May 17, 2024 • 36 mins
Embark on a profound journey of healing and transformation with our special guest, Kevin Hughes, in this gripping episode of The Pam Ramey Show. We delve into the compelling life story of Kevin, who, from being a pastor’s kid to becoming a powerlifter and fitness enthusiast, displays an inspiring resilience against all odds.
Today, he stands strong, a beacon of resilience and unwavering faith, truly proving that God is indeed a healer and restorer.
Contact us at www.jesusgirlroar.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hey guys, welcome to the show that gives you the tools you need to break through
into all you were created to be, to live your life full of hope and purpose.
I'm Pam Raimi and Jesus Girls, let's find our role.
Music.
(00:23):
Hey, hey, hey, Jesus Girls and guys, welcome back to the Pam Raimi Show.
Show. It's so good to have you here.
We've been on a little bit of a hiatus, working on some other projects.
We've got some cool things to talk to you about down the, that are coming down
the pipeline, but we are back to our weekly podcast and boy,
(00:45):
do we have a great show for you today.
Something you are not going to want to miss.
It is an absolute joy and honor to welcome Kevin Kevin Hughes to the Jesus Guerrero studio.
Thank you so much for having me. Kevin, it is so good to have you here. And your dad.
(01:07):
Yeah, you got a beautiful wife. Yeah. She's so pretty. Wife,
three boys. Three boys. All boys. All boys. All boys.
So your wife has her hands full. She does. Yeah. With four of us. With four boys. Yes.
Oh, yes. And you do have a wonderful family. I know your family, and we love them so much.
(01:29):
And also, Kevin, you are a competition powerlifter. Tell us a little bit about that.
I am. I used to do strongman for quite some time. I was competing in the super
heavyweight division over 300 pounds.
My goodness. I got injured doing a 750-pound yoke walk.
Popped my left calf going down. Oh, my.
Turned it around, came back. On the way back, I popped my other calf coming back. Oh.
(01:55):
That hurts just thinking about it. It does. It was painful. But I finished and
I actually won that heat. Oh my goodness. I did. I wasn't going to quit. I don't quit.
But I ended up getting bone spurs in my heels and the doctor said...
Fix those. They have to cut your Achilles. I wasn't going to do that.
So my coach said we should start powerlifting.
So you transitioned from the strongman into powerlifting.
(02:19):
Yeah.
It's been, it's been a great time. I enjoy doing it. I took all of last year
off just to get stronger.
But the year before that in 23 or 22, I competed three times,
two of those within two weeks of each other. And I'll never do that again.
Too much, too much. That was a, that was a lot.
That's very exciting. And also you were really into CrossFit.
(02:42):
That's actually how I started my health journey. I realized I looked in the
mirror one day and I'm like, what happened?
And I looked at my wife and I said, how do you love me? I did. I said that.
What do you mean when you said what happened?
Time gets away from you. I was a business owner at a gun and pawn shop and you're
there working 12 hour days, eight days a week, and you're eating what you want.
(03:05):
And you just don't realize how busy you are and how much weight you put on so
fast and not pay attention to it.
It creeps up on you before you really realize it. Yeah.
You have lost quite a bit of weight. How much weight have you lost?
I'm at 120 pounds right now. My goodness.
(03:27):
So it's funny because my CrossFit... You've lost a person. I have.
And my CrossFit journey started with an old pastor friend of mine in Florida.
He's like, I go to CrossFit every day at 5 a.m. Come with me.
And I started going and fell in love with it.
Kind of changed your life. It did. Yeah. It did. That's awesome.
I love how God has created our bodies to move.
(03:48):
100%. Yeah, 100%. And when we move, we feel better.
We absolutely feel better, if not for anything else, just to have the,
you know, the endorphins doing high kicks and jumping jacks all through your body, right?
I mean, it just, it's like, well, give me a few more of those endorphins.
That's right. That's right.
That's awesome. 120 pounds. Yeah. I got a 30 to go to get where I want to be.
(04:10):
I want to walk around about 205, which is still considered overweight,
but I'm happy where I'm at.
That's awesome. That is quite a testimony. You know, that's not exactly what
we're going to talk about today, but we're going to bring you back to talk about
that because would you be, would you be willing to come on back and talk about that?
Because I think that it would encourage a lot of people because weight loss is a challenge. It is.
(04:33):
Yeah, it's a challenge and, and it takes a lot of discipline and tenacity in
your, in your mind. And the most important thing was my wife was on board.
She was cooking the meals. She was preparing stuff. So she was on board.
And if your wife or spouse is on board, it's harder.
But Dawn was 100% ready for it. Boy, that was good for her.
(04:54):
Yeah, that is quite a testament to the beauty of Dawn right there.
That's true. Also, Kevin, you were a pastor's kid.
Tell us a little bit about your rich, you know, spiritual heritage.
I was born in 1980. My dad was a pastor growing up. I always tell him it was a funny joke.
(05:19):
He was never there when I was born. He wasn't there when I was born. He was out ministering.
But his dad was a traveling evangelist for years. He traveled with Kenneth Hagen
and Norval Hayes and Lester Summerall. And my grandma was Hagen's personal accountant for years.
So my dad graduated Rhema in 75. In the middle, in the mid 80s,
he had the fastest growing church in America in Stockton, California called
(05:41):
Faith Valley Christian Center.
We had David and the Giants there and Copeland was there. And I mean,
you name it. It was, it was fantastic.
What a heritage that is. I've always been drawn.
I always knew that I wanted to minister. It just took me 40 years to realize
where I was going to do it at.
Well, you know, when the time is right, God will let you know, right?
(06:03):
So what was it like being...
A pastor's kid. All eyes are on you.
Even when you don't realize it at five, six, seven, 10 years old,
all eyes are always on you.
It was fun. You know, we had late nights at Tony's Pizzeria in California and
we were, all three of us boys were sleeping on the bench while dad was talking to other ministers.
(06:27):
And, you know, I got to be in the green room with all these big guys and Fred
Price actually not ordained me.
What's it called when you're born? They did a, what's it called? I'm having a brain.
Yes, dedicated. Oh, dedicated. Fred Price. I don't know if you've ever heard
of Fred Price, but huge minister in California.
(06:49):
Baby dedicated me. So it was fun. It's interesting.
I got to see a lot of positive things, but as a pastor kid, I got to see a lot
of negative things as well, which ended up causing a lot of hurt down the road.
What kind of negative things did you see?
A lot of church hurt. When I was younger, I saw my dad hurt a lot by other ministers,
(07:09):
people who called him friends, church members in his church.
You know, at one point, I think there was some tax fraud that happened years
ago that he was involved in, but it wasn't his fault.
It was an associate pastor that was embezzling money.
So it just, you know, you get turned off a lot. So, we were sheltered,
but we still got to see that side of things.
(07:31):
You know, we hear so much about church hurt.
And when you were hurt, Kevin, did you feel like you needed to leave the church?
Or how were you able to just navigate yourself?
So, I actually left the church when my parents got divorced in 1988.
And I was only eight years old. We ended up moving to Southern California with my mom.
(07:55):
Closer to San Francisco, my younger brother and I. Okay. My older brother stayed with my dad.
Okay. So we just, we left church.
I mean, my mom was hurt when I was young. So obviously I didn't understand a
lot, but we left church for a long time until we kind of made...
It back with my dad. My brother and I were kind of moving back and forth.
(08:16):
When the good times were good, we were living with somebody.
And when the good times went in, we'd run back to the other parent.
But it was tough for a long time.
And as I got older, I saw more hurt. And then we'll get more into the testimony side later.
But you see a lot of things as a pastor's kid.
And that's one thing that I've talked to our pastor's kid here at this church.
(08:40):
I said, I'm like, all eyes are around you. So you always got to be watching
yourself and making the right decisions in front of people because they're watching
you and they're judging you based on who your father is. Did you feel that judgment?
Always. Always. Always. Especially when I got older.
Wow. Knowing I wasn't making the right decisions, it got worse.
And people always assumed the best from you.
(09:01):
But then when you did fail, it was, it was worse.
Yeah. Because you knew, you know better. Yeah. And that's, even that's on me
though. I knew better. Why am I doing that?
I think we all kind of know better, but I think I can see that there would be a lot. Sure.
And there would be an escalated pressure on you. Sure.
Because like you said, all eyes are on you.
(09:24):
So did your dad and mom, once they divorced, did they live close together?
Was there a distance you needed to travel to get to be with your dad?
It was plane travels. Oh, okay. So there was no communication whatsoever.
They wanted nothing to do with each other until a tragic event happened years later.
And then they came back together and bonded when my brother died.
(09:48):
But we can talk about that later. That's years down the road from where we're technically at.
But they didn't talk. So there was just kind of a drop off cordial,
you know, I remember flying on airplanes with in the buddy system where I was
with the stewardess, you know, from California to Oklahoma or vice versa, Arizona. Wow. Wow.
I can relate to that. I did that from California to Cincinnati.
(10:13):
Yeah. And my parents didn't speak either.
I can relate. I can relate to that, Kevin. And it's hard. Yeah,
there was no co-parenting going on.
There was no, yeah, it was one or the other. It was one or the other. Yes.
And, well, tell us a little bit about your testimony. Sure.
Kevin, yeah, let us get to know that. Well-
(10:37):
I guess the majority of it starts when I moved to Arizona with my dad.
He was pastoring a church there.
My dad's never pastored small churches. They've always been,
I mean, I don't know what small is really, but three, four, five, 600 people.
The one in Arizona was probably three or 400 people.
And I was coming out of things that I shouldn't have been doing because I had
(10:59):
so much hurt, so much anger towards my dad.
But he ended up kicking me out of the house. I would sneak out in the middle of the night.
But I wasn't going to do anything wrong. I was actually going to the gym at
the apartment complex we lived in. Oh, my.
But I was just, it kind of at 12, 13 years old, it got me out of my mind from
wanting to go do things. But he didn't know that.
(11:20):
So I came home one night and my bedroom window was shut and locked.
Oh, boy. I knocked on the door and he said. And you're 12? I was 12 and a half, 13, somewhere in there.
He opened the door and said, you're not welcome here anymore.
Oh. Yeah. Oh, that must have been devastating.
But there was a stepmom involved and stepkids. And so, you know,
(11:42):
I can, I don't understand it to a 13 year old, but, you know,
maybe he should have brought me in and said, where have you been?
What are you doing? Exactly. And I would have just said I was at the gym.
Yeah. Yeah. So, so what happened after that?
I started running with some friends. I was living on, sleeping on different
couches, got involved in drugs and I became a fighter, like a street fighter.
(12:03):
Like I would fight anybody at any given time. I've got scars on my hands to
prove it, but I just, I was so angry that I would, I didn't, we didn't talk smack.
I would just, we would just fight. And I've probably been in 75 to 100 fights in that time.
Year period from like 12 to 18, 12 to 19.
(12:24):
My goodness. My goodness. But I had so much pimped up anger at my dad for what
he did and what I thought he did.
So I just picked, made the wrong decisions.
Got into drugs. During that timeframe, I was shipped off by the state to outside
of Los Angeles to a boy's home.
If you've ever seen the movie holes that Disney did, they were dig holes in
(12:48):
this boy's ranch. And that's actually you what we did.
Really? I was there for four nights. In the middle of the night,
four nights into it, I ran away.
Really? And I hitchhiked from Los Angeles, 350 miles or so, back to the Arizona area, Phoenix area.
A really nice couple picked me up. I was freezing to death in Flagstaff, Arizona.
They took me in and then I had a truck driver pick me up and decided not to
(13:13):
take me home. and the next two weeks was extremely rough.
There was some abuse and sexual assaulting that went on, but I was able to get
away, break away in Louisiana.
So you had to escape for your very life. Yeah.
Kevin, how old were you when this? 13, 13 and a half, roughly.
And you're hitchhiking and now the wrong person picked you up. Yeah.
(13:38):
I went through all that. went they state of Louisiana shipped me back to Arizona
can I just ask you I'm just gonna just.
We kind of speed bumped over this, but how did you get away from,
from that, from your abuser?
We were at a stoplight in his car. We weren't in his truck. We were in,
(13:59):
we were in a car and I put a screwdriver in his leg.
Wow. Yeah. They didn't catch the guy though. They never caught him.
Not that I'm aware of. No.
Oh my goodness. I just ran. That's unfortunate. So you dabbed him with a screwdriver
and you were able to get out at that stoplight.
There's a two-door white Thunderbird and run and, and run for, for your safety. Yes.
(14:24):
Well, that right there shows your mindset and how, you know what I mean?
I'm not going out that way. Oh yeah. I'm that you're a fighter right there.
You can see you're a fighter. God made you a fighter.
So now you're free. I am. You get, and they never find this guy.
Not that I know of. No. And you know, what's funny is I don't think anything
(14:45):
ever came about it. I was in police custody for a couple of days.
I slept in the cell inside the sheriff's department until the state of Arizona
actually came and picked me back up. They took me to my dad's house.
My dad picked me up from the police department in Arizona, drove me about two
miles away and dropped me off on the side of the road again.
What? Yeah. He dropped you off on the side? Said you're not welcome to come home.
(15:11):
Oh, my. I can't even imagine that.
And was your dad privy to
what had happened to you did he know were you able to tell
him no i don't think the only person that i truly ever told was my mom and my
wife now but i hadn't told anybody until a few months ago when i told the church
here wow i don't even know why i told the church here but i know why it was
(15:35):
time it was it was time because jesus is stepping into the middle of that pain.
And wow, that's some heavy duty pain. It sure is.
So now you're on the side of the road again, Kevin, what did you do? What did you do?
So we got a little worse. I went back to the friends I was hanging with.
(15:57):
This isn't a bragging thing, but if you ever go to Dillard's and they take these
little yellow stickers off of a roll and they scan the barcode and they scan
that sticker, that sticker is because of me and my friends.
Really? It's not a great rally vote. It's not really.
We had a friend who worked at Dillard's in Arizona years ago in the mid-90s.
(16:20):
And you would return items not to a return department, just to wherever that
local thing was. So I would go grab hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars
worth of merchandise and return it to him.
And I ended up finding out that Dillard's had to figure out a way to stop this.
So they created this new barcode system. You were the inspiration for the barcode for Dillard's.
(16:43):
Such not a way of thing to brag about, but that was me. Well, you know what?
It's bragging about Jesus though, because it's not you now, right? That's right.
100%. That's it. Dillards can trust you to go into their store. Yeah.
So, okay. So now you're, are you still sleeping on couches? I am.
(17:03):
So this is, this all happens over a few years.
So I'm probably 15, 16 years old now. I'm in and out of juvenile hall.
I think the longest stint I did in juvenile hall was probably six and a half, seven months.
My friends dared me to call it a bomb threat on an Applebee's in mid to late nineties. And I did it.
And we got caught because we called him again like
(17:25):
10 minutes later and we're laughing at him and within 30 seconds
guns were drawn we were we were done
i i'm sorry i just have to check a little because you know you think when you
look back and you go how in the world could i have done that we called him back
10 minutes later so busted busted and that was major busted here and honestly Honestly,
(17:48):
that was the last straw that kind of, that was the last days of my craziness.
Was it? Yeah. By that time I was 17-ish, juvenile hall.
My mom, the state of Arizona got a hold of my mom and they said,
we want to take you. She said, we'll take him. So they put me on a Greyhound bus.
Halfway through that Greyhound ride from Arizona to Oklahoma,
(18:10):
the bus driver got off in the middle of the desert and started walking away. I says, I quit. What?
Promise you. I cannot even believe half of it. This is amazing.
Who does that? Check this out. It gets better.
Greyhound paid for all the adults a hotel room that night.
I had to sleep on the bus because I wasn't an adult. Are you kidding me?
(18:31):
No, there was two of us, a girl and myself.
We slept on the bus that night with no adult supervision.
They just left you there? They just left us there. There was no Greyhound people
there. There wasn't a Greyhound for hundreds of miles.
That is crazy. Yeah. That is crazy. But we ended up getting back to Oklahoma.
I'm months away from hitting 18.
(18:53):
And I was just enjoying back being home with my mom. My mom has always been
my rock. She has always been my rock.
Doesn't matter where I was at. If I needed money, she was sending me money.
She did get to the point one time where you're doing drugs. I'm not going to
send you money anymore because I know you're going to spend it on.
But she's always been there. Always been there. That's fabulous.
(19:15):
And I didn't completely turn my life back over to God at that time.
It didn't happen for another year or so.
But I got a job. I was working. Things were great. That's awesome. So, yeah.
That's awesome. So where did you go from there, Kevin?
Memorial Day of 99 is where I'm going to jump to. I was dating a girl and we
(19:36):
decided that we wanted pizza.
So long story short, we called in delivery to pizza.
And you're in Oklahoma. We're in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Pizza Hut delivery driver didn't show up to work that day.
So we had to go get it. And I was really upset for some reason.
I'm like, you're just really nonchalant. I don't care. That's fine.
I'll come pick it up. I was really upset.
I'm driving home we pick it up we're on our way back and I see my brother at
(19:59):
a stoplight and we both give each other the finger kind of like a brotherly
high we were smiling that was your that was your hello signal that was our hello signal.
And about less than three minutes later, I was watching him fly out of his truck.
Oh, Kevin. We were at a complete stop. My girlfriend and I were,
Mrs. Chandler, who was taking, we knew everybody in our little neighborhood.
(20:21):
She was taking a left-hand turn. I think Aaron, which is his name,
had just gotten a subwoofer in his truck the day before, and he was probably
playing with the radio because the music was really loud after the accident happened.
And he looked up, saw that I was at stopped, and he tried to swerve around me,
saw her, tried to cut back in front of me. The back of his truck hit the back of her car.
(20:42):
Crazily, his truck flipped forward, and his arms came straight out of the driver's
side window like Superman does, just straight out.
Almost like he rolled out. It just so happens where he landed, there was a big rock.
And I walked this street days later, and I couldn't find a rock this size.
And he died from swelling of the brain. I tried CPR.
(21:04):
Life flight came. They took him.
I was the one that called my brother. I remember where everybody was at.
He was walking into Walmart. I called my stepdad.
He was at a game with my stepbrother, a baseball game. We couldn't get a hold
of my mom, though. She wasn't answering her phone. Oh, goodness.
She was at the cemetery visiting her mom because it was Memorial Day.
(21:24):
She eventually came around the big curve and we saw her.
My dad and my brother were running towards her. And she knew at that moment it was either Aaron or I.
So it was a tough time, you know, for sure. That is. And that was your baby brother.
That was my little brother. I was 15 months older than him. Oh,
my goodness. I was the middle one.
And I want to say that was probably the turning point.
(21:47):
I saw I lost a brother, but my mom buried a 17-year-old boy, her son.
And I told myself, I actually told God that day that they asked if he wanted to pray for or anything.
And I said, well, I can tell God now that I will never make another purpose
mistake like that because I don't want my mom to have to deal with that again.
(22:10):
So I didn't, it wasn't anything crazy, but you know, we ended up having a great
time and moving back and forth.
And I ended up traveling with a longtime friend of my dad and I's named Tim Hines.
I got to travel an armor-bearer with him. And that's when I kind of started
my armor-bearing. I enjoyed it. Personal, kind of like personal security for people.
(22:32):
And that's how I got into new life at Bible College. So you went to Bible College. I did.
When you lost your brother, Kevin...
How did, I mean, it's tragic enough to lose your brother, but to actually see,
(22:54):
to be there when that happened.
I can't think of very many things that would be more traumatic than that.
And yet it seems like that is when you really started turning your life around.
Did you feel, did you feel angry? Did you feel angry? Did you feel anger at God?
(23:17):
How did you process through that? At the hospital that day, our pastor asked
me and said, is there anything you want us to pray to God for?
And I said, you can tell God if he takes my brother, I'll never serve him again.
I did say that. I remember saying that. And I walked out of the room.
(23:38):
And i didn't completely there was a lot of hurt obviously
i couldn't drive on that even now when i go back
to my mom's it's hard to drive on that road because they
say most fatality accidents happen within a mile of your home yes and it was
maybe a half mile oh my so we passed that my mom we've lived in that house since
1973 my grandpa built it so that's that's in our family my mom still lives there
(24:00):
and it was it was tough so there's a it's a constant reminder it was a
constant reminder and it was constant reminder until they paved that road because
for years i could see his skid marks oh my goodness and i know that sounds weird
but every time i would drive by i saw his skid marks and then i think that makes
sense i i mean i think that makes sense and so,
(24:24):
as horrible as that was it also god used it as a catalyst yes to to bring you
back i actually She moved away from Oklahoma. You did.
Before I went, and I kind of jumped ahead there, but I didn't go to Bible college
until 07, and this was 99.
So I ended up moving to Charlotte with my dad. And.
(24:47):
I don't know why. I mean, obviously now that things have gone through,
life has explained itself. Sometimes it's just weird like that. You're right.
But I moved there and immediately I'm not allowed to live with them.
Even though I've changed. Again, you're experiencing the same kind of very deep rejection.
(25:07):
He owned a country club there. It was a non-golf country club.
So they had a driving range and a pool and they did weddings and quinceañeras and everything.
And I lived in the back of it, inside the snack bar, inside the snack bar there
at the age of 23, 24, 25 years old.
So you were not treated like your step-siblings were treated.
(25:30):
Correct. My step-siblings lived with them at 21 years old back then.
Since then, my dad has obviously apologized. We've had some great times of breakthrough
together and we're great now.
I love that. That's what I was going to ask you is, was there reconciliation
between you and your father?
(25:50):
There has been. He apologized a long time ago, but it took time for me because
I consistently see the same mistakes on his part.
And that tells me, well, maybe you just really haven't changed.
My dad is one of the most, probably the best speaker, preacher I've ever heard
(26:10):
in my life. And I've heard some really good preachers. And I'm telling you,
my dad can bring the word like nobody I've ever heard.
He just like he's human. He makes bad decisions.
And unfortunately, sometimes those decisions affects his family. Yeah.
And then you also were needing to heal from some very deep-rooted trauma.
Yes. And that does not happen overnight.
(26:32):
It doesn't. No. Especially when you're still facing rejection.
Absolutely. And that rejection, that rejection can carry over into every other facet of your life.
Did you see, did you experience that? Yeah.
You know, I was so focused back then in my mid-20s that I almost didn't allow
(26:52):
it to affect me. I was going to church. I was serving God.
And I'm always that old, you know, we were raised in that old faith movement,
that Pentecost movement. The doors were open. You were there.
Yeah. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Wednesday night,
we're there. Intercessory prayer.
And as a PK, you're always there. But that's just, even now,
the doors are open. If we have school, Supernatural on Sunday night, I want to be there.
(27:14):
Yeah. And sometimes even my wife, she's like, why are you going? Because church is open.
We're here to worship God. So why am I not going to go?
And we were doing that day in and day out with the church, Impact Church in
Charlotte, North Carolina.
And I made a lot of good friends. And that's where, when I started traveling
with Tim and I was with him for a whole summer and we got to minister all over the East Coast.
(27:36):
And then we drove right through. So you were ministering with Tim Hines.
To me, listen, I wasn't physically giving the word, no. No, but to me,
when I'm an armor bearer and I'm carrying your Bible for you,
when I'm ushering for you, that's ministry. You better believe it is. I know. So.
Absolutely. And even now, I'm over our first impressions department here at
the church, and I tell these people, we're greeters, and we're ushers,
(27:58):
or we're parking lot, but we're ministering to these people. Absolutely.
Absolutely. You know, a lot of people, and I said this a couple weeks ago,
a lot of people made a mistake Saturday night, and they're making that walk
of shame Sunday morning in the church we don't know about. That's so true, Kevin.
And that greeter, that first person that smiles and says, I love you.
Welcome to church. That walk of shame is completely gone. Boy, that's a good word.
(28:22):
That's such a good word, Kevin. It's been good.
Can I ask you, what would you say to our listeners?
And we have listeners around the world and I can guarantee you your testimony
is speaking to a lot of people right now.
(28:43):
What would you say to somebody who perhaps has suffered deep-rooted rejection,
possible, I mean, kidnapping, sexual abuse?
We're talking some very deep-rooted trauma.
What would you say to that person who does not know how to move on?
(29:07):
I can tell you that, you know, I don't want to say I've contemplated suicide.
I've thought suicide in the past.
And I immediately get it out of my head. Because I read an article once that
said they interviewed, every person they ever interviewed, that jumped off a
cliff or jumped off a building and lived.
(29:27):
What was the first thing that went through their mind was regret.
Oh boy, that's a good word, yes. They attempted suicide and the first thing was regret. Yeah.
And I think for me, watching my brother die.
I saw how that affected my mom and I knew that as much, I knew I had something better in life.
(29:47):
And it was almost like you loved her life more than you loved yours.
You have to. Yeah. You have to.
Because if you don't love yourself, you can't love anybody else.
So you, I didn't want to see her do that again.
I didn't want to see her lose a second son, whether by my own actions or me
doing something that would have caused that to happen.
And I think you make such a good point because when we live in our pain and
(30:13):
we don't make that deliberate.
Intentional focus on healing from our pain, it does hurt the people around us.
It doesn't just hurt us, right?
And you know how I got over it? And this sounds weird, but I served.
And again, if the doors are open, I served as much as I could.
(30:36):
I learned how to build usher teams.
I learned how to bring people together, how to get to minister to people.
So I was so, and I tell my youth this every Wednesday, I use this word and I live by it daily.
I was so obsessed with my relationship with God, that up and down relationship
that nothing laterally was going to hurt it or break it.
(30:58):
Boy, that's beautiful because he is our healer. Yes.
He is our Jehovah Rapha. He does bind up our broken heart.
And so really, you just kept running back to God. I did. I never had that.
Yeah. I never had that. And I've still, I told our pastor Craig this the other
(31:19):
day, I've never had that spiritual, at the altar, fallen, Holy Ghost movement
because I'm so focused on serving.
Now I get mine in my car when I'm driving to and from work. 100%, that's my time.
But I'm such a, I want to serve so much and I want to watch other people be
(31:42):
healed emotionally and physically that that's all I care about.
And you know what, Kevin, that really shows.
It really shows you are a born leader and you really are gifted at building a team.
It's very, you have built a fabulous team with our greeters and with our ushers
(32:04):
and parking lot attendants and all of that.
And I know that you're building a really great, solid team with our youth. Yeah. Yeah.
And I love seeing you walk in your gifting of being a leader because the devil
(32:25):
did everything he could to keep that from happening.
They did. Yeah. He's defeated though. He is defeated.
Well, we are about to land this plane,
but I would like to just ask you if you have any words that you would like to say to our listeners,
(32:47):
a word of encouragement that might help somebody who is in that dark pit of despair.
I would say don't stand around and be idle. Mm-hmm. Good word.
You got to stay focused and you got to stay moving.
The reason that I was able to come through everything is because I stayed moving.
(33:08):
I worked my worldly job and I did serve at the church. I was always moving.
I know some people are like, well, you never took time to mourn. I did. I did mourn.
But I was so energy focused and so obsessed in that relationship that I wasn't
going to fail again and I will not fail again.
So stay focused and be obsessed on God and in that relationship with Him.
(33:30):
And I'm telling you, your life will change. It will.
Wow. That is such a great word.
He does bind up all of our wounds and heals our broken hearts, doesn't He?
You're living proof of that. Just like David. I preached this last night and
I said he was in that shepherd's field.
And then after he was anointed with oil, he was told to go back to the shepherd's field.
(33:53):
And if you look at the Bible, the majority of people in the Bible who are called,
by God or Jesus, we're all working.
Elisha attending the oxen, the disciples were the fishermen, David was a shepherd.
You know, he doesn't call the lazy to do nothing. He wants people that he knows
he can trust. That's such a good, diligent.
Yes. Diligent is the word. Diligent, servers, boy, such a great word. Kevin Hughes.
(34:18):
Thank you. What a joy it has been.
And thank you for being vulnerable. Thank you for being just so transparent because your words are.
Will change many people's lives.
So thank you so much for coming on the show. Can I say one last thing?
Absolutely. My dad and I's relationship is so good now. He's actually over at his own Bible college.
(34:42):
So I'm finishing my, I'll have my bachelor's by within three months. Oh, congratulations.
I'm working, I'll start taking my master's in September. And when I finish that,
he's gonna start a doctorate program and he's already asked me to teach one
of the classes for the doctorate. Talk about restoration.
Yes. there is restoration right there
(35:03):
it's been amazing and you know i love that because when you
chase after god and make him
the focus he restores all of the broken things in our lives and you are a perfect
example of that thank you kevin thanks for being on the show today i appreciate
you having me oh it will you come back yeah let's do the health let's do it
(35:25):
let's do it nutrition and weight loss and exercise.
We have a lot of things to talk about. We could spend hours on that.
We sure could. We sure could.
Well, it's been such a blessing having you on the show today.
Thank you listeners for being here.
We love you. And God does have such an amazing destiny written over your life.
(35:47):
And our prayer for you is that you walk into every single plan and purpose that
God has created for you to walk in because just like Kevin shared,
boy, the enemy tried to deter him, but he came back and he fixed his eyes on Jesus.
And that changed everything. Changed your whole life, right, Kevin? It did.
(36:12):
He is our way maker where there seems to be no way.
So God bless you. Thank you for being here. You can reach us at jesusgarore.com.
We're going to drop that information in the bio section.
And have a blessed day. And above all things, remember this,
Jesus is crazy about you.
(36:32):
Music.
Hey guys, welcome to the show that gives you the tools you need to break through
into all you were created to be, to live your life full of hope and purpose.
I'm Pam Raimi and Jesus Girls, let's find our role.
Music.
(00:23):
Hey, hey, hey, Jesus Girls and guys, welcome back to the Pam Raimi Show.
Show. It's so good to have you here.
We've been on a little bit of a hiatus, working on some other projects.
We've got some cool things to talk to you about down the, that are coming down
the pipeline, but we are back to our weekly podcast and boy,
(00:45):
do we have a great show for you today.
Something you are not going to want to miss.
It is an absolute joy and honor to welcome Kevin Kevin Hughes to the Jesus Guerrero studio.
Thank you so much for having me. Kevin, it is so good to have you here. And your dad.
(01:07):
Yeah, you got a beautiful wife. Yeah. She's so pretty. Wife,
three boys. Three boys. All boys. All boys. All boys.
So your wife has her hands full. She does. Yeah. With four of us. With four boys. Yes.
Oh, yes. And you do have a wonderful family. I know your family, and we love them so much.
(01:29):
And also, Kevin, you are a competition powerlifter. Tell us a little bit about that.
I am. I used to do strongman for quite some time. I was competing in the super
heavyweight division over 300 pounds.
My goodness. I got injured doing a 750-pound yoke walk.
Popped my left calf going down. Oh, my.
Turned it around, came back. On the way back, I popped my other calf coming back. Oh.
(01:55):
That hurts just thinking about it. It does. It was painful. But I finished and
I actually won that heat. Oh my goodness. I did. I wasn't going to quit. I don't quit.
But I ended up getting bone spurs in my heels and the doctor said...
Fix those. They have to cut your Achilles. I wasn't going to do that.
So my coach said we should start powerlifting.
So you transitioned from the strongman into powerlifting.
(02:19):
Yeah.
It's been, it's been a great time. I enjoy doing it. I took all of last year
off just to get stronger.
But the year before that in 23 or 22, I competed three times,
two of those within two weeks of each other. And I'll never do that again.
Too much, too much. That was a, that was a lot.
That's very exciting. And also you were really into CrossFit.
(02:42):
That's actually how I started my health journey. I realized I looked in the
mirror one day and I'm like, what happened?
And I looked at my wife and I said, how do you love me? I did. I said that.
What do you mean when you said what happened?
Time gets away from you. I was a business owner at a gun and pawn shop and you're
there working 12 hour days, eight days a week, and you're eating what you want.
(03:05):
And you just don't realize how busy you are and how much weight you put on so
fast and not pay attention to it.
It creeps up on you before you really realize it. Yeah.
You have lost quite a bit of weight. How much weight have you lost?
I'm at 120 pounds right now. My goodness.
(03:27):
So it's funny because my CrossFit... You've lost a person. I have.
And my CrossFit journey started with an old pastor friend of mine in Florida.
He's like, I go to CrossFit every day at 5 a.m. Come with me.
And I started going and fell in love with it.
Kind of changed your life. It did. Yeah. It did. That's awesome.
I love how God has created our bodies to move.
(03:48):
100%. Yeah, 100%. And when we move, we feel better.
We absolutely feel better, if not for anything else, just to have the,
you know, the endorphins doing high kicks and jumping jacks all through your body, right?
I mean, it just, it's like, well, give me a few more of those endorphins.
That's right. That's right.
That's awesome. 120 pounds. Yeah. I got a 30 to go to get where I want to be.
(04:10):
I want to walk around about 205, which is still considered overweight,
but I'm happy where I'm at.
That's awesome. That is quite a testimony. You know, that's not exactly what
we're going to talk about today, but we're going to bring you back to talk about
that because would you be, would you be willing to come on back and talk about that?
Because I think that it would encourage a lot of people because weight loss is a challenge. It is.
(04:33):
Yeah, it's a challenge and, and it takes a lot of discipline and tenacity in
your, in your mind. And the most important thing was my wife was on board.
She was cooking the meals. She was preparing stuff. So she was on board.
And if your wife or spouse is on board, it's harder.
But Dawn was 100% ready for it. Boy, that was good for her.
(04:54):
Yeah, that is quite a testament to the beauty of Dawn right there.
That's true. Also, Kevin, you were a pastor's kid.
Tell us a little bit about your rich, you know, spiritual heritage.
I was born in 1980. My dad was a pastor growing up. I always tell him it was a funny joke.
(05:19):
He was never there when I was born. He wasn't there when I was born. He was out ministering.
But his dad was a traveling evangelist for years. He traveled with Kenneth Hagen
and Norval Hayes and Lester Summerall. And my grandma was Hagen's personal accountant for years.
So my dad graduated Rhema in 75. In the middle, in the mid 80s,
he had the fastest growing church in America in Stockton, California called
(05:41):
Faith Valley Christian Center.
We had David and the Giants there and Copeland was there. And I mean,
you name it. It was, it was fantastic.
What a heritage that is. I've always been drawn.
I always knew that I wanted to minister. It just took me 40 years to realize
where I was going to do it at.
Well, you know, when the time is right, God will let you know, right?
(06:03):
So what was it like being...
A pastor's kid. All eyes are on you.
Even when you don't realize it at five, six, seven, 10 years old,
all eyes are always on you.
It was fun. You know, we had late nights at Tony's Pizzeria in California and
we were, all three of us boys were sleeping on the bench while dad was talking to other ministers.
(06:27):
And, you know, I got to be in the green room with all these big guys and Fred
Price actually not ordained me.
What's it called when you're born? They did a, what's it called? I'm having a brain.
Yes, dedicated. Oh, dedicated. Fred Price. I don't know if you've ever heard
of Fred Price, but huge minister in California.
(06:49):
Baby dedicated me. So it was fun. It's interesting.
I got to see a lot of positive things, but as a pastor kid, I got to see a lot
of negative things as well, which ended up causing a lot of hurt down the road.
What kind of negative things did you see?
A lot of church hurt. When I was younger, I saw my dad hurt a lot by other ministers,
(07:09):
people who called him friends, church members in his church.
You know, at one point, I think there was some tax fraud that happened years
ago that he was involved in, but it wasn't his fault.
It was an associate pastor that was embezzling money.
So it just, you know, you get turned off a lot. So, we were sheltered,
but we still got to see that side of things.
(07:31):
You know, we hear so much about church hurt.
And when you were hurt, Kevin, did you feel like you needed to leave the church?
Or how were you able to just navigate yourself?
So, I actually left the church when my parents got divorced in 1988.
And I was only eight years old. We ended up moving to Southern California with my mom.
(07:55):
Closer to San Francisco, my younger brother and I. Okay. My older brother stayed with my dad.
Okay. So we just, we left church.
I mean, my mom was hurt when I was young. So obviously I didn't understand a
lot, but we left church for a long time until we kind of made...
It back with my dad. My brother and I were kind of moving back and forth.
(08:16):
When the good times were good, we were living with somebody.
And when the good times went in, we'd run back to the other parent.
But it was tough for a long time.
And as I got older, I saw more hurt. And then we'll get more into the testimony side later.
But you see a lot of things as a pastor's kid.
And that's one thing that I've talked to our pastor's kid here at this church.
(08:40):
I said, I'm like, all eyes are around you. So you always got to be watching
yourself and making the right decisions in front of people because they're watching
you and they're judging you based on who your father is. Did you feel that judgment?
Always. Always. Always. Especially when I got older.
Wow. Knowing I wasn't making the right decisions, it got worse.
And people always assumed the best from you.
(09:01):
But then when you did fail, it was, it was worse.
Yeah. Because you knew, you know better. Yeah. And that's, even that's on me
though. I knew better. Why am I doing that?
I think we all kind of know better, but I think I can see that there would be a lot. Sure.
And there would be an escalated pressure on you. Sure.
Because like you said, all eyes are on you.
(09:24):
So did your dad and mom, once they divorced, did they live close together?
Was there a distance you needed to travel to get to be with your dad?
It was plane travels. Oh, okay. So there was no communication whatsoever.
They wanted nothing to do with each other until a tragic event happened years later.
And then they came back together and bonded when my brother died.
(09:48):
But we can talk about that later. That's years down the road from where we're technically at.
But they didn't talk. So there was just kind of a drop off cordial,
you know, I remember flying on airplanes with in the buddy system where I was
with the stewardess, you know, from California to Oklahoma or vice versa, Arizona. Wow. Wow.
I can relate to that. I did that from California to Cincinnati.
(10:13):
Yeah. And my parents didn't speak either.
I can relate. I can relate to that, Kevin. And it's hard. Yeah,
there was no co-parenting going on.
There was no, yeah, it was one or the other. It was one or the other. Yes.
And, well, tell us a little bit about your testimony. Sure.
Kevin, yeah, let us get to know that. Well-
(10:37):
I guess the majority of it starts when I moved to Arizona with my dad.
He was pastoring a church there.
My dad's never pastored small churches. They've always been,
I mean, I don't know what small is really, but three, four, five, 600 people.
The one in Arizona was probably three or 400 people.
And I was coming out of things that I shouldn't have been doing because I had
(10:59):
so much hurt, so much anger towards my dad.
But he ended up kicking me out of the house. I would sneak out in the middle of the night.
But I wasn't going to do anything wrong. I was actually going to the gym at
the apartment complex we lived in. Oh, my.
But I was just, it kind of at 12, 13 years old, it got me out of my mind from
wanting to go do things. But he didn't know that.
(11:20):
So I came home one night and my bedroom window was shut and locked.
Oh, boy. I knocked on the door and he said. And you're 12? I was 12 and a half, 13, somewhere in there.
He opened the door and said, you're not welcome here anymore.
Oh. Yeah. Oh, that must have been devastating.
But there was a stepmom involved and stepkids. And so, you know,
(11:42):
I can, I don't understand it to a 13 year old, but, you know,
maybe he should have brought me in and said, where have you been?
What are you doing? Exactly. And I would have just said I was at the gym.
Yeah. Yeah. So, so what happened after that?
I started running with some friends. I was living on, sleeping on different
couches, got involved in drugs and I became a fighter, like a street fighter.
(12:03):
Like I would fight anybody at any given time. I've got scars on my hands to
prove it, but I just, I was so angry that I would, I didn't, we didn't talk smack.
I would just, we would just fight. And I've probably been in 75 to 100 fights in that time.
Year period from like 12 to 18, 12 to 19.
(12:24):
My goodness. My goodness. But I had so much pimped up anger at my dad for what
he did and what I thought he did.
So I just picked, made the wrong decisions.
Got into drugs. During that timeframe, I was shipped off by the state to outside
of Los Angeles to a boy's home.
If you've ever seen the movie holes that Disney did, they were dig holes in
(12:48):
this boy's ranch. And that's actually you what we did.
Really? I was there for four nights. In the middle of the night,
four nights into it, I ran away.
Really? And I hitchhiked from Los Angeles, 350 miles or so, back to the Arizona area, Phoenix area.
A really nice couple picked me up. I was freezing to death in Flagstaff, Arizona.
They took me in and then I had a truck driver pick me up and decided not to
(13:13):
take me home. and the next two weeks was extremely rough.
There was some abuse and sexual assaulting that went on, but I was able to get
away, break away in Louisiana.
So you had to escape for your very life. Yeah.
Kevin, how old were you when this? 13, 13 and a half, roughly.
And you're hitchhiking and now the wrong person picked you up. Yeah.
(13:38):
I went through all that. went they state of Louisiana shipped me back to Arizona
can I just ask you I'm just gonna just.
We kind of speed bumped over this, but how did you get away from,
from that, from your abuser?
We were at a stoplight in his car. We weren't in his truck. We were in,
(13:59):
we were in a car and I put a screwdriver in his leg.
Wow. Yeah. They didn't catch the guy though. They never caught him.
Not that I'm aware of. No.
Oh my goodness. I just ran. That's unfortunate. So you dabbed him with a screwdriver
and you were able to get out at that stoplight.
There's a two-door white Thunderbird and run and, and run for, for your safety. Yes.
(14:24):
Well, that right there shows your mindset and how, you know what I mean?
I'm not going out that way. Oh yeah. I'm that you're a fighter right there.
You can see you're a fighter. God made you a fighter.
So now you're free. I am. You get, and they never find this guy.
Not that I know of. No. And you know, what's funny is I don't think anything
(14:45):
ever came about it. I was in police custody for a couple of days.
I slept in the cell inside the sheriff's department until the state of Arizona
actually came and picked me back up. They took me to my dad's house.
My dad picked me up from the police department in Arizona, drove me about two
miles away and dropped me off on the side of the road again.
What? Yeah. He dropped you off on the side? Said you're not welcome to come home.
(15:11):
Oh, my. I can't even imagine that.
And was your dad privy to
what had happened to you did he know were you able to tell
him no i don't think the only person that i truly ever told was my mom and my
wife now but i hadn't told anybody until a few months ago when i told the church
here wow i don't even know why i told the church here but i know why it was
(15:35):
time it was it was time because jesus is stepping into the middle of that pain.
And wow, that's some heavy duty pain. It sure is.
So now you're on the side of the road again, Kevin, what did you do? What did you do?
So we got a little worse. I went back to the friends I was hanging with.
(15:57):
This isn't a bragging thing, but if you ever go to Dillard's and they take these
little yellow stickers off of a roll and they scan the barcode and they scan
that sticker, that sticker is because of me and my friends.
Really? It's not a great rally vote. It's not really.
We had a friend who worked at Dillard's in Arizona years ago in the mid-90s.
(16:20):
And you would return items not to a return department, just to wherever that
local thing was. So I would go grab hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars
worth of merchandise and return it to him.
And I ended up finding out that Dillard's had to figure out a way to stop this.
So they created this new barcode system. You were the inspiration for the barcode for Dillard's.
(16:43):
Such not a way of thing to brag about, but that was me. Well, you know what?
It's bragging about Jesus though, because it's not you now, right? That's right.
100%. That's it. Dillards can trust you to go into their store. Yeah.
So, okay. So now you're, are you still sleeping on couches? I am.
(17:03):
So this is, this all happens over a few years.
So I'm probably 15, 16 years old now. I'm in and out of juvenile hall.
I think the longest stint I did in juvenile hall was probably six and a half, seven months.
My friends dared me to call it a bomb threat on an Applebee's in mid to late nineties. And I did it.
And we got caught because we called him again like
(17:25):
10 minutes later and we're laughing at him and within 30 seconds
guns were drawn we were we were done
i i'm sorry i just have to check a little because you know you think when you
look back and you go how in the world could i have done that we called him back
10 minutes later so busted busted and that was major busted here and honestly Honestly,
(17:48):
that was the last straw that kind of, that was the last days of my craziness.
Was it? Yeah. By that time I was 17-ish, juvenile hall.
My mom, the state of Arizona got a hold of my mom and they said,
we want to take you. She said, we'll take him. So they put me on a Greyhound bus.
Halfway through that Greyhound ride from Arizona to Oklahoma,
(18:10):
the bus driver got off in the middle of the desert and started walking away. I says, I quit. What?
Promise you. I cannot even believe half of it. This is amazing.
Who does that? Check this out. It gets better.
Greyhound paid for all the adults a hotel room that night.
I had to sleep on the bus because I wasn't an adult. Are you kidding me?
(18:31):
No, there was two of us, a girl and myself.
We slept on the bus that night with no adult supervision.
They just left you there? They just left us there. There was no Greyhound people
there. There wasn't a Greyhound for hundreds of miles.
That is crazy. Yeah. That is crazy. But we ended up getting back to Oklahoma.
I'm months away from hitting 18.
(18:53):
And I was just enjoying back being home with my mom. My mom has always been
my rock. She has always been my rock.
Doesn't matter where I was at. If I needed money, she was sending me money.
She did get to the point one time where you're doing drugs. I'm not going to
send you money anymore because I know you're going to spend it on.
But she's always been there. Always been there. That's fabulous.
(19:15):
And I didn't completely turn my life back over to God at that time.
It didn't happen for another year or so.
But I got a job. I was working. Things were great. That's awesome. So, yeah.
That's awesome. So where did you go from there, Kevin?
Memorial Day of 99 is where I'm going to jump to. I was dating a girl and we
(19:36):
decided that we wanted pizza.
So long story short, we called in delivery to pizza.
And you're in Oklahoma. We're in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Pizza Hut delivery driver didn't show up to work that day.
So we had to go get it. And I was really upset for some reason.
I'm like, you're just really nonchalant. I don't care. That's fine.
I'll come pick it up. I was really upset.
I'm driving home we pick it up we're on our way back and I see my brother at
(19:59):
a stoplight and we both give each other the finger kind of like a brotherly
high we were smiling that was your that was your hello signal that was our hello signal.
And about less than three minutes later, I was watching him fly out of his truck.
Oh, Kevin. We were at a complete stop. My girlfriend and I were,
Mrs. Chandler, who was taking, we knew everybody in our little neighborhood.
(20:21):
She was taking a left-hand turn. I think Aaron, which is his name,
had just gotten a subwoofer in his truck the day before, and he was probably
playing with the radio because the music was really loud after the accident happened.
And he looked up, saw that I was at stopped, and he tried to swerve around me,
saw her, tried to cut back in front of me. The back of his truck hit the back of her car.
(20:42):
Crazily, his truck flipped forward, and his arms came straight out of the driver's
side window like Superman does, just straight out.
Almost like he rolled out. It just so happens where he landed, there was a big rock.
And I walked this street days later, and I couldn't find a rock this size.
And he died from swelling of the brain. I tried CPR.
(21:04):
Life flight came. They took him.
I was the one that called my brother. I remember where everybody was at.
He was walking into Walmart. I called my stepdad.
He was at a game with my stepbrother, a baseball game. We couldn't get a hold
of my mom, though. She wasn't answering her phone. Oh, goodness.
She was at the cemetery visiting her mom because it was Memorial Day.
(21:24):
She eventually came around the big curve and we saw her.
My dad and my brother were running towards her. And she knew at that moment it was either Aaron or I.
So it was a tough time, you know, for sure. That is. And that was your baby brother.
That was my little brother. I was 15 months older than him. Oh,
my goodness. I was the middle one.
And I want to say that was probably the turning point.
(21:47):
I saw I lost a brother, but my mom buried a 17-year-old boy, her son.
And I told myself, I actually told God that day that they asked if he wanted to pray for or anything.
And I said, well, I can tell God now that I will never make another purpose
mistake like that because I don't want my mom to have to deal with that again.
(22:10):
So I didn't, it wasn't anything crazy, but you know, we ended up having a great
time and moving back and forth.
And I ended up traveling with a longtime friend of my dad and I's named Tim Hines.
I got to travel an armor-bearer with him. And that's when I kind of started
my armor-bearing. I enjoyed it. Personal, kind of like personal security for people.
(22:32):
And that's how I got into new life at Bible College. So you went to Bible College. I did.
When you lost your brother, Kevin...
How did, I mean, it's tragic enough to lose your brother, but to actually see,
(22:54):
to be there when that happened.
I can't think of very many things that would be more traumatic than that.
And yet it seems like that is when you really started turning your life around.
Did you feel, did you feel angry? Did you feel angry? Did you feel anger at God?
(23:17):
How did you process through that? At the hospital that day, our pastor asked
me and said, is there anything you want us to pray to God for?
And I said, you can tell God if he takes my brother, I'll never serve him again.
I did say that. I remember saying that. And I walked out of the room.
(23:38):
And i didn't completely there was a lot of hurt obviously
i couldn't drive on that even now when i go back
to my mom's it's hard to drive on that road because they
say most fatality accidents happen within a mile of your home yes and it was
maybe a half mile oh my so we passed that my mom we've lived in that house since
1973 my grandpa built it so that's that's in our family my mom still lives there
(24:00):
and it was it was tough so there's a it's a constant reminder it was a
constant reminder and it was constant reminder until they paved that road because
for years i could see his skid marks oh my goodness and i know that sounds weird
but every time i would drive by i saw his skid marks and then i think that makes
sense i i mean i think that makes sense and so,
(24:24):
as horrible as that was it also god used it as a catalyst yes to to bring you
back i actually She moved away from Oklahoma. You did.
Before I went, and I kind of jumped ahead there, but I didn't go to Bible college
until 07, and this was 99.
So I ended up moving to Charlotte with my dad. And.
(24:47):
I don't know why. I mean, obviously now that things have gone through,
life has explained itself. Sometimes it's just weird like that. You're right.
But I moved there and immediately I'm not allowed to live with them.
Even though I've changed. Again, you're experiencing the same kind of very deep rejection.
(25:07):
He owned a country club there. It was a non-golf country club.
So they had a driving range and a pool and they did weddings and quinceañeras and everything.
And I lived in the back of it, inside the snack bar, inside the snack bar there
at the age of 23, 24, 25 years old.
So you were not treated like your step-siblings were treated.
(25:30):
Correct. My step-siblings lived with them at 21 years old back then.
Since then, my dad has obviously apologized. We've had some great times of breakthrough
together and we're great now.
I love that. That's what I was going to ask you is, was there reconciliation
between you and your father?
(25:50):
There has been. He apologized a long time ago, but it took time for me because
I consistently see the same mistakes on his part.
And that tells me, well, maybe you just really haven't changed.
My dad is one of the most, probably the best speaker, preacher I've ever heard
(26:10):
in my life. And I've heard some really good preachers. And I'm telling you,
my dad can bring the word like nobody I've ever heard.
He just like he's human. He makes bad decisions.
And unfortunately, sometimes those decisions affects his family. Yeah.
And then you also were needing to heal from some very deep-rooted trauma.
Yes. And that does not happen overnight.
(26:32):
It doesn't. No. Especially when you're still facing rejection.
Absolutely. And that rejection, that rejection can carry over into every other facet of your life.
Did you see, did you experience that? Yeah.
You know, I was so focused back then in my mid-20s that I almost didn't allow
(26:52):
it to affect me. I was going to church. I was serving God.
And I'm always that old, you know, we were raised in that old faith movement,
that Pentecost movement. The doors were open. You were there.
Yeah. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Wednesday night,
we're there. Intercessory prayer.
And as a PK, you're always there. But that's just, even now,
the doors are open. If we have school, Supernatural on Sunday night, I want to be there.
(27:14):
Yeah. And sometimes even my wife, she's like, why are you going? Because church is open.
We're here to worship God. So why am I not going to go?
And we were doing that day in and day out with the church, Impact Church in
Charlotte, North Carolina.
And I made a lot of good friends. And that's where, when I started traveling
with Tim and I was with him for a whole summer and we got to minister all over the East Coast.
(27:36):
And then we drove right through. So you were ministering with Tim Hines.
To me, listen, I wasn't physically giving the word, no. No, but to me,
when I'm an armor bearer and I'm carrying your Bible for you,
when I'm ushering for you, that's ministry. You better believe it is. I know. So.
Absolutely. And even now, I'm over our first impressions department here at
the church, and I tell these people, we're greeters, and we're ushers,
(27:58):
or we're parking lot, but we're ministering to these people. Absolutely.
Absolutely. You know, a lot of people, and I said this a couple weeks ago,
a lot of people made a mistake Saturday night, and they're making that walk
of shame Sunday morning in the church we don't know about. That's so true, Kevin.
And that greeter, that first person that smiles and says, I love you.
Welcome to church. That walk of shame is completely gone. Boy, that's a good word.
(28:22):
That's such a good word, Kevin. It's been good.
Can I ask you, what would you say to our listeners?
And we have listeners around the world and I can guarantee you your testimony
is speaking to a lot of people right now.
(28:43):
What would you say to somebody who perhaps has suffered deep-rooted rejection,
possible, I mean, kidnapping, sexual abuse?
We're talking some very deep-rooted trauma.
What would you say to that person who does not know how to move on?
(29:07):
I can tell you that, you know, I don't want to say I've contemplated suicide.
I've thought suicide in the past.
And I immediately get it out of my head. Because I read an article once that
said they interviewed, every person they ever interviewed, that jumped off a
cliff or jumped off a building and lived.
(29:27):
What was the first thing that went through their mind was regret.
Oh boy, that's a good word, yes. They attempted suicide and the first thing was regret. Yeah.
And I think for me, watching my brother die.
I saw how that affected my mom and I knew that as much, I knew I had something better in life.
(29:47):
And it was almost like you loved her life more than you loved yours.
You have to. Yeah. You have to.
Because if you don't love yourself, you can't love anybody else.
So you, I didn't want to see her do that again.
I didn't want to see her lose a second son, whether by my own actions or me
doing something that would have caused that to happen.
And I think you make such a good point because when we live in our pain and
(30:13):
we don't make that deliberate.
Intentional focus on healing from our pain, it does hurt the people around us.
It doesn't just hurt us, right?
And you know how I got over it? And this sounds weird, but I served.
And again, if the doors are open, I served as much as I could.
(30:36):
I learned how to build usher teams.
I learned how to bring people together, how to get to minister to people.
So I was so, and I tell my youth this every Wednesday, I use this word and I live by it daily.
I was so obsessed with my relationship with God, that up and down relationship
that nothing laterally was going to hurt it or break it.
(30:58):
Boy, that's beautiful because he is our healer. Yes.
He is our Jehovah Rapha. He does bind up our broken heart.
And so really, you just kept running back to God. I did. I never had that.
Yeah. I never had that. And I've still, I told our pastor Craig this the other
(31:19):
day, I've never had that spiritual, at the altar, fallen, Holy Ghost movement
because I'm so focused on serving.
Now I get mine in my car when I'm driving to and from work. 100%, that's my time.
But I'm such a, I want to serve so much and I want to watch other people be
(31:42):
healed emotionally and physically that that's all I care about.
And you know what, Kevin, that really shows.
It really shows you are a born leader and you really are gifted at building a team.
It's very, you have built a fabulous team with our greeters and with our ushers
(32:04):
and parking lot attendants and all of that.
And I know that you're building a really great, solid team with our youth. Yeah. Yeah.
And I love seeing you walk in your gifting of being a leader because the devil
(32:25):
did everything he could to keep that from happening.
They did. Yeah. He's defeated though. He is defeated.
Well, we are about to land this plane,
but I would like to just ask you if you have any words that you would like to say to our listeners,
(32:47):
a word of encouragement that might help somebody who is in that dark pit of despair.
I would say don't stand around and be idle. Mm-hmm. Good word.
You got to stay focused and you got to stay moving.
The reason that I was able to come through everything is because I stayed moving.
(33:08):
I worked my worldly job and I did serve at the church. I was always moving.
I know some people are like, well, you never took time to mourn. I did. I did mourn.
But I was so energy focused and so obsessed in that relationship that I wasn't
going to fail again and I will not fail again.
So stay focused and be obsessed on God and in that relationship with Him.
(33:30):
And I'm telling you, your life will change. It will.
Wow. That is such a great word.
He does bind up all of our wounds and heals our broken hearts, doesn't He?
You're living proof of that. Just like David. I preached this last night and
I said he was in that shepherd's field.
And then after he was anointed with oil, he was told to go back to the shepherd's field.
(33:53):
And if you look at the Bible, the majority of people in the Bible who are called,
by God or Jesus, we're all working.
Elisha attending the oxen, the disciples were the fishermen, David was a shepherd.
You know, he doesn't call the lazy to do nothing. He wants people that he knows
he can trust. That's such a good, diligent.
Yes. Diligent is the word. Diligent, servers, boy, such a great word. Kevin Hughes.
(34:18):
Thank you. What a joy it has been.
And thank you for being vulnerable. Thank you for being just so transparent because your words are.
Will change many people's lives.
So thank you so much for coming on the show. Can I say one last thing?
Absolutely. My dad and I's relationship is so good now. He's actually over at his own Bible college.
(34:42):
So I'm finishing my, I'll have my bachelor's by within three months. Oh, congratulations.
I'm working, I'll start taking my master's in September. And when I finish that,
he's gonna start a doctorate program and he's already asked me to teach one
of the classes for the doctorate. Talk about restoration.
Yes. there is restoration right there
(35:03):
it's been amazing and you know i love that because when you
chase after god and make him
the focus he restores all of the broken things in our lives and you are a perfect
example of that thank you kevin thanks for being on the show today i appreciate
you having me oh it will you come back yeah let's do the health let's do it
(35:25):
let's do it nutrition and weight loss and exercise.
We have a lot of things to talk about. We could spend hours on that.
We sure could. We sure could.
Well, it's been such a blessing having you on the show today.
Thank you listeners for being here.
We love you. And God does have such an amazing destiny written over your life.
(35:47):
And our prayer for you is that you walk into every single plan and purpose that
God has created for you to walk in because just like Kevin shared,
boy, the enemy tried to deter him, but he came back and he fixed his eyes on Jesus.
And that changed everything. Changed your whole life, right, Kevin? It did.
(36:12):
He is our way maker where there seems to be no way.
So God bless you. Thank you for being here. You can reach us at jesusgarore.com.
We're going to drop that information in the bio section.
And have a blessed day. And above all things, remember this,
Jesus is crazy about you.
(36:32):
Music.
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