guy. You know, he would have been probably 26 at that point. And when I started looking for him, I found out he had committed suicide. Oh my gosh. Yeah, and then the story unfolds, you know, that dude would, he was a victim of abuse. And so saying that to say a ch a child that's abused aggressively by another child or a young person, often there's not a manipulation factor as severe. A lot of times it's impulsive, it's control, it's bullying. The manipulation that goes into that kind of predatory behavior is so horrific. And I think what does as much, and I would like to hear your take on this, I think it'll come out in the story. Little and I have seen more or at least as much damage done to a young girl, to a kid who the response is not appropriate when the authorities or my parents find out or the pastor finds out. So when you said it was just kind of never spoken of again, that I'm convinced does as much as much damage in the big picture, or it does, it does a heavy amount of damage because we think of the the act of the the manipulation and then the sexual abuse, and that's horrible. And then we think, man, I wish somebody had done something about it. No, them not doing something about it is as destructive to that person's life as the event. Okay. I wanted your take on that because that's always been what we have felt in counseling hundreds, probably thousands of young girls in the in these situations. And I bring that up because if you're listening, somebody's listening to this. If if we've had people really get upset with us because we don't let this stuff go, like when this is broad to us, the throttle goes down. We're addressing it at whatever level it needs to be addressed. And now we have to use discernment because we have had girls deceive us for attention. Yeah, sure, you know, but we never, we never don't address things. And and I just would say one of the most damaging things is if you receive this kind of information and you don't deal with it, you're you're pushing that that victim down a path that they can't in their own power come back from.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 100%. And that you'll see in the rest of my story. Um, you know, my dad, I I really needed him to be my my um my knight in shining armor.
SPEAKER_03:Like every little girl, you know, they all want that and desire that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, but that didn't happen. And um we were I don't know if it was the shame that we just left the church or if there well, I do know this. I um we had gone to see the family that my friend who told my mom what was going on, um and the the young man that I was supposedly dating, he was out in the yard washing his car when we got there to visit. And this was the first time since everything came out, and my mom went inside. I was gonna go in and talk to um my friend's mom. But something happened. I stopped to say hello to the young man, and he wouldn't look at me, and he told me to go away that I was a whore that he never wanted to see me again. And so and they were very prevalent in the church, you know, that we went to. So that just put a nail in my coffin next to my dad's nail. And then never going back to the church or never receiving any kind of um support from anyone in the church. We were like red oaks. Our church, everybody was in each other's lives. We all knew each other. But all of a sudden, we're in nowhere island. So that kind of led me down a path of promiscuity, which you know, each time put a nail in my coffin.
SPEAKER_01:Um yeah, because when you get told you're a whore enough times, you're like, well, well, maybe I am.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe I will be, yeah. Well, the interesting thing is um I still was a virgin. And I was date raped by this guy. And lost my virginity. Um wound up pregnant, had an abortion, which the only thing I ever knew that I wanted to do most of my life was be a wife and a mom. And I laid on the table during that process asking the Lord to please forgive me. And it drove another nail in the coffin. So um I ended up leaving um Wisconsin and moving to uh Kansas City through a Yellow Page, independent Yellow Page advertising company. And the company went under in the first few months that I was here. And my next door neighbor, who was a sweetheart, she was a dancer in a in a a strip club. And I had bartended. I started bartending when I was 18. Um, because that was the legal age back then. Um so she said, hey, you can ride with me and you can see if they have bartenders, bartending positions. And so I went there and they looked at me and they're like, no, we don't have any bartending. I was like, waitress, I'll do waitress. No, we don't have that either. You dance or not. And I was like, no, and I left. But then I went back and I said, fine, I'll dance. Because that's what I felt like I was worthy of. And then when I started doing that, I realized I had severe hatred for men. And I had this mentality of I'm gonna use you and take your money, is what my mentality was when there was no kind of prostitution, or uh I guess you technically you could say that's prostitution, but there was no sex transactions. Um I did that for seven years and I went to college, put myself through college, and then um found work at a um well before I did that. Before I I had finished college, wasn't strong enough in my self. What's the word I'm looking for? I had low self-esteem. So I wasn't strong enough to go find a position anywhere. What did you get your degree in? Um, business administration. Okay. So um I continued doing what I was doing. I made really, really good money and I I lived, I had a nice little sports car, I had a nice apartment, you know, just all these things that my life outside of work was nothing at all like my life was at work. But one day I went to work and everybody knew Denise doesn't drink. If somebody's buying her a drink, they know it'll look like a drink, but it's not a drink. But this particular day, I don't know why. I just I was I was downing shots all day long, and my bartender, she was like, Denise, what's going on? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. And when I left that night, I was really, really toasty. And um, there was this highway on my way home that you could easily just go straight and it would take you straight off the highway right into this massive wall of rock. And that's what I decided I was gonna do. And I had my my needle pinned on my car, and the Holy Spirit said, You don't want to do this, and I was like, and I knew it was the Holy Spirit, and I was like, Yeah, I do said it again. You don't want to do this, and I was emphatic the next time, and right at the last minute, he's he yelled at me and I turned and I was like fine, and I got home and I threw stuff. I threw a glass so hard that it went through vinyl blinds and and totally busted out a um double-pane sliding glass door. And I just said, What do you want from me? I really want to know what you want from me. And I was yelling and I was ranting and I was raving because really I was angry at God. He let me down. He didn't he didn't come to my rescue when everything came out, you know. He didn't he didn't protect me from that horrendous person. He didn't he didn't intervene. Like everybody says that he should, right? And then I threw myself on the sofa and as soon as I was quiet, he said, I just want you. And I cried myself to sleep. The next morning I woke up. I said, fine, but I have to go to work. I have bills to pay. And I went to work. And I worked probably a few hours, and it was all girls on stage. And my best friend there, she said, What's going on with you? And I was like, I think I'm quitting. She's like, Why? I said, I think I'm going back to the church. And she said, Denise, you don't have to leave here just to go back to church. And I was like, I think I do. So when the song was over, I went down to the office and I looked at my boss and I was like, I think I'm quitting. And he's like, You think you're quitting? Are you not sure? And I was like, No, I think I'm quitting. He's like, So, like, are you putting in your two weeks notice? What's going on? And I was like, No, I think I'm leaving right now. And he's like, Denise, I don't know what's going on, but just know. Whenever you want to come back, the door's always open. And I said, I don't think I'm gonna be coming back. But thanks. And I cleared out my locker and I left.
SPEAKER_01:Seven years. Seven years.
SPEAKER_02:That is crazy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And you heard from the Lord.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. What was your during all those seven years? What was the dynamic like between you and your family? Was it completely like you guys didn't talk, or was it No, my mom and dad, they ended up splitting up.
SPEAKER_02:Um, my mom, who was very legalistic, um, she came to know the Lord when I was three because of my grandparents, okay, my dad's mom and dad. And she just had to live to the letter of the law, and she required me to be perfect. I was never allowed to um speak my mind. I was never allowed to um disrespect my elders.
SPEAKER_03:Which probably played a role in a very big role. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. I was thinking that earlier when you said people are asking you, why didn't you speak up? Well, the fact alone that he's like an adult, you know, you're always taught to respect your elders and you know, the adult's right, you're wrong, you know.
SPEAKER_02:And there were a couple of times as a little girl, um, we had lived in this apartment. And I had to walk, it was I was in kindergarten or Head Start school back then. I would get off the bus and I'd have to pass this garage that was always abandoned. And there was always these two little boys that would um pull me in there and tell me they weren't gonna let me pass unless I pulled my pants down. Well, I wouldn't do that. I would, I would run or I would scream or something. Um, my number 11 of the 12 kids um lived in the apartment next to us. Um my aunt and uncle. And my cousin uh was outside one day and she was gonna get in this tent with these two little boys. They had a tent out in the backyard, and I was like, Kathy, don't get in the tent with them because they're gonna make you take your clothes off. Well, my dad heard me and he pulled me in the house, and I got a spanking.
SPEAKER_01:Just for saying that.
SPEAKER_02:Just for saying that.
SPEAKER_01:He didn't ask you. Why'd you say that? What makes you think that?
SPEAKER_02:Right. Um, so there were several different things that just solidified that you don't you don't say. Yeah, you don't speak up. Yeah. Yeah. So after I left that day, the Holy Spirit told me to go to this one church that I had thought all along was a Catholic church. It had this big stained glass window. And I went there, it's it was assembly of God. I thought, oh, that's funny because the church I grew up in started out as Pentecostal, but then turned into Assembly of God. So, you know, it's doctrine that I understood and knew.
SPEAKER_01:And very not Catholic.
SPEAKER_02:Very not Catholic for sure.
SPEAKER_01:We get no Catholic churches in Snowbird. We get some assemblies of God churches. We get no Catholic churches.
SPEAKER_02:And let me tell you, the church I grew up in, they were holy rollers.
SPEAKER_01:They had a good time.
SPEAKER_02:They had a good time. Um so I went to that church and I spilled my story. I just told them this is what's happening. I just left. Um I'm telling you, everybody just wrapped themselves around me and drew me in and made me a part of the church there.
SPEAKER_01:You told them your story.
SPEAKER_02:I did. I was like, I am not going to hide. I just yeah, I can't not let people know who I am and where I came from because that's just like going back. And I didn't want to do that. Yeah. So and the Lord used that church to really raise me up from a lot of belief systems that were destructive in my life. So that's the majority of my story.
SPEAKER_01:How'd you meet Todd? Wasn't that at church?
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, is y'all lived in the same apartment complex?
SPEAKER_02:Wow. He had just moved in. I um knew the management. They knew that I was on the steering committee for the singles at at the church I went to.
SPEAKER_01:So after you had started going to this church, I had been there a couple years.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So wow.
SPEAKER_01:And what did you do? Um I'm sorry, what did you do for work after you quit your career?
SPEAKER_02:I um went to work for a major cardio cardiology um clinic at St. Luke's in Kansas City.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And then so a couple years after you're plugged into this church, the Lord's at this point, he's really been doing a r restorative work, restorative work in your heart.
SPEAKER_02:And absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:And you're growing and being built up and strengthened in your faith and just the power of discipleship and a relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_02:And yes.
SPEAKER_01:And then you meet him.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Um he's five years younger than I am.
SPEAKER_03:Ain't nothing wrong with that. Ain't nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_02:He just moved into the apartments when we met. Um he uh asked management, he wasn't from that area. He was from about two hours north of Kansas City. And he asked management, hey, do you know of any churches here that have people more my age? And um, she said, Well, yeah, one of the tenants, she actually, I'll have her, I'll introduce you guys. And so next time I saw her, she was like, Are you gonna be around um Halloween? And I was like, I mean, during the day, after I get off of work, maybe, but I have a function at the church. She said, Do you think you can stop by later? And I said, Well, if you guys are still open, yeah. They were having a party. And Todd was gonna be there. And so when I got home, the lights were still on, and so I stopped in, and he she introduced us. He had been drinking quite a bit and really finding humor in all his off-humor, off, off-color jokes.
SPEAKER_01:He was proud of himself, he liked his own material, yes.
SPEAKER_02:His jeans, the butt were hanging out.
SPEAKER_01:He was a hot mess.
SPEAKER_02:He was a mess. And I was like, this boy needs church. I'm gonna not gonna lie. Um, that's how we met. And we didn't like each other at all. Of course, that's funny. And then uh friendship just kind of started. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and the Lord does what he does, he does what he does.
SPEAKER_02:It's really funny because just before that, you know, I had not had relationships. Um I didn't have a desire. But this one night I came home from an event we had at the church, and I sat down in my chair, and my cat jumped into my lap, and I wrapped my arms around her, and just all of a sudden, my heart just started pouring out. I was crying. I was like, Lord, I can't do this. I I don't want to be alone. And I started naming off all these things that I wanted in the person of my mate. And I laugh, Todd and I joke all the time. Todd says, Well, she forgot to ask for the thing, ask to omit the things that she didn't want.
SPEAKER_01:I got everything I wanted, but more a few extra.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. If you don't want to talk about this, this is fine. But if you do, I think it would be super helpful because I have a lot of conversations with a lot of girls that maybe have had a past like similar to yours or even had an addiction or whatever that looks like. And I always tell them, you know, this sin unfortunately is gonna affect you for the rest of your life. And so if you could, could you talk about you know how you kind of went about that in your marriage with Todd? And if you don't want to talk about it, that's completely fine. Oh, I think it's a really good subject to talk about. Because I think sometimes we'll deal with a sin and then be like, okay, I submitted it to the Lord, we can move on. But sin wrecks your life, and a lot of these sins, as we know, have consequences and effects. And like you were saying, if you let it, it'll be the devil's playground to get inside of you and wreck you and isolate you. And so I think it would be helpful if you could talk about that specifically in like a relationship and a marriage aspect of how those things might have affected you, but also how you dealt with those things and you know brought them to the Lord. Yeah, I would like to talk about that.
SPEAKER_02:But can we take a break for a minute? Yes, of course.
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