October 19, 2025 • 45 mins
A life can harden long before it ends. Stephen grew up in chaos, violence at home, abandonment, and abuse, then stumbled into his own storm of crime, grief, and addiction. Facing a possible 30-year sentence, he met a pastor whose quiet authority and lived joy cracked something open. What followed wasn’t a neat turnaround; it was a rugged apprenticeship to grace that reshaped how he saw God, himself, and the people who had wounded him.
We walk through the moments that mattered: the courtroom mercy that no one expected, the late-night wrestle with Scripture that reframed God as a loving Father, and the hard, practical work of forgiveness. Stephen explains why forgiveness is a choice rather than a feeling, and how aiming anger at the real enemy can keep a heart from calcifying. He shares the “taproot” model he uses in counseling - naming root wounds, tracing their bitter fruit, and cutting unforgiveness at its source so new fruit can grow. He also opens up about reconciling with his father and the tender strength required to forgive abusers while still holding wise boundaries.
If you’ve ever felt trapped by your past, scanning every room for danger, this conversation offers a way forward. You’ll hear clear steps you can apply today: write the letter, pray for the one who harmed you, forgive again when anger resurfaces, and let trusted community hold your story without judgment. The result isn’t denial—it’s freedom. Share with someone who needs hope, and leave a review to let us know: what’s one root you’re ready to face this week?
Katie Hauck’s interview:
https://youtu.be/wdemK7h2APM?si=NToEamNJi6fo-400
https://generationstogenerations.com/podcast
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nancy Bruscher (00:00):
Hi, I'm Nancy Brucher, the host of Ordinary
People Extraordinary Things,where we tell stories of faith
and hope from ordinary peoplejust like you.
If you have a story to tell, orif you know someone who has a
story, please contact us throughGenerations Two Generations.
Generations is plural and twois TO.
As we're recording, I'm gettingready for my book launch party,
(00:23):
and I'm so excited to celebratethis big milestone.
The Legacy Heirloom Journal isavailable on Amazon and it helps
guide you through sharing yourheirlooms so that the stories
are passed down to the nextgeneration.
As you listen to Steven's storytoday, I pray that it becomes
more than just a story, that itimpacts you to forgive yourself
(00:44):
and to forgive others.
If you find it helpful, don'tforget to share.
Welcome to Ordinary PeopleExtraordinary Things.
I'm so excited to have Stevenon.
Steven, thanks for being on thepodcast.
Stephen Dees (00:56):
Thank you for inviting me.
I appreciate this.
I'm excited too.
Amen.
Nancy Bruscher (01:00):
And Katie Hawk was the one who got us together.
And you're in Tennessee, andyou said it's just a beautiful
day there today.
Stephen Dees (01:08):
It is a very beautiful day.
And to speak about Miss Katie,a wonderful, wonderful friend, a
beautiful person.
She's doing great and mightythings in the kingdom too.
This is awesome.
It's a good kingdom connection.
Yes, ma'am.
Nancy Bruscher (01:20):
Yeah, I'll link the podcast if you by chance
haven't heard that one.
That's a pretty powerful one aswell.
But Steven, if people don'tknow who you are, can you give
three words or phrases todescribe yourself?
Stephen Dees (01:31):
Passionate, one word, bold, two word, and
someone who desires to see otherother broken people healed, uh,
to see them come to theknowledge of who Jesus Christ
is.
Nancy Bruscher (01:41):
Oh, good.
Yes.
And you do that through kind oftelling your story and in
ministry.
Can you kind of explain alittle bit about that?
Stephen Dees (01:50):
But this started, it started off with telling my
testimony, but then uh I wentthrough a program.
And through that program, Igraduated, went out and worked
in the world for a year.
The pastor called me back in tobe a pastoral counselor.
So I ended up being a pastoralcounselor and teaching, and it
was my way of giving back, ofhelping people out of jails and
prisons and off the streets andwho are on drugs and alcohol to
(02:11):
live a fruitful life.
And it's very fulfilling.
Nancy Bruscher (02:15):
And that's that's part of your story,
right?
Stephen Dees (02:19):
It is very much so.
Nancy Bruscher (02:20):
And we're going to talk about forgiveness today.
And I'm so excited because Iloved when we got to talk
earlier and just kind of yourpoints on forgiveness.
And it was a little bit more,or I don't know, different.
I don't know if I want to saythat correctly, but then I'm
mostly here.
So I'm super excited to haveour listeners hear that because
(02:42):
what I'm thinking is um I wantyou to get a little bit into
your story and like how you cameto be able to take God's
forgiveness that He's given you,but then also what did that
mean to forgive others?
And without just getting intoyour story too much, and I want
you to tell it, is there werethings that you really like if
(03:04):
the world would say it, youshouldn't have forgiven them,
right?
Stephen Dees (03:07):
And correct.
Nancy Bruscher (03:08):
Um, yeah, correct.
Stephen Dees (03:10):
According to world standards, um, a lot of the
stuff that I went to, peoplehold on to that till they go to
the grave.
God's giving me some grace, andso he's taught me how to have
grace on other people.
Yeah, yes, ma'am.
Nancy Bruscher (03:23):
Well, can you tell us a little bit about um
what brought you to Jesus, whereyou were before you found
Jesus, and then you know, we'llget into like how you really
found this forgiveness and whatthat means to you.
Stephen Dees (03:36):
Yes, ma'am.
So born into a dysfunctionalfamily, born with uh uh uh a
family that was a lot ofviolence and already addiction
in the family.
My earliest memories are ofviolence of my real father
hurting my mother, uh, alcohol,drugs in the house.
And I'm talking about it at avery young age.
I mean, by the time I was fiveyears old, I don't remember dad
being in the picture at all.
(03:57):
Probably from three years olduntil five, he was in and out.
And my mom tried to raise us onour own.
We ended up moving in with herfather, but she was so addicted
to drugs and alcohol that sheended up leaving us three
children with the grandfather.
He had his own addictions andsicknesses, and we ended up
being brought out that homebecause of the sexual abuse that
was going on and flown out toCalifornia.
(04:19):
And there again, my grandmotherhad married somebody who had a
very sick addiction.
And uh, we were flown back toOhio quickly.
Uh mom, three days before sheleft us children, she had OD'd.
Uh, we had a bedroom where shewas in the middle of the bedroom
on a mattress, and we had abunk bed against the wall.
And I was on the top bunk, andI could hear my mom breathing
(04:39):
erratically.
So I got off the bunk to gocheck on her.
And she got mad and angry atme, made me get back on the
bunk.
And that happened two or threetimes.
The last time that I checked onher, she was non-responsive.
So I went and got mygrandfather.
Uh, they called the hamlets,they came.
And here I was, five-year-oldchild sitting on this bed on the
bottom bed, watching them workon my mom.
They were doing CPR on her andthey had this big bag on her
(05:01):
mouth, blowing air into herlungs.
And they took her to thehospital, whisked her away, took
her to the hospital.
And as a child, you don't knowhow to identify what you're
feeling.
You know, I couldn't sit thereand tell you, hey, I'm scared my
mom's never coming back.
Because I really don't knowwhat's going on at the moment,
right?
And so I can't tell you thesethings.
So I had a bunch of emotionsand feelings that I didn't know
(05:23):
how to identify or to speakabout.
So my mom came home three dayslater.
She was okay.
But when she came into thedoor, me and my sisters were
very glad to see her.
We were glad she was home.
And she said it was never goingto happen again.
That night, my grandfatherstayed up all night to make sure
she didn't leave the apartment.
And that night she ended upleaving out the window.
And I didn't see her againuntil I was 11 or 12 years old.
(05:43):
Now, fast forward, we went, uh,there was some sexual abuse in
the family.
We went to California to livewith her mother.
There was some sexual abusethat happened there.
We were flown back to Ohio.
Uh, the man that my mother was,my grandmother was living with
had took pictures of me and myleft.
Me and my sister are what wecall Irish twins.
We're 11 months apart.
unknown (06:04):
Yeah.
Stephen Dees (06:05):
And uh he he had taken some pictures of us that
were inappropriate on numerousoccasions, and the police got
involved.
And so we were flown back toOhio, put into an orphanage.
And from the orphanage, we gotadopted, or we didn't get
adopted out, but we got put inthe same home.
And I really do appreciate thefact that we were in this home.
I mean, as far as being safe, Idon't know why, but me and the
(06:28):
the foster mom didn't get alongvery well.
There was just one incidentafter another, after another.
My sisters got along with herreally well.
My dad came back in thepicture.
Long story short, my realfather ended up taking my two
sisters, and I decided to stay.
Well, I went to move in withhim down there, but I got in no
trouble that I didn't want tostay.
So they moved me back to Ohioand I went into another
orphanage called St.
(06:48):
Joe's orphanage in Cincinnati,Ohio.
Uh really nice place, uh,probably the safest place I've
ever been as a child.
Then that's when my mother cameback into the picture.
The story of my mother comingback was it was a phenomenal
story.
And I kind of set it up likethis because it was one letdown
after another with my mother.
Like when she when she did whatshe did when I was five years
old, here she came back, and Ifelt like my whole world was
(07:11):
coming back together again andeverything was going to be okay.
And she did jump through allthe hoops to get me out of the
workniche, but she had brought aman into our lives that was a
uh he had he had some issues.
After a while being in thehome, the mask came off.
There was a lot of violence,there was a lot of uh drinking,
there was a lot of drugs, and heused to beat on my mom pretty
bad.
And one night he had beat herup really bad, and he had left
(07:36):
the trail or the mobile home.
And when he had uh he left themobile home and my mom was
crying and telling me to go gethim, tell her to come back, tell
him to come back home that I'msorry.
I was angry and I was mad.
I asked, how could you be thereason that he done this to you?
He's the one that hurt you.
You haven't done anythingwrong.
And then I didn't know how toreally help my mother other than
(07:57):
go get the man.
All right, go find out where hewas at.
And when I found him, he wasgetting drunk with a friend in
the neighborhood, and theyinvited me in, and it was the
first time I ever really gotdrunk.
He had slapped me in front ofthe man and the uh the friend,
and things got really kind ofanxiety and stuff.
So he had made us leave.
And this man sexually assaultedme, coming back to the house.
(08:18):
He threatened to kill my momand my stepsister if I ever told
anybody.
I believed him.
I've seen the violence, I'veseen what he's done, I knew how
what he was capable of.
He called himself teaching mehow to box.
You know, he was 6'4, 240.
You know, I was this littlekid, and we'd put boxing gloves
on, and he hit me so hard itwould knock me out, and I'd have
(08:38):
headaches for three or fourdays.
So believing that he could hurtmy mother and my stepsister
that way, I believed him.
So out of anger, there wasnothing else I could do.
Really, I was gonna run awayone day, skip school, and I
ended up burning down the housewe were living in.
And that kind of got that wasmy first felony.
I got caught, did three yearsin juvenile, and did really good
(09:02):
in juvenile as far as gettingmy GED, progressing in the way
of getting my education.
And then when I was 16, Istarted working, and then they
wanted me to go back to the samehome where my mom and them
were, and I just didn't, Ididn't feel like that would be
safe for me.
So I ran.
So for a year and a half, I wason my own living in Ohio.
Two months after my 18thbirthday, I really made a really
(09:23):
stupid mistake and ended upgetting five, no less than five
years and no many, no more than25 years times three in Ohio.
So I had a really 25-yearsentence.
My max out date was April 2013.
Nancy Bruscher (09:36):
Can you tell me what that was for?
Stephen Dees (09:37):
Yes, it was for aggravated burglary, aggravated
robbery, and kidnapping.
Um, I was actually drinking ina bar in the back of a bar one
night.
Um, we actually was pretty goodat it.
So I could hustle a little bitof money, hustle a little bit of
beer, and and there was sometalk about where there was some
money at, and it got myattention.
They said nobody would be home,then what set it up to happen.
(09:59):
I went up there and there wastwo people home.
By that time, we were so farinto it that we couldn't back
out, and I really hated myselffor that and uh ended up going
to prison.
I actually did six years, ninemonths, got out, and that was
the mid-90s, early or 94, 95,when I kicked off parole and got
(10:19):
a girlfriend.
She wanted to go to Lee Collegedown in Cleveland, Tennessee,
and I followed her.
And we didn't stay togetherlong, but there was another girl
that I met down there, she gotpregnant.
I've never had any childrenbefore, and I thought, man, this
is it.
You know, this is this is gonnabe great, everything's gonna be
fine.
I went to welding school, gotmy welding certificate, got a
(10:40):
really good job, moved down toCalhoun, Georgia.
I worked night shift, and man,uh, we had a mobile home on some
land.
I really felt really good aboutdirection, and everything was
going.
And uh, I get paid onThursdays.
So we'd go to uh Kmart backthen and we put stuff in
layaway, take stuff out oflayaway, her baby bed, and put
pictures on the wall, do all thethings, you know.
(11:01):
I really thought everything wasgonna be okay.
She was born on March 14th andshe only lived five weeks and
she passed away on her bed fromSIDS.
And when she passed away, mywhole world crashed again.
So for a whole year, I pouredinto work and I could work 16
hour days, and it just didn'tbother me.
It was my way of coping.
But somebody and while I wasthere, somebody introduced me to
(11:23):
methamphetamine.
And when I got introduced tomethamphetamine, that killed
every pain I had spiritually,physically, and emotionally.
Took me down another long road.
Uh, the same woman pregnantagain.
And by the time my son wasborn, I was in full-blown
addiction, and I walked awayfrom both of them.
My addiction took me to uhbeing a red phosphorus cook,
which is methamphetamine.
(11:44):
And I thought that, I mean, Iwas so addicted to the drugs, I
was so addicted to the cooking,I was so addicted to the
lifestyle that making money wasa byproduct of just what I
really had an addiction to.
It's like I didn't want to liveanymore.
So I just was really fast andhard.
In 2010, I found myself in PolkCounty, Florida jail.
(12:05):
And I'd been in jail for two orthree years, and between the
time that I was a meth cookedfrom different things from
assault, never got caught withany, never got caught for
manufacturing, but it was alwaysthe aftermath or the arguments
in between or whatever.
But in 2010, I found myself ina Polk County, Florida jail for
aggravated assault and deadlyweapon times two.
I'd been with a girl for sixyears, came home, some things
(12:27):
were happening, and I just lostit and ended up in jail when
they caught me 14 days later.
And they weren't gonna chargeme with aggravated assault and
deadly weapon times two atfirst.
I was just charged with uhbeing on the run and having a
warrant out of Tennessee.
And then I went to see mylawyer, and they had all this
(12:48):
other paperwork and they had arestraining order, they had
these statements that said I hada knife in one hand, a pair of
pliers in the other, and thenthey had the pictures of the two
people I beat up pretty bad.
I couldn't believe I wasgetting ready to face 30 years
in prison.
It was aggravate, it's uhautomatic 15 years apiece.
And my lawyer told me that we'dbe lucky to get it run uh
concurrent because of myaggravated burglar robbery
(13:09):
charges when I was a child orwhen I was 18.
So I said I'd probably get itrun consecutive, which is a
30-year sentence.
And I went back to my cell thatday, pretty broken, couldn't
see no light, didn't have nohope.
Wasn't the back of the cell.
I was crying, reading thestatements, and I looked over in
the mirror and I'd becomeeverything I said that I never
would.
Somebody invited me to churchthat night.
(13:29):
And I went to church thatnight.
I kind of expected the pastorto beat me down and leave there
feeling guilty and rotten forthings that I've done because I
know I deserved it.
I kind of guess it's going forpunishment, you know, because
y'all, you better turn or burn,you know, you better repent,
you're gonna go to hell.
Those are the things I kepthearing, you know.
(13:51):
I went in there and this mancame into the room.
He's a little short guy,probably about five, six, five,
seven.
But he was 10 foot tall in thespiritual realm.
When he walked in there, man,he had this confidence, he had
this peace, he had this joy, buthe had this walk too.
And I could tell that he hadbeen some of the places we had
been.
And then he starts telling thistestimony about living on the
(14:12):
streets, the places that he'sbeen, the hell that he lived in.
He talked about Jesus Christcoming and how Jesus Christ came
from heaven down to earth, andhe he lived a sinless life, and
uh he was the ultimate sacrificefor our sins, so I don't have
to live in hell anymore.
And that got me.
That was the hook because I wasliving in hell, and I knew I
(14:34):
couldn't face this 30 yearswithout him, without something.
And there was hope in himbecause I seen the hope in him
in the man that was preachingthe gospel.
I was like, Man, that's hope.
So I asked the Lord to comeinto my life that night.
The pastor, there's probably 40of us in the room.
Pastor walked up to me and hesaid, Son, he said, I'm taking
(14:54):
the prayer requests.
He asked us to write down thesetwo prayer requests, and I
wrote them down.
He said, I'm taking these homeand give them to my wife.
She's gonna be on her knees onher bed tonight, praying over
these.
And he said, I want you toexpect something to happen.
And the only thing I wrote onthere was two things.
I wrote, Lord, if the twopeople that I beat up, I'd put
their names on there.
(15:15):
I said, Lord, if they're gonnabe together, man, at least let
her get off dope.
And then the second one was,Lord, have mercy on my case.
A week later, I went to go callmy lawyer, and she had told me
that all my charges had beendropped down to misdemeanors.
I knew that was the Lord.
It was nobody can tell meanything different.
(15:35):
The Lord worked in that becauseI've never had that kind of
luck.
Nothing's ever been that goodfor me in the courtrooms.
I've had a record, and uh Iwent from 30 years in prison to
doing a little bit close to ayear, half a year, and then had
to go to Tampa to do some time,and then I went to Tennessee to
do some time, ended up doinganother 18 months in Tennessee.
In 2013, I got out of prisonand went into a program for 18
(15:59):
months or for 18 months of truepurpose, and uh it's a program
in uh Maribelville, Tennessee, aChrist-centered faith-based
program.
And it was there that Ideveloped a relationship with
the Father.
You know, Jesus came toreconcile us to the Father.
Understanding that I invitedJesus Christ to my life, and
(16:20):
John 1.1 says in the beginningwas the word, the word is God,
the word was God.
John 1 14 says the word becameflesh and dwelt among us.
I understood that Jesus Christwas the word, he was the written
word, he walked among us, nowhe's at the right hand of the
father.
And so, in order for me to getto know him, I had to read the
word.
Okay, so I had that part down.
But what I didn't have was arelationship with the Father,
(16:41):
right?
Because that's what he broughtus to do.
And my idea of who Father Godwas was built on the way that I
was raised (16:49):
judges, uh, counselors, staff members at
homes.
And so when you did somethingwrong, you were you were uh
punished for it.
And so John chapter 1, verse 29says that Jesus Christ is the
Lamb of God, and here I amreading all of John 1, studying
it, him being the light, goingall the way back to Genesis in
(17:10):
the beginning, because he was inthe beginning, and I seen it
all the way through there, andthen John chapter 1, verse 29
talked about him being the Lambof God, and I didn't have any
idea what that was.
So I went all the way back toExodus 12 and I started studying
now, and it was about the lapthe lamb that was sacrificed and
the blood was put on the doorjam.
So when the angel of death camein, right, it would it would
(17:33):
save the people from havingtheir firstborn killed, all the
firstborn of the Egyptians, allthe firstborn of the livestock.
Well, God spoke to me throughthat, and he said, and this is
how I got to know one of thecharacteristics of the father,
being a loving, caring father,was that he allowed the innocent
blood of the lamb to be slain,put it on the door frame.
And the only thing he had toldhim, well, he told him two
things that stuck out.
(17:54):
One was, don't come out fromunderneath the covering of the
blood.
And here I was, I thought Godwas the one that punished me for
the things that I did wrong.
And what I found out, it was meopening myself up for the world
to read havoc in my life.
He provided a way forprotection from that, and that's
with the innocent blood of theLamb.
Well, that was Jesus Christ.
So I got that, I got that.
(18:16):
It was like a revelation thatwent off.
Like, man, I've been seeing Godwrong.
I've been seeing Father God asa judge in the whole time.
He's this loving father who waswilling to allow his son to be
sacrificed.
So the angel of death can'twreak havoc in my life anymore.
Got that.
But the one that stuck outother than that was eat all the
lamb, right?
You had to eat all the lamb inthe Passover dinner.
(18:36):
You had to eat all the lamb,even the entrails, the things
that don't taste good.
And sometimes you can read theword of God and it reveals
something inside of you.
It's like, wait a minute, Ireally don't want to apply that.
I kind of like what I'm saying.
Nancy Bruscher (18:49):
Yeah, I resonate with that, right?
Stephen Dees (18:51):
Like, we're gonna digest that, you know, we don't
want to think about that toomuch.
So that was so what you got wasa uh a time of uh from my
childhood all the way up tocoming to the knowledge who
Jesus Christ was, developing arelationship with the Father,
being empowered by the HolySpirit to live out a Christ-like
life.
And uh today I'm a counselor,uh, I've got a beautiful wife,
(19:14):
I've got a beautiful home, I gota career.
Those are things I never hadbefore, never thought I could
have.
And uh, because of the power ofGod, or because of God in my
life, that's why I'm here today.
So forgiveness.
Nancy Bruscher (19:28):
Oh, yeah.
I just wanted to say, Stephen,like, thank you for sharing
because I'm I'm I'm herelistening to it, and I hear
awful, awful, awful things thathappen to you.
And for you to share that withus, I'm sure brings up memories
and you know and feelings, andthen also you being willing to
(19:51):
be honest with people you haveno idea who are going to listen
to this on the things that youdid wrong and the mistakes that
you made.
And I just I just want to thankyou, first of all, for even
sharing this part of your storybecause it it takes a lot of it
takes a lot to to do what youjust did.
So thank you for that.
Stephen Dees (20:12):
My hope and prayer is that the people that hear
this they hear the power of Godin the story.
Because no matter how faryou've been or what you've done
in life, God loves you.
He can do more with your lifethan you can.
It's not a story where I camefrom and the things that
happened to me.
It's God taking what the enemymeant for destruction and
(20:34):
turning it around for his glory.
He's gonna take a life that wasbroken, like like my life that
was broken by the word of thetestimony and the blood of the
lamb.
If he could take what thebrokenness happened in my life
and he could turn it around forwhat I'm doing today, that's a
powerful story, but it's not apowerful story of Stephen D's.
It's a powerful story of ourFather in heaven.
Nancy Bruscher (20:52):
Yes, yes, yeah.
So, how was it easy ordifficult for you to first uh
find forgiveness from God?
Stephen Dees (21:02):
Yes, yes, and then yes, yes, yes, yes.
It was easier for me tounderstand and offer forgiveness
for others than it was for meat times to receive that Father
God had forgiven me for thethings I've done.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Right.
Stephen Dees (21:16):
So, you know, I lived in a place of trying to
always play a pay a penance typeof lifestyle, you know, the
slave mentality.
After doing that for a longtime, you know, God would just
bring you into a place to whereyou He wants you to receive His
forgiveness and His love so thatyou can live in the fullness of
who you created to be.
It says in Hebrews chapter 12,verse 1 says, Lay aside every
weight and sin that these setyou from the race that you're
(21:38):
running.
Well, for unforgiveness towardsyourself can hinder you from
being everything God created youto be.
But it was easier for me toforgive others.
Like forgiving my mom startedin prison.
It didn't start at true purposeministries, it started in
prison in 2013.
They called me to thechaplain's office and tell me
she had passed away.
Let's just say this.
I knew that she had done somethings that had caused my life
(22:01):
to be hard when I was younger.
She made some really badchoices.
I was angry with her.
Okay.
I was mad.
I didn't understand why shedidn't love me.
And of course, you always hearthe voices.
Well, if you were a betterperson or a better son, or if
you'd have done this, or ifyou'd have done that.
You always blame yourself forthe re for the things that had
happened.
I was laying there in my cellin my bed in prison after the
(22:22):
after I'd come back from thechaplain's office and told me
she had passed away.
And she actually passed awayfrom complications of her drug
use of having hepatitis C thatturned into some liver stuff
that that's what she ended uppassing away from.
She had straightened her lifeup at the end.
She got her nursing degree.
They had to take her off thefloor, which she loved to do,
and they had to put her an adminbecause she did have hepatitis
C, and there wasn't a cure forit then like there is now.
(22:45):
But as I'm laying there in thatbed and I think about her dad,
I think about her mother, Ithink about the stories that
I've heard from you knowdifferent family members and the
things that happened to her.
And I know how she was treatedby my real father, I know how
she was treated by mystepfather, and I know the
things that happened.
Heart started breaking for her.
She never really experiencedanything good in her life,
(23:07):
neither.
All of a sudden, this gracestarts coming in.
I started just praying for mymom.
That's where the forgivenessfrom my mother started.
And then, of course, readingthe word of God, you read
scriptures like Luke 23, 34,Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do, becauseyou understand that the enemy
was working through them, right?
Colossians 3:13, bear with eachother and forgive one another.
(23:28):
If any of you have grievanceagainst someone, forgive us the
Lord has forgiven you.
But this is the one that reallygot me.
Matthew 6, 14 through 15.
For if you forgive other peoplewhen they sin against you, your
heavenly father will alsoforgive you.
But if you do not forgiveothers their sins, your father
will not forgive you your sins.
That's a powerful statement.
(23:49):
I don't know.
Right, we want to gloss over.
We don't really want to.
Yeah.
Because forgiveness doesn'tfeel good.
And I believe that my part mypart of my process was when I
went from prison into theprogram, was learning that
forgiveness wasn't a feeling,that it was a choice.
(24:10):
You know, we talk about mystepfather.
You talk about the man who whosexually assaulted me as a young
man, as a young child.
He was an alcoholic.
He was a drug addict.
The enemy was working throughhim.
There was a man that left a gunat our home because he went to
the Navy and he lived in theneighborhood and didn't want his
family to steal the gun.
(24:31):
And I would think about goingin there and using that gun to
end this man's life.
Maybe he couldn't hurt my mom,and then he couldn't hurt my
stepsister, and then he couldn'thurt me no more.
That was my thought process.
And then the day that it camewhere I had an opportunity to do
that, he was drunk in there inthe waterbed and I couldn't do
it.
I couldn't do it.
And I felt so weak.
I felt like a punk.
(24:52):
And I would call myself namesbecause I couldn't find myself
to go in there and do and endthis.
And so in my anger, I ended upburning down the house, catching
the felony.
And so I carried this angerwith me for many years.
This and it was all rooted inunforgiveness towards other
people, but a lot was towardshim.
It was so bad that when I wasin prison and juvenile or when I
(25:13):
was in jail or even on thestreets, if we found somebody
who had committed a crime likethat, we would think it was our
God-given right to hurt them, topunish them, poison them, to
torment them.
Those were the things that theywould have to go through while
they were in prison.
And so, and I didn't feelguilty about it.
But then again, I didn't knowthe Lord didn't either.
You know, I was just taking outwhat happened to me on them in
(25:35):
a different way, making them payfor what he'd done.
When I read this scripture whenI was at True Purpose
Ministries, I wanted to beforgiven for the things I've
done.
So I look back on the thingsI've done in my addiction.
I look at the things that I didwhen I hurt those people, I
look at the things I did when Iwas 18 years old and scared
those people to death.
And I felt really terrible andreally bad for the things I've
done.
And I can see myself beforeFather God, and I wanted to be
(26:00):
forgiven.
And he's telling me now that inorder for me to be forgiven, I
got to forgive myself, Father.
And I argued with him.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I did.
Stephen Dees (26:08):
I was like, there's no way in this world you
want this guy to be forgiven.
He was plain, Stephen.
I died for everyone.
In order for me to do this, Ihad to make a choice.
Okay, God, I want to be in yourwill more than I do my own
will.
So today I decided making achoice to forgive him.
I told my counselor about it.
He made me write some lettersto him because we knew the
address, and I still know theaddress, the telephone number
(26:30):
today because of the just the,and it was for the wrong reasons
that I knew them.
But here I am.
I'd write these letters and mycounselor would go over them.
And he was like, No, we're notsending that one.
No, we're not ready yet.
And it was a process to get toa point to where we actually
sent a letter.
(26:51):
Uh, actually sent two, wrotethree, was wanting to send a
third one, and my counselor cameand said, Man, I feel like
we've been released.
We've done everything we can.
There's no reason to setyourself up.
If he's not going to berecipient of this, then he's
just not in a place to and so Ilet it go.
But does that mean that I don'tpick it back up sometimes?
Right?
(27:12):
If I see a child hurt or if Ilook at a TV show and a kid's
been molested or sexuallyassaulted, that anger comes back
up, right?
And it's like, well, where'dthat anger come from, Stephen?
Well, it came because of whathappened to you.
You chose to forgive him,remember?
And so my pastor had to call meinto the office one day, and he
really helped me with it.
(27:32):
He said, Stephen, you got tounderstand you got to quit
looking at the person.
It was the enemy through himthat came in and hurt you.
It wasn't him, it was the enemythrough him.
Now, he had allowed that tohappen, but you get angry at the
enemy, and that will help youin your forgiveness.
So I just started getting angryat the enemy instead of you
know, because the enemy isspiritual.
The battles that we fight arespiritual, it's not physical.
(27:54):
That helped me off.
Help you 100%.
It really did.
It helped me get my focus offthe man and onto the enemy.
Nancy Bruscher (28:03):
Did you ever hear anything from your no?
Stephen Dees (28:06):
No.
So I thought that you know, Iwalked out this forgiveness and
doing very well with this.
And then one day I was bitingat the bit to speak.
I love to preach, I love toteach.
And now listen, I was neverlike that in the world.
Okay, I was more of anintrovert than I was an
extrovert.
You know what I mean?
I'd like to be go do my thing,stay away from me.
It's my kind of life.
I went and told my testimonyfor the first time at a church,
(28:29):
and they put it on YouTube, andI told the name of this man and
his family up in Ohio seen it.
And man, it just totally wasWorld War III with them.
My sister, my stepsister, shejust owned me.
She just kind of blocked me oneverything.
We don't talk, and it reallykind of put a rift.
If I had truly forgiven him,what I caused that kind of harm.
(28:52):
You know, so sometimes I stillgot to check my heart.
Does that make sense?
But I think God honors the factthat I made a choice to forgive
him.
I really do.
And so that's where my heartsaid.
I choose to forgive today.
Why?
Because it was hindering mefrom being everything that God
created me to be.
Well, first of all, I wantedGod to forgive me for the things
(29:13):
I've done.
Okay.
Is that selfish?
I don't know, but I don't wantto be found guilty when I go to
heaven.
So that was one.
Two is man, is that I desire tohave God in my life more than
my own will.
I want the Father's will in mylife more than I want my own
will.
And so I found out that myunforgiveness towards people was
hindering me from being a goodhusband, it was hindering me
(29:34):
from being a good father, it washindering me from being a good
worker.
I mean, I was the kind of guythat I could walk into a room
and there'll be 10 men in there,and I think nine of them are
speaking bad about me.
Why?
Because of what I've beenthrough in my past.
As I started to forgive, mymind started shifting, and not
everybody was an enemy anymore.
Does that make sense?
Nancy Bruscher (29:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A lot of times when I hearabout forgiveness, you hear
You're just like you have to doit in your own mind.
But you're saying that youactually did a letter and a
company.
Stephen Dees (30:06):
I actually had to write the letter.
So my real father, never in mylife was a child, uh, for the
short period of time that Ilived down in Florida, got
troubled enough to come back toOhio to wait on my mom.
2005, I was on the run.
I knew he was at Grandma D's'suh uh down in Fort Fort
Lauderdale, Florida, showed upone day, you know, saying, like,
hey, I'm on the run, need aplace to stay.
(30:28):
That turned out really ugly,him putting a gun to my head and
making me leave.
It was pretty bad after about,I think most there were about
two or three months.
And so, fast forward to 20 uh15, I get through True Purpose
Ministries, and my sisters haveseen me on Facebook and we ended
up connecting.
And now, mind you, we haven'tbeen communicating or been a
(30:50):
family or or fellowshipping oranything for years.
They reach out and they said,Listen, we want to come rent a
cabin in Gatlinburg.
We want you to invite you andKat.
Me and my wife got married, soit was 2016, not 2015.
And they said, We want you guysto come to the cabin and we
just kind of you know get toknow each other.
I was like, Yeah, that's fine.
But then she texted me rightback, you know, and she said,
(31:12):
and by the way, dad wants tocome.
I was like, I was like, really?
You know what I'm saying?
And I'm thinking in my mind,this is probably gonna go really
bad, you know.
You know, just cocaine,whiskey, all that stuff was
involved back then.
And and I was like, this is notgonna go good, but I'm a
different person.
And I said, If I'm gonna preachit, I gotta walk it out.
(31:34):
I said, Yeah, you can bring.
My real father came.
We were in the cabin playingcards, me and my sister and my
aunt and my wife, and my dad satin the corner and he just
stared at us the whole time.
Never said a word.
It's really quiet.
I walked out on the porch andhe followed me and he started to
tell me how sorry it was.
And I stopped him.
I said, Look, man, we can weain't gotta do this.
(31:55):
I said we were both dealthanded cards in our life, we
played it the best we can, andwe just done the best we could.
It's over with, it's done.
I don't want to rehash it.
And I knew in my mind why I'ddone that because we were at a
family event.
And if we started going insaying, I'm sorry for this and
sorry for that, we start pullingoff scabs that may maybe
weren't fully healed, and itcould have really got ugly.
Let's just go ahead and putthis behind us right now, enjoy
(32:18):
what we're doing and moveforward.
That's what I was saying, whatI was, you know, in the words
that I spoke, what I was reallysaying, look, we're good.
All right.
So 2017, my father goes tochurch with me for the very
first time.
I've ever known him to ever bein a church or hear for being in
a church.
It's a real revolution, thechurch I go to today.
And uh, we were sitting in theback and he was asking me
(32:41):
questions about being saved.
He said, This is real.
And uh I got to say a prayerwith him and leading to the Lord
right there in the back.
He didn't go to the altar.
Fast forward, I got to sit bymy father wise to his last
breath, and just knowing that itwasn't uh it wasn't uh a
goodbye.
I was a see you later, knowingthat we had really truly
(33:01):
forgiven each other and movedon, but it was bringing Jesus
into it, it was a choice, right?
Nancy Bruscher (33:08):
Oh Steven, thank you.
You said you had some thoughtsfrom the Bible on this.
Stephen Dees (33:13):
Yeah, one one thing.
Okay, you asked me for myfavorite scripture.
Nancy Bruscher (33:16):
Yeah, what's your favorite Bible version?
Stephen Dees (33:18):
Yeah, they're all in this book, every one of them.
I love them all because theyall applied to you at one time
or another.
But for this case, for forforgiveness, my favorite was in
the old testament, second kingschapter five.
Just gonna read a little bit, alittle bit now, not far.
It says, now Naaman, thecaptain of the army of the king
of Aaron, was a great man withhis master and highly respected
(33:42):
because by him, check this outthe Lord, capital L had given
victory to Aaron, Assyria.
So now here he is, the captainof the army of Syria.
He doesn't even know who theLord really is because they're
serving other gods, but the LordFather in heaven had given him
victory.
That's powerful in itself,something for you to look at
later.
But if we read down, the manwas also a valiant warrior, but
(34:06):
he was a leper.
He had a death sentence, right?
Then we can all relate to that.
For the wages of sin is death.
We were all lepers at one time.
Now the Aramaeans had gone outin bands and taken captive a
little girl from the land ofIsrael, and she waited on
Naaman's wife, and she said toher mistress, I wish that my
master were with the prophet whowas in Samaria, then he would
(34:27):
cure him of his leprosy.
I want you all to think aboutthis.
This is a little girl who'sbeen kidnapped from her home,
taken away from her mother,taken away from her father,
taken away from her homeland,brought into a foreign land and
made a slave to this man's wife.
How many of us could look andsay, My God wants to heal you?
(34:49):
How many of us have the heartof to me?
That's the heart of Jesus.
Most of us would be angry andmad, and we would say, Man, he
deserves to die.
I can't wait till he dies.
It's time for me to go.
But here you got a little girlwho spoke to my heart from every
how many thousand years ago itwas.
This is what I heard.
Oh man, I heard Stephen.
(35:12):
My God wants to heal you fromyour leprosy.
Now, mind you, I'd already beensaved, so I'm going to heaven.
So, what was the leprosy I wascarrying?
I was carrying unforgiveness inmy heart, and she was showing
me the Lord's heart by forgivingthe man who was really in
charge of the people thatkidnapped her.
Nancy Bruscher (35:35):
Yeah, I've never looked at it like that.
Yeah, man.
Stephen Dees (35:39):
That's when it started for me, like in that
true purpose about forgivenesson a different level.
Jesus spoke it first when hesaid that he hated divorce, but
he allowed divorce because ofthe hardness of your heart.
And in that word hardness ofyour heart is sclericardia in
the Greek, and it means ahardening of your heart, but you
got to understand what heartis.
Heart is feelings and thoughts.
So it's a heart, is it's ahardening of your feelings and
(36:01):
thoughts that God has allowed usto have uh a writ for divorce
through Moses, right?
Because whatever sexual sinsgot me crying about that little
girl, she's awesome.
When I looked up this wordsclerocardia, I started getting
a teaching on Hebrews chapterthree.
It says that the Israelitescould not enter into God's rest
because of sclerocardia, becausethe hardening of their heart.
(36:24):
Well, guess what?
I could not enter into God'srest in my life because the
hardening of my heart towardsother people and what they've
done to me.
And I drew a tree, and at thebottom of the tree was a root
system.
And on this root system wereroot issues that happened in my
life that I really had no powerover.
Okay.
Let's talk about the childabuse.
Let's talk about the physicalabuse, the sexual abuse, the
(36:45):
abandonment issues, the death ofmy daughter, and emotional
abuse.
Okay, those are all rootissues, right?
And so this tree grows up.
What kind of fruit do you thinkthat tree could bear with those
kinds of root issues?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yeah.
Stephen Dees (37:00):
So I looked at my tree when I was five years old
just off the one issue ofabandonment with my mother and
watching her get worked on.
Fear, anxiety, depression, Imean, anger, and just the fruit
off of that one was enough thatno five-year-old child should
(37:21):
ever have to go through.
Now, I want you to picture alot of people that come out of
addiction, they have the samefruit.
Okay.
So I'm not saying I'm justtrying to show, I use this as a
teaching to show people that thefruit that you bore up until
you become who who Jesus Christcreated you to be in the new
fruit, which is the fruit of thespirit.
When you fast forward, you talkabout the sexual assault and uh
(37:42):
what kind of fruit did it bear?
A lot of anger, a lot ofdepression, suicidal thoughts,
disassociation in some areas,pornography, sexual immorality.
You see, we don't know justnow.
This tree, I'm seven or 13years old, and I got a tree that
would poison anybody that atefrom it.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah.
Stephen Dees (38:02):
Right?
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Right.
Stephen Dees (38:03):
God showed me about my root issues, and he
told me, So, Stephen, now I wantyou to make a list of all the
people who cause all that painto you.
Well, with the death of mydaughter, man, uh God was number
one on the list.
I wasn't number two.
And then there was just a longlist of people that hurt me.
And so, in order for me to killthe taproot, now on every tree
(38:26):
out in your yard, or most ofthem anyway, they have a
taproot, and that taproot goesdown into the ground.
And if you can dig it out, youcan plant that tree anywhere
else and it could live.
But if you destroy that taproot, the whole tree dies.
So I had to figure out what mytaproot was.
Well, my whole taproot wasunforgiveness for all the people
that have been hurting me,right?
Including myself and God.
(38:46):
And so, in order for me to killthat taproot, I had to make a
choice to forgive those people.
It wasn't easy, right?
It was it was taking oneindividual event and ask and
happen to go in and ask the Lordinto my heart.
I had to relive everything thathappened to me, ask the Lord to
come in, apply the blood ofJesus to it, and make a choice
out of my mouth openly toforgive them.
(39:08):
And it helped.
Okay.
So my heart started stuck uhsoftening.
He started replacing my heartof stone for a heart of flesh,
right?
So, and the way I explainedthat there's a word called
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
It's actually a medical termfor hardening of the heart, but
it's the physical heart.
What is your physical heart?
It's a fist-sized organ thatpumps 2,000 gallons of blood
throughout your body a day.
(39:28):
Okay.
So when your heart, yourphysical heart has been exposed
to things of the world likepollution, cigarettes, alcohol,
certain kinds of food, it candevelop a condition called the
hardening of the heart orhypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Well, the walls of the heartget so thick that it's hard for
that heart to pump 2,000 gallonsof blood throughout your body a
(39:49):
day.
You start getting tired, yourblood pressure is off, things
start to wear you down more,right?
Well, what happens when yourspiritual heart, your feelings
and thoughts have been exposedto abandonment issues, sexual
molestations, physical abuse,verbal abuse.
It starts to get hard, right?
Now, guess what?
(40:10):
I'm I'm a young man and I don'tknow how to communicate well.
I can't work in an environmentbecause I don't know how long
how to get along with people.
Um, I have low self-esteem, lowself-worth.
And so who am I gonna putmyself around?
People who are of the samemindsets, right?
What kind of chance do youhave?
So God showed me a way out ofit was I had to make a list of
(40:33):
all those people that had hurtme.
I have to go in individuallypray for them.
And he started softening myheart, he exchanged my heart and
heart for a heart of a heart offlesh.
And uh that was the process offorgiveness for me.
And it's still a process, it'snot something to, you know,
there's days I still getagitated or angry, especially if
I hear a story about a littlekid getting hurt.
(40:54):
So I have to go back andremember I chose to forgive that
man.
Nancy Bruscher (40:58):
Did you forgive God?
Stephen Dees (41:01):
Well, it wasn't forgiving God, it was coming to
the understanding of Matthew 10or John 10, 10.
It says the thief comes tosteal, steal, kill, and destroy,
and that he had come to givelife and life abundantly.
So I had to realize that I hadbeen mad and blame God for
something that the enemy did.
And then I had to forgivemyself because I'm the one that
allowed the enemy in.
I was the spiritual authorityover my daughter.
(41:23):
And uh forgiving myself was avery hard time.
Uh as on a night at TruePurpose, we go to a place called
United Pursuit.
If you've never heard of UnitedPursuit, man, I would recommend
you listen to some of theirsongs.
It's beautiful.
They're very good praise andworship.
Okay, they're out of Knoxville,and so we used to go to Fifth
Avenue House on Tuesdays once amonth, and we would sit in a
(41:44):
circle or stand in a circlewhile they played this music and
we would praise and worship.
Well, I went there, man, and Iwould get wrecked.
I mean, I would just gettotally like in the spirit, just
loving the Lord and a lovefest, it was great.
And then one day we went and Icould not feel the love of the
Lord for any reason at all.
Man, I just couldn't feel it,and I couldn't understand why
(42:06):
everybody else was in this bigold love fest that I'm used to
being in.
And why is it that I have nofeelings at all?
And the Lord told me, Stephen,you got sclerocardia.
I said, What do you mean?
He said, You can't enter myrest because of the hardness of
your heart, because you can'tforgive yourself.
And I just started weeping andcrying, and I started feeling
God.
And that night I laid in bedand he said, Stephen, I need you
(42:28):
to go tell Pastor Jeremyeverything you did from the time
you were a child until you werean adult.
And I argued with him.
I said, Man, if I go tellPastor Jeremy everything I did
from the time I was a kid till Iwas an adult, he'll kick me out
of this program.
God spoke to me, he said,Stephen, I opened doors and no
man can close.
I was like, Okay.
And then I said, You know thathe ain't gonna like me no more.
He's gonna judge me.
(42:48):
He said, Doesn't matter, I loveyou.
So the next morning I wasobedient.
Pastor Jeremy came in andtaught a class from 7 a.m.
to 8 a.m.
And so at 8 a.m., 8:15, I wentto him and told him what the
Lord told me.
We walked into his office, andfive hours later we walked out.
Oh wow, the Lord came into thatroom that day, and I was very
(43:10):
honest, just buried everythingthat I ever done.
And uh Jesus came in that roomthat day, and he just really
washed my feet, put a ring on myfinger, crown on my head, a
rope around me, and all thosejust to tell me that I was his
son, and he loved me.
That was a game changer for me.
I quit holding things againstmyself so much, you know.
Still comes up, you gotta makeyou choose right.
(43:33):
All right, Ms.
Nancy.
This has been a long day.
Yeah, this is a good counselingsession.
You're a good listener.
Nancy Bruscher (43:42):
Did the pastor did he not love you?
Did he no no man?
Stephen Dees (43:46):
That's what he did, man.
Every time I bring up somethingthat I thought he would, man,
we just bring Jesus into it, andhe never judged me.
Pastor Jeremy is the one thathired me.
Nancy Bruscher (43:54):
Oh, okay.
Stephen Dees (43:55):
He's the one that got he's the one that ordained
me.
So so no, he the love of Godthat was in his heart
manifested.
He he's real, you know, he'ssolid all the way through when
it comes to being a man of God.
Nancy Bruscher (44:07):
Well, can I pray for us as we end this and for
the people who are believingGod?
Thank you for Stephen.
Thank you for him telling hisstory, and uh actually, more
importantly, your story, God.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
This is what it's all about is your story, Father.
Nancy Bruscher (44:21):
Yeah, is giving you glory for the story that
you've given us.
Thank you for letting him justopenly share about what he went
through and things that he did,and then just how you came and
just turned his life around.
God, um, I'm praying for thepeople who are listening that if
they can resonate with part ofit or any kind of unforgiveness,
no matter what we've gonethrough in our lives, we all
(44:43):
face this, God.
And I just pray that this isn'tjust like a nice little podcast
that we listen to and we keepon our day, God, that we
actually implement something sothat we can be more like you and
have the grace and theforgiveness that um Stephen
shared about.
So we give this um podcast toyou.
And as we always say inordinary people, extraordinary
(45:04):
things, your story is his glory.
So thank you for us.
Amen.
As I was sitting here editingthis episode, I'm also scanning
pictures for a client.
I hope that you are taking thetime to share your story, to
capture those heirloom memories,and to scan those pictures or
digitize those old familymovies.
If you need help, pleasecontact me at generations to
(45:28):
generations.com.
And I will see you in two weeksfor a brand new episode.
Hi, I'm Nancy Brucher, the host of Ordinary
People Extraordinary Things,where we tell stories of faith
and hope from ordinary peoplejust like you.
If you have a story to tell, orif you know someone who has a
story, please contact us throughGenerations Two Generations.
Generations is plural and twois TO.
As we're recording, I'm gettingready for my book launch party,
(00:23):
and I'm so excited to celebratethis big milestone.
The Legacy Heirloom Journal isavailable on Amazon and it helps
guide you through sharing yourheirlooms so that the stories
are passed down to the nextgeneration.
As you listen to Steven's storytoday, I pray that it becomes
more than just a story, that itimpacts you to forgive yourself
(00:44):
and to forgive others.
If you find it helpful, don'tforget to share.
Welcome to Ordinary PeopleExtraordinary Things.
I'm so excited to have Stevenon.
Steven, thanks for being on thepodcast.
Stephen Dees (00:56):
Thank you for inviting me.
I appreciate this.
I'm excited too.
Amen.
Nancy Bruscher (01:00):
And Katie Hawk was the one who got us together.
And you're in Tennessee, andyou said it's just a beautiful
day there today.
Stephen Dees (01:08):
It is a very beautiful day.
And to speak about Miss Katie,a wonderful, wonderful friend, a
beautiful person.
She's doing great and mightythings in the kingdom too.
This is awesome.
It's a good kingdom connection.
Yes, ma'am.
Nancy Bruscher (01:20):
Yeah, I'll link the podcast if you by chance
haven't heard that one.
That's a pretty powerful one aswell.
But Steven, if people don'tknow who you are, can you give
three words or phrases todescribe yourself?
Stephen Dees (01:31):
Passionate, one word, bold, two word, and
someone who desires to see otherother broken people healed, uh,
to see them come to theknowledge of who Jesus Christ
is.
Nancy Bruscher (01:41):
Oh, good.
Yes.
And you do that through kind oftelling your story and in
ministry.
Can you kind of explain alittle bit about that?
Stephen Dees (01:50):
But this started, it started off with telling my
testimony, but then uh I wentthrough a program.
And through that program, Igraduated, went out and worked
in the world for a year.
The pastor called me back in tobe a pastoral counselor.
So I ended up being a pastoralcounselor and teaching, and it
was my way of giving back, ofhelping people out of jails and
prisons and off the streets andwho are on drugs and alcohol to
(02:11):
live a fruitful life.
And it's very fulfilling.
Nancy Bruscher (02:15):
And that's that's part of your story,
right?
Stephen Dees (02:19):
It is very much so.
Nancy Bruscher (02:20):
And we're going to talk about forgiveness today.
And I'm so excited because Iloved when we got to talk
earlier and just kind of yourpoints on forgiveness.
And it was a little bit more,or I don't know, different.
I don't know if I want to saythat correctly, but then I'm
mostly here.
So I'm super excited to haveour listeners hear that because
(02:42):
what I'm thinking is um I wantyou to get a little bit into
your story and like how you cameto be able to take God's
forgiveness that He's given you,but then also what did that
mean to forgive others?
And without just getting intoyour story too much, and I want
you to tell it, is there werethings that you really like if
(03:04):
the world would say it, youshouldn't have forgiven them,
right?
Stephen Dees (03:07):
And correct.
Nancy Bruscher (03:08):
Um, yeah, correct.
Stephen Dees (03:10):
According to world standards, um, a lot of the
stuff that I went to, peoplehold on to that till they go to
the grave.
God's giving me some grace, andso he's taught me how to have
grace on other people.
Yeah, yes, ma'am.
Nancy Bruscher (03:23):
Well, can you tell us a little bit about um
what brought you to Jesus, whereyou were before you found
Jesus, and then you know, we'llget into like how you really
found this forgiveness and whatthat means to you.
Stephen Dees (03:36):
Yes, ma'am.
So born into a dysfunctionalfamily, born with uh uh uh a
family that was a lot ofviolence and already addiction
in the family.
My earliest memories are ofviolence of my real father
hurting my mother, uh, alcohol,drugs in the house.
And I'm talking about it at avery young age.
I mean, by the time I was fiveyears old, I don't remember dad
being in the picture at all.
(03:57):
Probably from three years olduntil five, he was in and out.
And my mom tried to raise us onour own.
We ended up moving in with herfather, but she was so addicted
to drugs and alcohol that sheended up leaving us three
children with the grandfather.
He had his own addictions andsicknesses, and we ended up
being brought out that homebecause of the sexual abuse that
was going on and flown out toCalifornia.
(04:19):
And there again, my grandmotherhad married somebody who had a
very sick addiction.
And uh, we were flown back toOhio quickly.
Uh mom, three days before sheleft us children, she had OD'd.
Uh, we had a bedroom where shewas in the middle of the bedroom
on a mattress, and we had abunk bed against the wall.
And I was on the top bunk, andI could hear my mom breathing
(04:39):
erratically.
So I got off the bunk to gocheck on her.
And she got mad and angry atme, made me get back on the
bunk.
And that happened two or threetimes.
The last time that I checked onher, she was non-responsive.
So I went and got mygrandfather.
Uh, they called the hamlets,they came.
And here I was, five-year-oldchild sitting on this bed on the
bottom bed, watching them workon my mom.
They were doing CPR on her andthey had this big bag on her
(05:01):
mouth, blowing air into herlungs.
And they took her to thehospital, whisked her away, took
her to the hospital.
And as a child, you don't knowhow to identify what you're
feeling.
You know, I couldn't sit thereand tell you, hey, I'm scared my
mom's never coming back.
Because I really don't knowwhat's going on at the moment,
right?
And so I can't tell you thesethings.
So I had a bunch of emotionsand feelings that I didn't know
(05:23):
how to identify or to speakabout.
So my mom came home three dayslater.
She was okay.
But when she came into thedoor, me and my sisters were
very glad to see her.
We were glad she was home.
And she said it was never goingto happen again.
That night, my grandfatherstayed up all night to make sure
she didn't leave the apartment.
And that night she ended upleaving out the window.
And I didn't see her againuntil I was 11 or 12 years old.
(05:43):
Now, fast forward, we went, uh,there was some sexual abuse in
the family.
We went to California to livewith her mother.
There was some sexual abusethat happened there.
We were flown back to Ohio.
Uh, the man that my mother was,my grandmother was living with
had took pictures of me and myleft.
Me and my sister are what wecall Irish twins.
We're 11 months apart.
unknown (06:04):
Yeah.
Stephen Dees (06:05):
And uh he he had taken some pictures of us that
were inappropriate on numerousoccasions, and the police got
involved.
And so we were flown back toOhio, put into an orphanage.
And from the orphanage, we gotadopted, or we didn't get
adopted out, but we got put inthe same home.
And I really do appreciate thefact that we were in this home.
I mean, as far as being safe, Idon't know why, but me and the
(06:28):
the foster mom didn't get alongvery well.
There was just one incidentafter another, after another.
My sisters got along with herreally well.
My dad came back in thepicture.
Long story short, my realfather ended up taking my two
sisters, and I decided to stay.
Well, I went to move in withhim down there, but I got in no
trouble that I didn't want tostay.
So they moved me back to Ohioand I went into another
orphanage called St.
(06:48):
Joe's orphanage in Cincinnati,Ohio.
Uh really nice place, uh,probably the safest place I've
ever been as a child.
Then that's when my mother cameback into the picture.
The story of my mother comingback was it was a phenomenal
story.
And I kind of set it up likethis because it was one letdown
after another with my mother.
Like when she when she did whatshe did when I was five years
old, here she came back, and Ifelt like my whole world was
(07:11):
coming back together again andeverything was going to be okay.
And she did jump through allthe hoops to get me out of the
workniche, but she had brought aman into our lives that was a
uh he had he had some issues.
After a while being in thehome, the mask came off.
There was a lot of violence,there was a lot of uh drinking,
there was a lot of drugs, and heused to beat on my mom pretty
bad.
And one night he had beat herup really bad, and he had left
(07:36):
the trail or the mobile home.
And when he had uh he left themobile home and my mom was
crying and telling me to go gethim, tell her to come back, tell
him to come back home that I'msorry.
I was angry and I was mad.
I asked, how could you be thereason that he done this to you?
He's the one that hurt you.
You haven't done anythingwrong.
And then I didn't know how toreally help my mother other than
(07:57):
go get the man.
All right, go find out where hewas at.
And when I found him, he wasgetting drunk with a friend in
the neighborhood, and theyinvited me in, and it was the
first time I ever really gotdrunk.
He had slapped me in front ofthe man and the uh the friend,
and things got really kind ofanxiety and stuff.
So he had made us leave.
And this man sexually assaultedme, coming back to the house.
(08:18):
He threatened to kill my momand my stepsister if I ever told
anybody.
I believed him.
I've seen the violence, I'veseen what he's done, I knew how
what he was capable of.
He called himself teaching mehow to box.
You know, he was 6'4, 240.
You know, I was this littlekid, and we'd put boxing gloves
on, and he hit me so hard itwould knock me out, and I'd have
(08:38):
headaches for three or fourdays.
So believing that he could hurtmy mother and my stepsister
that way, I believed him.
So out of anger, there wasnothing else I could do.
Really, I was gonna run awayone day, skip school, and I
ended up burning down the housewe were living in.
And that kind of got that wasmy first felony.
I got caught, did three yearsin juvenile, and did really good
(09:02):
in juvenile as far as gettingmy GED, progressing in the way
of getting my education.
And then when I was 16, Istarted working, and then they
wanted me to go back to the samehome where my mom and them
were, and I just didn't, Ididn't feel like that would be
safe for me.
So I ran.
So for a year and a half, I wason my own living in Ohio.
Two months after my 18thbirthday, I really made a really
(09:23):
stupid mistake and ended upgetting five, no less than five
years and no many, no more than25 years times three in Ohio.
So I had a really 25-yearsentence.
My max out date was April 2013.
Nancy Bruscher (09:36):
Can you tell me what that was for?
Stephen Dees (09:37):
Yes, it was for aggravated burglary, aggravated
robbery, and kidnapping.
Um, I was actually drinking ina bar in the back of a bar one
night.
Um, we actually was pretty goodat it.
So I could hustle a little bitof money, hustle a little bit of
beer, and and there was sometalk about where there was some
money at, and it got myattention.
They said nobody would be home,then what set it up to happen.
(09:59):
I went up there and there wastwo people home.
By that time, we were so farinto it that we couldn't back
out, and I really hated myselffor that and uh ended up going
to prison.
I actually did six years, ninemonths, got out, and that was
the mid-90s, early or 94, 95,when I kicked off parole and got
(10:19):
a girlfriend.
She wanted to go to Lee Collegedown in Cleveland, Tennessee,
and I followed her.
And we didn't stay togetherlong, but there was another girl
that I met down there, she gotpregnant.
I've never had any childrenbefore, and I thought, man, this
is it.
You know, this is this is gonnabe great, everything's gonna be
fine.
I went to welding school, gotmy welding certificate, got a
(10:40):
really good job, moved down toCalhoun, Georgia.
I worked night shift, and man,uh, we had a mobile home on some
land.
I really felt really good aboutdirection, and everything was
going.
And uh, I get paid onThursdays.
So we'd go to uh Kmart backthen and we put stuff in
layaway, take stuff out oflayaway, her baby bed, and put
pictures on the wall, do all thethings, you know.
(11:01):
I really thought everything wasgonna be okay.
She was born on March 14th andshe only lived five weeks and
she passed away on her bed fromSIDS.
And when she passed away, mywhole world crashed again.
So for a whole year, I pouredinto work and I could work 16
hour days, and it just didn'tbother me.
It was my way of coping.
But somebody and while I wasthere, somebody introduced me to
(11:23):
methamphetamine.
And when I got introduced tomethamphetamine, that killed
every pain I had spiritually,physically, and emotionally.
Took me down another long road.
Uh, the same woman pregnantagain.
And by the time my son wasborn, I was in full-blown
addiction, and I walked awayfrom both of them.
My addiction took me to uhbeing a red phosphorus cook,
which is methamphetamine.
(11:44):
And I thought that, I mean, Iwas so addicted to the drugs, I
was so addicted to the cooking,I was so addicted to the
lifestyle that making money wasa byproduct of just what I
really had an addiction to.
It's like I didn't want to liveanymore.
So I just was really fast andhard.
In 2010, I found myself in PolkCounty, Florida jail.
(12:05):
And I'd been in jail for two orthree years, and between the
time that I was a meth cookedfrom different things from
assault, never got caught withany, never got caught for
manufacturing, but it was alwaysthe aftermath or the arguments
in between or whatever.
But in 2010, I found myself ina Polk County, Florida jail for
aggravated assault and deadlyweapon times two.
I'd been with a girl for sixyears, came home, some things
(12:27):
were happening, and I just lostit and ended up in jail when
they caught me 14 days later.
And they weren't gonna chargeme with aggravated assault and
deadly weapon times two atfirst.
I was just charged with uhbeing on the run and having a
warrant out of Tennessee.
And then I went to see mylawyer, and they had all this
(12:48):
other paperwork and they had arestraining order, they had
these statements that said I hada knife in one hand, a pair of
pliers in the other, and thenthey had the pictures of the two
people I beat up pretty bad.
I couldn't believe I wasgetting ready to face 30 years
in prison.
It was aggravate, it's uhautomatic 15 years apiece.
And my lawyer told me that we'dbe lucky to get it run uh
concurrent because of myaggravated burglar robbery
(13:09):
charges when I was a child orwhen I was 18.
So I said I'd probably get itrun consecutive, which is a
30-year sentence.
And I went back to my cell thatday, pretty broken, couldn't
see no light, didn't have nohope.
Wasn't the back of the cell.
I was crying, reading thestatements, and I looked over in
the mirror and I'd becomeeverything I said that I never
would.
Somebody invited me to churchthat night.
(13:29):
And I went to church thatnight.
I kind of expected the pastorto beat me down and leave there
feeling guilty and rotten forthings that I've done because I
know I deserved it.
I kind of guess it's going forpunishment, you know, because
y'all, you better turn or burn,you know, you better repent,
you're gonna go to hell.
Those are the things I kepthearing, you know.
(13:51):
I went in there and this mancame into the room.
He's a little short guy,probably about five, six, five,
seven.
But he was 10 foot tall in thespiritual realm.
When he walked in there, man,he had this confidence, he had
this peace, he had this joy, buthe had this walk too.
And I could tell that he hadbeen some of the places we had
been.
And then he starts telling thistestimony about living on the
(14:12):
streets, the places that he'sbeen, the hell that he lived in.
He talked about Jesus Christcoming and how Jesus Christ came
from heaven down to earth, andhe he lived a sinless life, and
uh he was the ultimate sacrificefor our sins, so I don't have
to live in hell anymore.
And that got me.
That was the hook because I wasliving in hell, and I knew I
(14:34):
couldn't face this 30 yearswithout him, without something.
And there was hope in himbecause I seen the hope in him
in the man that was preachingthe gospel.
I was like, Man, that's hope.
So I asked the Lord to comeinto my life that night.
The pastor, there's probably 40of us in the room.
Pastor walked up to me and hesaid, Son, he said, I'm taking
(14:54):
the prayer requests.
He asked us to write down thesetwo prayer requests, and I
wrote them down.
He said, I'm taking these homeand give them to my wife.
She's gonna be on her knees onher bed tonight, praying over
these.
And he said, I want you toexpect something to happen.
And the only thing I wrote onthere was two things.
I wrote, Lord, if the twopeople that I beat up, I'd put
their names on there.
(15:15):
I said, Lord, if they're gonnabe together, man, at least let
her get off dope.
And then the second one was,Lord, have mercy on my case.
A week later, I went to go callmy lawyer, and she had told me
that all my charges had beendropped down to misdemeanors.
I knew that was the Lord.
It was nobody can tell meanything different.
(15:35):
The Lord worked in that becauseI've never had that kind of
luck.
Nothing's ever been that goodfor me in the courtrooms.
I've had a record, and uh Iwent from 30 years in prison to
doing a little bit close to ayear, half a year, and then had
to go to Tampa to do some time,and then I went to Tennessee to
do some time, ended up doinganother 18 months in Tennessee.
In 2013, I got out of prisonand went into a program for 18
(15:59):
months or for 18 months of truepurpose, and uh it's a program
in uh Maribelville, Tennessee, aChrist-centered faith-based
program.
And it was there that Ideveloped a relationship with
the Father.
You know, Jesus came toreconcile us to the Father.
Understanding that I invitedJesus Christ to my life, and
(16:20):
John 1.1 says in the beginningwas the word, the word is God,
the word was God.
John 1 14 says the word becameflesh and dwelt among us.
I understood that Jesus Christwas the word, he was the written
word, he walked among us, nowhe's at the right hand of the
father.
And so, in order for me to getto know him, I had to read the
word.
Okay, so I had that part down.
But what I didn't have was arelationship with the Father,
(16:41):
right?
Because that's what he broughtus to do.
And my idea of who Father Godwas was built on the way that I
was raised (16:49):
judges, uh, counselors, staff members at
homes.
And so when you did somethingwrong, you were you were uh
punished for it.
And so John chapter 1, verse 29says that Jesus Christ is the
Lamb of God, and here I amreading all of John 1, studying
it, him being the light, goingall the way back to Genesis in
(17:10):
the beginning, because he was inthe beginning, and I seen it
all the way through there, andthen John chapter 1, verse 29
talked about him being the Lambof God, and I didn't have any
idea what that was.
So I went all the way back toExodus 12 and I started studying
now, and it was about the lapthe lamb that was sacrificed and
the blood was put on the doorjam.
So when the angel of death camein, right, it would it would
(17:33):
save the people from havingtheir firstborn killed, all the
firstborn of the Egyptians, allthe firstborn of the livestock.
Well, God spoke to me throughthat, and he said, and this is
how I got to know one of thecharacteristics of the father,
being a loving, caring father,was that he allowed the innocent
blood of the lamb to be slain,put it on the door frame.
And the only thing he had toldhim, well, he told him two
things that stuck out.
(17:54):
One was, don't come out fromunderneath the covering of the
blood.
And here I was, I thought Godwas the one that punished me for
the things that I did wrong.
And what I found out, it was meopening myself up for the world
to read havoc in my life.
He provided a way forprotection from that, and that's
with the innocent blood of theLamb.
Well, that was Jesus Christ.
So I got that, I got that.
(18:16):
It was like a revelation thatwent off.
Like, man, I've been seeing Godwrong.
I've been seeing Father God asa judge in the whole time.
He's this loving father who waswilling to allow his son to be
sacrificed.
So the angel of death can'twreak havoc in my life anymore.
Got that.
But the one that stuck outother than that was eat all the
lamb, right?
You had to eat all the lamb inthe Passover dinner.
(18:36):
You had to eat all the lamb,even the entrails, the things
that don't taste good.
And sometimes you can read theword of God and it reveals
something inside of you.
It's like, wait a minute, Ireally don't want to apply that.
I kind of like what I'm saying.
Nancy Bruscher (18:49):
Yeah, I resonate with that, right?
Stephen Dees (18:51):
Like, we're gonna digest that, you know, we don't
want to think about that toomuch.
So that was so what you got wasa uh a time of uh from my
childhood all the way up tocoming to the knowledge who
Jesus Christ was, developing arelationship with the Father,
being empowered by the HolySpirit to live out a Christ-like
life.
And uh today I'm a counselor,uh, I've got a beautiful wife,
(19:14):
I've got a beautiful home, I gota career.
Those are things I never hadbefore, never thought I could
have.
And uh, because of the power ofGod, or because of God in my
life, that's why I'm here today.
So forgiveness.
Nancy Bruscher (19:28):
Oh, yeah.
I just wanted to say, Stephen,like, thank you for sharing
because I'm I'm I'm herelistening to it, and I hear
awful, awful, awful things thathappen to you.
And for you to share that withus, I'm sure brings up memories
and you know and feelings, andthen also you being willing to
(19:51):
be honest with people you haveno idea who are going to listen
to this on the things that youdid wrong and the mistakes that
you made.
And I just I just want to thankyou, first of all, for even
sharing this part of your storybecause it it takes a lot of it
takes a lot to to do what youjust did.
So thank you for that.
Stephen Dees (20:12):
My hope and prayer is that the people that hear
this they hear the power of Godin the story.
Because no matter how faryou've been or what you've done
in life, God loves you.
He can do more with your lifethan you can.
It's not a story where I camefrom and the things that
happened to me.
It's God taking what the enemymeant for destruction and
(20:34):
turning it around for his glory.
He's gonna take a life that wasbroken, like like my life that
was broken by the word of thetestimony and the blood of the
lamb.
If he could take what thebrokenness happened in my life
and he could turn it around forwhat I'm doing today, that's a
powerful story, but it's not apowerful story of Stephen D's.
It's a powerful story of ourFather in heaven.
Nancy Bruscher (20:52):
Yes, yes, yeah.
So, how was it easy ordifficult for you to first uh
find forgiveness from God?
Stephen Dees (21:02):
Yes, yes, and then yes, yes, yes, yes.
It was easier for me tounderstand and offer forgiveness
for others than it was for meat times to receive that Father
God had forgiven me for thethings I've done.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Right.
Stephen Dees (21:16):
So, you know, I lived in a place of trying to
always play a pay a penance typeof lifestyle, you know, the
slave mentality.
After doing that for a longtime, you know, God would just
bring you into a place to whereyou He wants you to receive His
forgiveness and His love so thatyou can live in the fullness of
who you created to be.
It says in Hebrews chapter 12,verse 1 says, Lay aside every
weight and sin that these setyou from the race that you're
(21:38):
running.
Well, for unforgiveness towardsyourself can hinder you from
being everything God created youto be.
But it was easier for me toforgive others.
Like forgiving my mom startedin prison.
It didn't start at true purposeministries, it started in
prison in 2013.
They called me to thechaplain's office and tell me
she had passed away.
Let's just say this.
I knew that she had done somethings that had caused my life
(22:01):
to be hard when I was younger.
She made some really badchoices.
I was angry with her.
Okay.
I was mad.
I didn't understand why shedidn't love me.
And of course, you always hearthe voices.
Well, if you were a betterperson or a better son, or if
you'd have done this, or ifyou'd have done that.
You always blame yourself forthe re for the things that had
happened.
I was laying there in my cellin my bed in prison after the
(22:22):
after I'd come back from thechaplain's office and told me
she had passed away.
And she actually passed awayfrom complications of her drug
use of having hepatitis C thatturned into some liver stuff
that that's what she ended uppassing away from.
She had straightened her lifeup at the end.
She got her nursing degree.
They had to take her off thefloor, which she loved to do,
and they had to put her an adminbecause she did have hepatitis
C, and there wasn't a cure forit then like there is now.
(22:45):
But as I'm laying there in thatbed and I think about her dad,
I think about her mother, Ithink about the stories that
I've heard from you knowdifferent family members and the
things that happened to her.
And I know how she was treatedby my real father, I know how
she was treated by mystepfather, and I know the
things that happened.
Heart started breaking for her.
She never really experiencedanything good in her life,
(23:07):
neither.
All of a sudden, this gracestarts coming in.
I started just praying for mymom.
That's where the forgivenessfrom my mother started.
And then, of course, readingthe word of God, you read
scriptures like Luke 23, 34,Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do, becauseyou understand that the enemy
was working through them, right?
Colossians 3:13, bear with eachother and forgive one another.
(23:28):
If any of you have grievanceagainst someone, forgive us the
Lord has forgiven you.
But this is the one that reallygot me.
Matthew 6, 14 through 15.
For if you forgive other peoplewhen they sin against you, your
heavenly father will alsoforgive you.
But if you do not forgiveothers their sins, your father
will not forgive you your sins.
That's a powerful statement.
(23:49):
I don't know.
Right, we want to gloss over.
We don't really want to.
Yeah.
Because forgiveness doesn'tfeel good.
And I believe that my part mypart of my process was when I
went from prison into theprogram, was learning that
forgiveness wasn't a feeling,that it was a choice.
(24:10):
You know, we talk about mystepfather.
You talk about the man who whosexually assaulted me as a young
man, as a young child.
He was an alcoholic.
He was a drug addict.
The enemy was working throughhim.
There was a man that left a gunat our home because he went to
the Navy and he lived in theneighborhood and didn't want his
family to steal the gun.
(24:31):
And I would think about goingin there and using that gun to
end this man's life.
Maybe he couldn't hurt my mom,and then he couldn't hurt my
stepsister, and then he couldn'thurt me no more.
That was my thought process.
And then the day that it camewhere I had an opportunity to do
that, he was drunk in there inthe waterbed and I couldn't do
it.
I couldn't do it.
And I felt so weak.
I felt like a punk.
(24:52):
And I would call myself namesbecause I couldn't find myself
to go in there and do and endthis.
And so in my anger, I ended upburning down the house, catching
the felony.
And so I carried this angerwith me for many years.
This and it was all rooted inunforgiveness towards other
people, but a lot was towardshim.
It was so bad that when I wasin prison and juvenile or when I
(25:13):
was in jail or even on thestreets, if we found somebody
who had committed a crime likethat, we would think it was our
God-given right to hurt them, topunish them, poison them, to
torment them.
Those were the things that theywould have to go through while
they were in prison.
And so, and I didn't feelguilty about it.
But then again, I didn't knowthe Lord didn't either.
You know, I was just taking outwhat happened to me on them in
(25:35):
a different way, making them payfor what he'd done.
When I read this scripture whenI was at True Purpose
Ministries, I wanted to beforgiven for the things I've
done.
So I look back on the thingsI've done in my addiction.
I look at the things that I didwhen I hurt those people, I
look at the things I did when Iwas 18 years old and scared
those people to death.
And I felt really terrible andreally bad for the things I've
done.
And I can see myself beforeFather God, and I wanted to be
(26:00):
forgiven.
And he's telling me now that inorder for me to be forgiven, I
got to forgive myself, Father.
And I argued with him.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I did.
Stephen Dees (26:08):
I was like, there's no way in this world you
want this guy to be forgiven.
He was plain, Stephen.
I died for everyone.
In order for me to do this, Ihad to make a choice.
Okay, God, I want to be in yourwill more than I do my own
will.
So today I decided making achoice to forgive him.
I told my counselor about it.
He made me write some lettersto him because we knew the
address, and I still know theaddress, the telephone number
(26:30):
today because of the just the,and it was for the wrong reasons
that I knew them.
But here I am.
I'd write these letters and mycounselor would go over them.
And he was like, No, we're notsending that one.
No, we're not ready yet.
And it was a process to get toa point to where we actually
sent a letter.
(26:51):
Uh, actually sent two, wrotethree, was wanting to send a
third one, and my counselor cameand said, Man, I feel like
we've been released.
We've done everything we can.
There's no reason to setyourself up.
If he's not going to berecipient of this, then he's
just not in a place to and so Ilet it go.
But does that mean that I don'tpick it back up sometimes?
Right?
(27:12):
If I see a child hurt or if Ilook at a TV show and a kid's
been molested or sexuallyassaulted, that anger comes back
up, right?
And it's like, well, where'dthat anger come from, Stephen?
Well, it came because of whathappened to you.
You chose to forgive him,remember?
And so my pastor had to call meinto the office one day, and he
really helped me with it.
(27:32):
He said, Stephen, you got tounderstand you got to quit
looking at the person.
It was the enemy through himthat came in and hurt you.
It wasn't him, it was the enemythrough him.
Now, he had allowed that tohappen, but you get angry at the
enemy, and that will help youin your forgiveness.
So I just started getting angryat the enemy instead of you
know, because the enemy isspiritual.
The battles that we fight arespiritual, it's not physical.
(27:54):
That helped me off.
Help you 100%.
It really did.
It helped me get my focus offthe man and onto the enemy.
Nancy Bruscher (28:03):
Did you ever hear anything from your no?
Stephen Dees (28:06):
No.
So I thought that you know, Iwalked out this forgiveness and
doing very well with this.
And then one day I was bitingat the bit to speak.
I love to preach, I love toteach.
And now listen, I was neverlike that in the world.
Okay, I was more of anintrovert than I was an
extrovert.
You know what I mean?
I'd like to be go do my thing,stay away from me.
It's my kind of life.
I went and told my testimonyfor the first time at a church,
(28:29):
and they put it on YouTube, andI told the name of this man and
his family up in Ohio seen it.
And man, it just totally wasWorld War III with them.
My sister, my stepsister, shejust owned me.
She just kind of blocked me oneverything.
We don't talk, and it reallykind of put a rift.
If I had truly forgiven him,what I caused that kind of harm.
(28:52):
You know, so sometimes I stillgot to check my heart.
Does that make sense?
But I think God honors the factthat I made a choice to forgive
him.
I really do.
And so that's where my heartsaid.
I choose to forgive today.
Why?
Because it was hindering mefrom being everything that God
created me to be.
Well, first of all, I wantedGod to forgive me for the things
(29:13):
I've done.
Okay.
Is that selfish?
I don't know, but I don't wantto be found guilty when I go to
heaven.
So that was one.
Two is man, is that I desire tohave God in my life more than
my own will.
I want the Father's will in mylife more than I want my own
will.
And so I found out that myunforgiveness towards people was
hindering me from being a goodhusband, it was hindering me
(29:34):
from being a good father, it washindering me from being a good
worker.
I mean, I was the kind of guythat I could walk into a room
and there'll be 10 men in there,and I think nine of them are
speaking bad about me.
Why?
Because of what I've beenthrough in my past.
As I started to forgive, mymind started shifting, and not
everybody was an enemy anymore.
Does that make sense?
Nancy Bruscher (29:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A lot of times when I hearabout forgiveness, you hear
You're just like you have to doit in your own mind.
But you're saying that youactually did a letter and a
company.
Stephen Dees (30:06):
I actually had to write the letter.
So my real father, never in mylife was a child, uh, for the
short period of time that Ilived down in Florida, got
troubled enough to come back toOhio to wait on my mom.
2005, I was on the run.
I knew he was at Grandma D's'suh uh down in Fort Fort
Lauderdale, Florida, showed upone day, you know, saying, like,
hey, I'm on the run, need aplace to stay.
(30:28):
That turned out really ugly,him putting a gun to my head and
making me leave.
It was pretty bad after about,I think most there were about
two or three months.
And so, fast forward to 20 uh15, I get through True Purpose
Ministries, and my sisters haveseen me on Facebook and we ended
up connecting.
And now, mind you, we haven'tbeen communicating or been a
(30:50):
family or or fellowshipping oranything for years.
They reach out and they said,Listen, we want to come rent a
cabin in Gatlinburg.
We want you to invite you andKat.
Me and my wife got married, soit was 2016, not 2015.
And they said, We want you guysto come to the cabin and we
just kind of you know get toknow each other.
I was like, Yeah, that's fine.
But then she texted me rightback, you know, and she said,
(31:12):
and by the way, dad wants tocome.
I was like, I was like, really?
You know what I'm saying?
And I'm thinking in my mind,this is probably gonna go really
bad, you know.
You know, just cocaine,whiskey, all that stuff was
involved back then.
And and I was like, this is notgonna go good, but I'm a
different person.
And I said, If I'm gonna preachit, I gotta walk it out.
(31:34):
I said, Yeah, you can bring.
My real father came.
We were in the cabin playingcards, me and my sister and my
aunt and my wife, and my dad satin the corner and he just
stared at us the whole time.
Never said a word.
It's really quiet.
I walked out on the porch andhe followed me and he started to
tell me how sorry it was.
And I stopped him.
I said, Look, man, we can weain't gotta do this.
(31:55):
I said we were both dealthanded cards in our life, we
played it the best we can, andwe just done the best we could.
It's over with, it's done.
I don't want to rehash it.
And I knew in my mind why I'ddone that because we were at a
family event.
And if we started going insaying, I'm sorry for this and
sorry for that, we start pullingoff scabs that may maybe
weren't fully healed, and itcould have really got ugly.
Let's just go ahead and putthis behind us right now, enjoy
(32:18):
what we're doing and moveforward.
That's what I was saying, whatI was, you know, in the words
that I spoke, what I was reallysaying, look, we're good.
All right.
So 2017, my father goes tochurch with me for the very
first time.
I've ever known him to ever bein a church or hear for being in
a church.
It's a real revolution, thechurch I go to today.
And uh, we were sitting in theback and he was asking me
(32:41):
questions about being saved.
He said, This is real.
And uh I got to say a prayerwith him and leading to the Lord
right there in the back.
He didn't go to the altar.
Fast forward, I got to sit bymy father wise to his last
breath, and just knowing that itwasn't uh it wasn't uh a
goodbye.
I was a see you later, knowingthat we had really truly
(33:01):
forgiven each other and movedon, but it was bringing Jesus
into it, it was a choice, right?
Nancy Bruscher (33:08):
Oh Steven, thank you.
You said you had some thoughtsfrom the Bible on this.
Stephen Dees (33:13):
Yeah, one one thing.
Okay, you asked me for myfavorite scripture.
Nancy Bruscher (33:16):
Yeah, what's your favorite Bible version?
Stephen Dees (33:18):
Yeah, they're all in this book, every one of them.
I love them all because theyall applied to you at one time
or another.
But for this case, for forforgiveness, my favorite was in
the old testament, second kingschapter five.
Just gonna read a little bit, alittle bit now, not far.
It says, now Naaman, thecaptain of the army of the king
of Aaron, was a great man withhis master and highly respected
(33:42):
because by him, check this outthe Lord, capital L had given
victory to Aaron, Assyria.
So now here he is, the captainof the army of Syria.
He doesn't even know who theLord really is because they're
serving other gods, but the LordFather in heaven had given him
victory.
That's powerful in itself,something for you to look at
later.
But if we read down, the manwas also a valiant warrior, but
(34:06):
he was a leper.
He had a death sentence, right?
Then we can all relate to that.
For the wages of sin is death.
We were all lepers at one time.
Now the Aramaeans had gone outin bands and taken captive a
little girl from the land ofIsrael, and she waited on
Naaman's wife, and she said toher mistress, I wish that my
master were with the prophet whowas in Samaria, then he would
(34:27):
cure him of his leprosy.
I want you all to think aboutthis.
This is a little girl who'sbeen kidnapped from her home,
taken away from her mother,taken away from her father,
taken away from her homeland,brought into a foreign land and
made a slave to this man's wife.
How many of us could look andsay, My God wants to heal you?
(34:49):
How many of us have the heartof to me?
That's the heart of Jesus.
Most of us would be angry andmad, and we would say, Man, he
deserves to die.
I can't wait till he dies.
It's time for me to go.
But here you got a little girlwho spoke to my heart from every
how many thousand years ago itwas.
This is what I heard.
Oh man, I heard Stephen.
(35:12):
My God wants to heal you fromyour leprosy.
Now, mind you, I'd already beensaved, so I'm going to heaven.
So, what was the leprosy I wascarrying?
I was carrying unforgiveness inmy heart, and she was showing
me the Lord's heart by forgivingthe man who was really in
charge of the people thatkidnapped her.
Nancy Bruscher (35:35):
Yeah, I've never looked at it like that.
Yeah, man.
Stephen Dees (35:39):
That's when it started for me, like in that
true purpose about forgivenesson a different level.
Jesus spoke it first when hesaid that he hated divorce, but
he allowed divorce because ofthe hardness of your heart.
And in that word hardness ofyour heart is sclericardia in
the Greek, and it means ahardening of your heart, but you
got to understand what heartis.
Heart is feelings and thoughts.
So it's a heart, is it's ahardening of your feelings and
(36:01):
thoughts that God has allowed usto have uh a writ for divorce
through Moses, right?
Because whatever sexual sinsgot me crying about that little
girl, she's awesome.
When I looked up this wordsclerocardia, I started getting
a teaching on Hebrews chapterthree.
It says that the Israelitescould not enter into God's rest
because of sclerocardia, becausethe hardening of their heart.
(36:24):
Well, guess what?
I could not enter into God'srest in my life because the
hardening of my heart towardsother people and what they've
done to me.
And I drew a tree, and at thebottom of the tree was a root
system.
And on this root system wereroot issues that happened in my
life that I really had no powerover.
Okay.
Let's talk about the childabuse.
Let's talk about the physicalabuse, the sexual abuse, the
(36:45):
abandonment issues, the death ofmy daughter, and emotional
abuse.
Okay, those are all rootissues, right?
And so this tree grows up.
What kind of fruit do you thinkthat tree could bear with those
kinds of root issues?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yeah.
Stephen Dees (37:00):
So I looked at my tree when I was five years old
just off the one issue ofabandonment with my mother and
watching her get worked on.
Fear, anxiety, depression, Imean, anger, and just the fruit
off of that one was enough thatno five-year-old child should
(37:21):
ever have to go through.
Now, I want you to picture alot of people that come out of
addiction, they have the samefruit.
Okay.
So I'm not saying I'm justtrying to show, I use this as a
teaching to show people that thefruit that you bore up until
you become who who Jesus Christcreated you to be in the new
fruit, which is the fruit of thespirit.
When you fast forward, you talkabout the sexual assault and uh
(37:42):
what kind of fruit did it bear?
A lot of anger, a lot ofdepression, suicidal thoughts,
disassociation in some areas,pornography, sexual immorality.
You see, we don't know justnow.
This tree, I'm seven or 13years old, and I got a tree that
would poison anybody that atefrom it.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah.
Stephen Dees (38:02):
Right?
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Right.
Stephen Dees (38:03):
God showed me about my root issues, and he
told me, So, Stephen, now I wantyou to make a list of all the
people who cause all that painto you.
Well, with the death of mydaughter, man, uh God was number
one on the list.
I wasn't number two.
And then there was just a longlist of people that hurt me.
And so, in order for me to killthe taproot, now on every tree
(38:26):
out in your yard, or most ofthem anyway, they have a
taproot, and that taproot goesdown into the ground.
And if you can dig it out, youcan plant that tree anywhere
else and it could live.
But if you destroy that taproot, the whole tree dies.
So I had to figure out what mytaproot was.
Well, my whole taproot wasunforgiveness for all the people
that have been hurting me,right?
Including myself and God.
(38:46):
And so, in order for me to killthat taproot, I had to make a
choice to forgive those people.
It wasn't easy, right?
It was it was taking oneindividual event and ask and
happen to go in and ask the Lordinto my heart.
I had to relive everything thathappened to me, ask the Lord to
come in, apply the blood ofJesus to it, and make a choice
out of my mouth openly toforgive them.
(39:08):
And it helped.
Okay.
So my heart started stuck uhsoftening.
He started replacing my heartof stone for a heart of flesh,
right?
So, and the way I explainedthat there's a word called
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
It's actually a medical termfor hardening of the heart, but
it's the physical heart.
What is your physical heart?
It's a fist-sized organ thatpumps 2,000 gallons of blood
throughout your body a day.
(39:28):
Okay.
So when your heart, yourphysical heart has been exposed
to things of the world likepollution, cigarettes, alcohol,
certain kinds of food, it candevelop a condition called the
hardening of the heart orhypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Well, the walls of the heartget so thick that it's hard for
that heart to pump 2,000 gallonsof blood throughout your body a
(39:49):
day.
You start getting tired, yourblood pressure is off, things
start to wear you down more,right?
Well, what happens when yourspiritual heart, your feelings
and thoughts have been exposedto abandonment issues, sexual
molestations, physical abuse,verbal abuse.
It starts to get hard, right?
Now, guess what?
(40:10):
I'm I'm a young man and I don'tknow how to communicate well.
I can't work in an environmentbecause I don't know how long
how to get along with people.
Um, I have low self-esteem, lowself-worth.
And so who am I gonna putmyself around?
People who are of the samemindsets, right?
What kind of chance do youhave?
So God showed me a way out ofit was I had to make a list of
(40:33):
all those people that had hurtme.
I have to go in individuallypray for them.
And he started softening myheart, he exchanged my heart and
heart for a heart of a heart offlesh.
And uh that was the process offorgiveness for me.
And it's still a process, it'snot something to, you know,
there's days I still getagitated or angry, especially if
I hear a story about a littlekid getting hurt.
(40:54):
So I have to go back andremember I chose to forgive that
man.
Nancy Bruscher (40:58):
Did you forgive God?
Stephen Dees (41:01):
Well, it wasn't forgiving God, it was coming to
the understanding of Matthew 10or John 10, 10.
It says the thief comes tosteal, steal, kill, and destroy,
and that he had come to givelife and life abundantly.
So I had to realize that I hadbeen mad and blame God for
something that the enemy did.
And then I had to forgivemyself because I'm the one that
allowed the enemy in.
I was the spiritual authorityover my daughter.
(41:23):
And uh forgiving myself was avery hard time.
Uh as on a night at TruePurpose, we go to a place called
United Pursuit.
If you've never heard of UnitedPursuit, man, I would recommend
you listen to some of theirsongs.
It's beautiful.
They're very good praise andworship.
Okay, they're out of Knoxville,and so we used to go to Fifth
Avenue House on Tuesdays once amonth, and we would sit in a
(41:44):
circle or stand in a circlewhile they played this music and
we would praise and worship.
Well, I went there, man, and Iwould get wrecked.
I mean, I would just gettotally like in the spirit, just
loving the Lord and a lovefest, it was great.
And then one day we went and Icould not feel the love of the
Lord for any reason at all.
Man, I just couldn't feel it,and I couldn't understand why
(42:06):
everybody else was in this bigold love fest that I'm used to
being in.
And why is it that I have nofeelings at all?
And the Lord told me, Stephen,you got sclerocardia.
I said, What do you mean?
He said, You can't enter myrest because of the hardness of
your heart, because you can'tforgive yourself.
And I just started weeping andcrying, and I started feeling
God.
And that night I laid in bedand he said, Stephen, I need you
(42:28):
to go tell Pastor Jeremyeverything you did from the time
you were a child until you werean adult.
And I argued with him.
I said, Man, if I go tellPastor Jeremy everything I did
from the time I was a kid till Iwas an adult, he'll kick me out
of this program.
God spoke to me, he said,Stephen, I opened doors and no
man can close.
I was like, Okay.
And then I said, You know thathe ain't gonna like me no more.
He's gonna judge me.
(42:48):
He said, Doesn't matter, I loveyou.
So the next morning I wasobedient.
Pastor Jeremy came in andtaught a class from 7 a.m.
to 8 a.m.
And so at 8 a.m., 8:15, I wentto him and told him what the
Lord told me.
We walked into his office, andfive hours later we walked out.
Oh wow, the Lord came into thatroom that day, and I was very
(43:10):
honest, just buried everythingthat I ever done.
And uh Jesus came in that roomthat day, and he just really
washed my feet, put a ring on myfinger, crown on my head, a
rope around me, and all thosejust to tell me that I was his
son, and he loved me.
That was a game changer for me.
I quit holding things againstmyself so much, you know.
Still comes up, you gotta makeyou choose right.
(43:33):
All right, Ms.
Nancy.
This has been a long day.
Yeah, this is a good counselingsession.
You're a good listener.
Nancy Bruscher (43:42):
Did the pastor did he not love you?
Did he no no man?
Stephen Dees (43:46):
That's what he did, man.
Every time I bring up somethingthat I thought he would, man,
we just bring Jesus into it, andhe never judged me.
Pastor Jeremy is the one thathired me.
Nancy Bruscher (43:54):
Oh, okay.
Stephen Dees (43:55):
He's the one that got he's the one that ordained
me.
So so no, he the love of Godthat was in his heart
manifested.
He he's real, you know, he'ssolid all the way through when
it comes to being a man of God.
Nancy Bruscher (44:07):
Well, can I pray for us as we end this and for
the people who are believingGod?
Thank you for Stephen.
Thank you for him telling hisstory, and uh actually, more
importantly, your story, God.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
This is what it's all about is your story, Father.
Nancy Bruscher (44:21):
Yeah, is giving you glory for the story that
you've given us.
Thank you for letting him justopenly share about what he went
through and things that he did,and then just how you came and
just turned his life around.
God, um, I'm praying for thepeople who are listening that if
they can resonate with part ofit or any kind of unforgiveness,
no matter what we've gonethrough in our lives, we all
(44:43):
face this, God.
And I just pray that this isn'tjust like a nice little podcast
that we listen to and we keepon our day, God, that we
actually implement something sothat we can be more like you and
have the grace and theforgiveness that um Stephen
shared about.
So we give this um podcast toyou.
And as we always say inordinary people, extraordinary
(45:04):
things, your story is his glory.
So thank you for us.
Amen.
As I was sitting here editingthis episode, I'm also scanning
pictures for a client.
I hope that you are taking thetime to share your story, to
capture those heirloom memories,and to scan those pictures or
digitize those old familymovies.
If you need help, pleasecontact me at generations to
(45:28):
generations.com.
And I will see you in two weeksfor a brand new episode.
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