April 29, 2025 • 54 mins
Watch us on Youtube! https://youtu.be/FJ8fEr0ClqA
Things GET REAL when Stacie Tchvidjian shares her story and correlates it to the story of Jesus and the woman at the well in the Bible. Hear about how God redeemed her situation. Also: what it was like to meet Billy Graham.
#joerogan #podcast #mensministry #christianliving #biblestudy #cussing #charliekirk #joerogan #jasonwhitlock #fearless #menshealth #christianliving #vincevaughn #timtebow #christianmotivation #churchmemes #mensministry #promiskeepers #timtebow #patrickbetdavid
Things GET REAL when Stacie Tchvidjian shares her story and correlates it to the story of Jesus and the woman at the well in the Bible. Hear about how God redeemed her situation. Also: what it was like to meet Billy Graham.
#joerogan #podcast #mensministry #christianliving #biblestudy #cussing #charliekirk #joerogan #jasonwhitlock #fearless #menshealth #christianliving #vincevaughn #timtebow #christianmotivation #churchmemes #mensministry #promiskeepers #timtebow #patrickbetdavid
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Yo, what are you doing right now?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
We are going to get real about men's issues, who
Jesus is and who we are as men in Christ.
We're gonna hear Trey, Jeremy, Michael, and Brad break it down.
These guys call themselves the cussin Christians. All right, guys,
what is going on?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Remember that I had no clue about Fabio.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
That's that's the vision for Trey's hair flowing in the wind.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Well you cut off, dude. I just cut my two
weeks ago. It was like shoulder length, but it wasn't working.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
I talked to someone that was disappointed in your haircut.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Oh really, yeah, no, she's the girl that cuts my hair.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
Said I love that guy with the long hair that
plays left handed guitar.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
And I said that hair ain't long anymore.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It's a Viking look.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And she was disappointed. Works disappointed. He looked really cool.
Well he's still cool.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
We'll see, Yeah, we'll see how it goes, see how
it goes.
Speaker 6 (01:01):
But but we're going to talk about hair that night.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Well, then we ramble for a few minutes always.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
And uh, we have a guest with some hair.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Then we have a guess with hair today. But no, Phronsie,
thanks for being here.
Speaker 7 (01:16):
Bro.
Speaker 8 (01:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Prayers for Michael Thomas, who's serving in West Virginia with
his company disaster relief. It's kind of a tough go
up there. He did run into somebody in West Virginia yesterday.
The said aren't you on the Custom Christians?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yes, how cool is that? Yeah, I says someone that
works for his company.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
I guess word got out and they they started talking
about Jesus yesterday.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
So hey, wow, cool we reached one person.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, man, it's been worth it. We got one listener
four years.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
It's been worth it. Yes, one hundred and sixty two episodes.
Speaker 7 (01:51):
Yeah, perly after that conversation, he didn't go unfollowed.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
No hope not. Oh not as well.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
But if you're watching us on YouTube, we appreciate it,
or listen to us on your favorite audio channel.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
There's so many cool things happening with our ministry right now,
because we've been filming our Grace testimonies for the Matthew
West event on May thirty first, and Brad. Brad's about
to get busy in his laboratory. So what's it like
when you're editing and cutting things do you like sometimes
just laugh.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Well it's funny because now I edit things in real time.
So when Michael and Jeremy are here and they're talking,
I'm like, that's I'm cutting that out, Like you're taking
too long, Like I'm.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Already doing it in my head. So you're like, it's funny.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
You're like Trey, you get to the point, to the
point you've done too much of a setup, you.
Speaker 8 (02:36):
Might stop talking. I'm gonna cut this out anyway.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
I'm gonna do a handsoning for like you're cut.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, you're done, You're done, Just move on. That's fun.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
I would love to sit and look over your shoulder
while you're doing it and see your facial expressions, and
I can see you going I'm not gonna work.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
A lot of disgust, a lot of just shaking my head, kids,
But it's fun.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
But and Chef he had a work call.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
So we've got three stooges here with our beautiful friend
Stacy Tavisi, and thank you for coming and joining us.
We're going to be getting you in the hot seat
here in a little while for the video for the
Matthew West event that we're working.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I'm so glad you drove up to join us.
Speaker 7 (03:19):
Thank you, guys, Thank you for having me, Thank you
for inviting me and just including me.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Well, we had the honor of having you break some
bread at our house last night and catching up and
Tolly and we know all your secrets, not that you have.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Any, but he put there a long time.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Yeah, he kind of wrote a book.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
But anyway, but I learned about what he likes to eat,
what he doesn't, and how picky he is and all that.
We're so glad you're here on your church in Jupiter
with you and your husband. The sanctuary. I visited a
few times. Just love the vibe. I love the redemption, recovery,
(04:05):
come as you are, way that you guys handle things.
I know you guys came and joined us for a
men's conference a couple of years ago, always left to Mark,
and as we were getting getting our thoughts together for
the Matthew West event, which is our sixth event that
we're doing, I really I saw I saw a testimony
(04:25):
you gave to your church, and a friend of mine
called and said, you.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
Gotta get Stacy on this thing.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
And so I'm just thankful that you're here to just
talk about stacy and life and how Jesus has impacted
you and the power of God's grace in your life,
and we are thrilled to death you're joining us for
this project and to share a little bit of your story.
Our ministry's tagline is discovering Grace one man at a time.
(04:56):
I just saw I discovered grace through a suicidal experience,
and I'm obviously here telling you about it now.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
So it worked out, worked out fine.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
It wasn't always smooth, but it worked out. I love
hearing stories of the revelation of Grace on our lives.
All of us have come from different backgrounds in the church,
and we all bring something different to the party. We
may not always agree, but we're going to grow a
little bit more today because of you, and I'm glad
(05:25):
you're here. So what led me to call you was
a sermon you did six.
Speaker 6 (05:33):
Weeks ago, maybe five weeks ago, about the about.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
The woman at the well, and I wanted to really
explore that today on this podcast because as you're reading
John chapter four and Jesus going to Samaria, a place
probably shouldn't have been walking through.
Speaker 7 (05:52):
Anyway, he avoided, and so did every Jew, every Jew
of every jew right, and I I would love for
you to share a little bit we've all watched it,
just and pick your brain a little bit about.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
You representing that woman. Talk to me growing up in Texas,
high school athlete, you know, popular kid on campus.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Talk to me about what.
Speaker 6 (06:19):
Talk to me about this revelation you've had. Well, I
did grow up in Texas.
Speaker 7 (06:25):
I'm a seventh generation Texan, so like really Texan.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
And so my big family.
Speaker 7 (06:33):
Is dysfunctional in a lot of ways relationally, especially lots
of cousins of mine children including myself, born out of wedlock.
My mom was fifteen when she had me. My grandmother
was fifteen when she had my mom. So there's only
thirty years between my grandmother and I, and so we
have you know, I started out with a reputation of
(06:57):
my family just being really kind of looked down upon,
especially within the church. I grew up in a Baptist church,
a loving place. I loved going to church, but I
definitely felt, you know, looked down upon, like a second
class Christian for lack of a better term. And so
(07:17):
growing up like that, I really felt the need to
be better and like find my way in the church somehow,
and I wanted to do better for my family, Like
you guys did something that turned out well, so they
didn't really have to push me to be a good
student or be an athlete or any of those things
in school.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
And I loved it.
Speaker 7 (07:38):
But right after graduation I found out I was pregnant,
which like bashed any dreams that I had of like
going to college and doing the things that I wanted
to do. And it felt like I messed up everything
for everyone in my life. And fast forward from the
(07:59):
age of eighteen to an adult who's now been married
twice divorced twice. Tullian's my third husband. You know, no
one steps into adulthood planning on getting divorced. Like that's
you know, you don't go, oh well, I mean if
this turn doesn't turn out okay, I mean I'll just
(08:20):
get divorced. I mean that's you know, that's not the mentality.
It's I'm going to get married. And for me, especially,
staying married was like such a huge goal.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
Even if I.
Speaker 7 (08:31):
Didn't want to be in the marriage, just not being
divorced was more of an idol, you know, just to
I don't want to be into I don't want to
be in that category because my whole family is in
that category and I wanted to avoid it.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
But I didn't.
Speaker 7 (08:45):
And in two thousand and five, I divorced my first
husband and we shared one child, my youngest son, and
it really felt like I was kind of ostracized in
a new way that I had not been to that point,
which was now I am that.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
Divorce woman, that person that is that I didn't want
to be.
Speaker 7 (09:09):
And through that there was just a lot of support
from my family, but also, you know, a new label
attached to me that was unwelcome. And you know, it
wasn't when I was growing up. It wasn't popular to
be a teenage mom. It wasn't a reality show that
you were getting paid for. In nineteen ninety two, when
(09:32):
I found out I was pregnant, it was still very taboo,
and you know, I had friends scatter, So, you know,
redeeming myself by getting married and going through a marriage
and doing all the things I did when I was
married the first time it felt like a little redemption.
But there's always that Samaritan woman just like buried in
there that you can't escape.
Speaker 6 (09:56):
And I didn't. I don't think I I know that.
Speaker 7 (09:59):
I didn't realize that until I was well into my
mid thirties. I didn't realize how much I related to
her until then.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
You know, she he walked to the well. Obviously she
looks at him. She's so skeptical. She's been burned by
the church so much, and you know, she made bad
decisions she's paid consequences for. So that's life, you know
that that is life. And Jesus was trying to tear up, like,
(10:29):
you know, hey, if he knew the gift of God
and who this is that's talking to you right now,
and I say, give me a drink, you would have
asked him and he would have given you a living water.
I mean, he's trying to tear up to prompt her
to and she doesn't bite.
Speaker 7 (10:44):
No. What I think is so interesting about her is that,
I mean, it's the obvious things that we learn. She
goes at noon by herself, so she's an outcast of
the outcast, so she's she doesn't even have girlfriends to
go with her. She's not even she's not even going
at a regular time that any person that's accepted in
(11:06):
her own society would go.
Speaker 9 (11:07):
Heat of the day, heat of the day to carry water,
which is you know, in the Old Testament, water is
so use so often as some sort of judgment, and
in the New Testament it's used over and over again
for baptism and for absolutely for cleansing.
Speaker 7 (11:25):
For renewal, for some newness of life, some resurrection. And
so that's what's so beautiful in part that Jesus himself,
as you you know, I'm an expedient person. I like
to take the most efficient route anywhere I go. So
it was point A to B and Jesus didn't take it.
He was like, I'm gonna stop over here in a
(11:46):
place that nobody in my culture stops at all.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
And would not dare to.
Speaker 7 (11:51):
I'm going to go where the most unclean of the
unclean are. And he knew he would meet her, specifically
that most unclean of the unclean, the outcast of the outcast.
He knew it, and he was going to ask her
for a drink, you know, like that's unheard of.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
That would be that would defile him. It would make him.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Unjust to have the conversation, just to have the.
Speaker 7 (12:14):
Conversation, much less ask her for a drink, which is
like one of the most astounding parts of it because
then we hear him later actually say, you know, I
thirst when he's on the cross, So I mean he
really was asking a you know, a question that he
was showing us, like foretelling, like I'm gonna I'm gonna
(12:36):
take the drink that you're going to give me.
Speaker 6 (12:37):
I'm going to take your unclean and I'm going to
drink it.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
You know, it's crazy that when he sets her up
at the beginning and says, you know, you know who
you're talking to, she fires right back because she's been
obviously been burned, and she looks at him and goes,
you want to drink something?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
You don't.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
You didn't even bring the tools with you to get
a drink, skeptical, throwing it back at him.
Speaker 6 (12:59):
Right, how do you relate to that with your life?
Speaker 5 (13:02):
With the situation you were in, not fully understanding Grace
yet you're scared, you're confused, and as someone comes to
you and talks about Jesus or whatever, Oh yeah, right,
look what's happened to me? And you know, looking reflecting inside,
(13:22):
you're going, Okay, I've made some mistakes, but at the
same time, this Grace thing can't be real because of
the ostracizing or people turning their backs, your friend friend groups,
scatters or whatever.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
You're going to be skeptical, sure about it?
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Right?
Speaker 6 (13:38):
How sure?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
You put yourself there and let me know.
Speaker 7 (13:41):
You know, when we know the unlovely parts about ourselves,
it's really difficult to think that you are actually loved
when you know that you don't deserve grace, not just
from God but from anybody. You know your children, that
you've hurt, your family, that you've hurt, friends, that you've hurt.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
Even myself, I've hurt myself.
Speaker 7 (14:03):
So to accept grace is one of the hardest things
that we do because we know ourselves to the degree
that we do, We know our unloveliness, those ugly parts
of us, and it's hard to think that somebody could
actually love this ugly person.
Speaker 8 (14:20):
Yeah, Stacy, and you said in the season you felt
like a Samaritan woman yourself. How much of that do
you think was the public perception looking at you versus
how you viewed yourself on the inside.
Speaker 6 (14:31):
I think it was.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
Like probably half and half, like part and part just
because I knew what I wanted to avoid, you know,
what stigmas, what labels, what life choices. I wanted to avoid,
and it was like, those were the very choices, you know,
the losts of the trespass without you even knowing.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
Sometimes it's not like a rebellion. It wasn't you know.
Speaker 7 (14:53):
I was rebelling outwardly, but I was essentially That's what
I was doing, was actually, you know, the losts of
the trespass, the very thing I don't want to do
I am doing.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
It's Paul, It's very yes.
Speaker 7 (15:07):
And that made it very real to me, like like
I'm really I really don't have control in the ways
that I think that I do.
Speaker 8 (15:16):
I think one of the powerful revelations as a Christian
is to identify that what you've done is not who
you are, right, So you put yourself in a box
based on what mistakes you've made versus your newness in
Christ right revelations.
Speaker 6 (15:27):
Daily right, and you do.
Speaker 7 (15:29):
I mean it is inevitable that we're all part unbelievers
until we die.
Speaker 6 (15:34):
I mean, we're not.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
Fully believing in the love of God for us through Jesus.
We just don't fully believe it. We believe it to
the degree that God has given us the faith to
do that. But where that unbelief is are the places
that he meets us most because that's where the desperation is,
that's where the isolation is, that's where the suicidal thoughts
(15:56):
are ideations, that's where, you know, we get in to
a place where we're at the end of our rope
and I reach my limitations and like, I can't change
this thing about myself and does it matter? Does it
actually matter in the big scheme of things where Jesus
is concerned, And he says no, like, I'll take all
of that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Was your family supportive of you? Once that happened?
Speaker 7 (16:18):
My family, I mean I almost can't talk about them
without crying. As dysfunctional as my family is relationally, I
have been loved so well by my family.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
It's unbelievable. I just had a talk with a.
Speaker 7 (16:35):
Woman who is non local to Jupiter, but she's part
of our church family. We call it friends that are family,
And she said, I'd never heard anybody say that, but
I actually think that about my own family. You know,
they have their own dysfunction, and you know, it doesn't
matter what your so ceo economic group is or your status.
(16:56):
If you've been loved well through some really hard times,
you can make it. Yeah, you really can make it.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
What was your family still involved in church at that point?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, And how was the reaction from
the church.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
You know, I wasn't.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
I think I was so lost in a lot of
my pain and just having to you know, take the
next step to do whatever I was having to do daily.
I know that the church has historically treated people who.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Are divorced or have children out of wedlock.
Speaker 7 (17:30):
You know, they don't really know what to do with
people like that because they don't think that those kind
of people should have a voice. Ironically, Yeah, and you know,
so the people that have done things that are visibly
bad are usually treated different. I mean when I became
single after I was divorced, I mean, church doesn't know
(17:50):
what to do with single people either, Like it really doesn't.
It's like, well, we have to get you married. That's
like the thing we have to do, and we have
to protect our spouses from you the single person, instead
of just going we just need to love you right
like you're you're also still a daughter of Christ and
someone God loves and saved and forgives and how can we.
Speaker 6 (18:13):
Love you best?
Speaker 7 (18:14):
And so fortunately the churches that I was a part
of were actually very loving and kind. But I know
that that's not the norm, right, because I hear stories
like that every week.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Yeah, and that's so much of a good testimony of
how Jesus was with a Samaritan woman. I think we
almost expect the church to ostracize and to push people away,
but when they don't, it's like, how much more powerful
is that?
Speaker 6 (18:37):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (18:37):
It is the power that is where the power is,
Like the church is a tapestry of sinners that are saved.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Right, absolutely, Oh, it's just a matter of time.
Speaker 8 (18:49):
And I figured it all out now. I'm looking at
Romans five point twenty, and this is so hard to
put in practice, especially within the church, where it says
the law was brought in so that the trespass might increase,
But we're sending increases grace and increases all the more
so that just as rain and death, so also might
grace reign through righteousness to bring in eternal life through
Christ is our Lord. So so like, how hard is
(19:10):
it to increase the grace where it's needed and not
just look at the sin and say that's ugly. I
don't want to see that. You know, it's difficult as
believers to show that grace when it's needed.
Speaker 7 (19:21):
Well, I mean and in that context of that, you know,
I mean when they ask like, well, then what do
we do? You know, do we keep sinning? And it's like,
that's not the point. You've missed the whole point of it,
the entire point. It's like, no, that's when you push
it in deeper and you go, life is grace in practice,
it is forcing us to go do you really believe that?
(19:43):
Do you really believe in grace in this instance? Which
has nothing to do with like, you know, allowing people
to be criminals and allowing them to get away with
bad behavior and blah blah blah, all of the stuff
that the church is known for behavior modification in one
way or another extent. The only reason grace exists is
(20:03):
because of the deficit.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
It is unmerited favor. So it is only there for
the deficit. You never deserve it never.
Speaker 7 (20:10):
So nobody it's you know, like, oh, that person's like
full of grace? Are they really are they faced with
something really ungracious in their life? And like what does
it look like then when they have to accept somebody
or are faced with the opportunity to accept someone, forgive someone,
love someone in the face of the unlovely in the ugly,
(20:33):
like the ugly.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
Parts of it, and that's it's rare. It's rare. But
that's really where the rubber meets the road, isn't it.
Speaker 8 (20:40):
That's the application. It's focusing more on the solution than
is the problem.
Speaker 6 (20:46):
Like do you actually believe it?
Speaker 7 (20:48):
Because we can say we believe it until you're faced
with having to show that you actually believe it.
Speaker 8 (20:53):
Yeah, because if we're not careful, we can become fruit inspectors.
Speaker 7 (20:56):
We're just looking for They don't even get me started
with spots on them and get me started with the
produce section of Christianity, because I mean it's terrible.
Speaker 8 (21:05):
Yeah, a lot of walk talk to Matt McMillan, and
he was joking. He says, like, what are we gonna
do about all the sinin? Like we're just so focused
can be so focused on the sinin, we don't focus
on the solution.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
I had an experience one time where I was talking
to a deacon and I guess one of the staff
members was going through a bad time and with his marriage,
and the only thing he focused on was we can't
let him get divorced. So that's the sin, and it
bothered me to hear that. I'm going, wait a minute,
let's talk with this guy and just see, let's get there.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
We just want to keep him from doing We want
to keep him from making.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
That bad decision. Well, I don't want anybody to get
divorced either.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Romoting that, but that's promoting that.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
But the focus of grace is something deeper and bigger.
And if you look at the definition of grace from
Titus too, grace saved me and grace trains me. I mean,
that's the basic thing from you know, Paul's words, it's
training me to walk more upright. Every day, I'm gonna slip,
but you know what, I'm gonna dust off my bretches
and get back on the horse and keep going.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
And that's part of like the way that I personally
and as I talk to actual people who truly experience grace.
It's in the moments where you have some new awareness
that you do not deserve it, that you are totally,
absolutely unmerited in any way. You are not a Holy
(22:31):
Hall monitor. You do not have a pass. You do
not you don't get a pass for the things you've done.
And when you realize the level of the law and
your inability to keep it to the degree that God
has set, not some Christian version of the law where
it's a level that.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
You can jump over or achieve when you realize, like the.
Speaker 8 (22:52):
Law is break, you break one law, you've broken at all.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Yeah, it is perfection.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I took care of that.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
Not good enough.
Speaker 8 (23:00):
The most of the most subtle sins are still just
as evil.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
Started with somebody eating fruits.
Speaker 7 (23:05):
Yeah, okay, so those things that we think are the
big sins, you know, adult trees start and it started
with a bite, just like a rebellion.
Speaker 8 (23:14):
Anything that goes against God's will, sin.
Speaker 7 (23:16):
That unbelief of like I'm going to be God myself
and this is it started with somebody eating fruit. And ironically,
now we're trying to point it out and everybody you know,
trying to gauge it.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I think we strive so hard to look perfect and
to look like we've got it all together and be
all buttoned up, because that's what most churches are. But
like you said, when you've been on the receiving end
of that grace, and what I love about your church
is that there's no pretense that hey, we're all perfect,
We're all shiny, and you know, it's like, come as
you are and whatever's going on will help you deal
with them, help you get through it. But I think
(23:49):
a lot of churches they don't want they don't want
divorce associated with their church. They don't want people to
hear oh so and so this church got divorced, or
this guy's going through alcoholism or whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
We just try to sanitize it all.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
If you have a face tattoo, you can never come
to church again, or something like that.
Speaker 7 (24:04):
Any blemish that's determined as a blemish they don't want,
they don't know what to do with. It's so funny
because our church does get a lot of the misfits,
you know, we don't there's it's funny telling and I
have talked about it a few times. We keep getting
people sent to our church from this one guy who's
a therapist locally. We've never met the guy, don't even
(24:27):
we've heard his name, but we don't know him. And
these people that go to him to talk about, you know,
their divorce or addiction or some kind of problem. He's
a Christian and he's like, you know what church you
should go to? You should go, you should go visit
the sanctuary and they have you know, some recovery groups
you could be a part of. And so this guy
keeps sending people who have been in other churches, but
(24:50):
like they're not, you know, getting anywhere. So he's like,
you should go to that church. And we're like, come on,
like the doors are open, welcome. Yeah, and you know,
people are like, I there's no judgment. I thought there
was no judgment in church. And I'm like, hey, you know, let.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
There's still people here and we're judge.
Speaker 7 (25:08):
People can be judge. It's not that we're judgment free.
God is judgment free, and that's what we're talking about here.
You're still going to encounter humans when you come into
this church. Absolutely we're jacked up, you know, so broken, right,
and we're like we know it.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
So we're not trying to say that.
Speaker 7 (25:27):
We're like, come in here and we're going to be
you know, we're going to do the best we can.
But we're still human, you know at the end of
the day, and so are you. And we expect humans
to be human.
Speaker 8 (25:37):
And how beautiful Like this passage in John chapter four
about the Samaritans, like it's personal to you, but it's
also like, how can easy as Christians distill view ourselves
as the Jews and other people that are full of
sin as Samaritans and create a divide between us because
of their uncleanliness or because of their background or how
they were raised, like that can be something that separates
(25:58):
us from me able to share grace.
Speaker 7 (26:00):
We're both honestly, we're Pharisees about the Pharisees. We're phariseical
about that, and we're the Samaritan woman. You know, we're both.
And if we can't see that about ourselves, then there's probably.
Speaker 8 (26:12):
I think we need to have the revelation that Paul says,
there's no Jew nor Gentile, there's no Greece, there's no like,
it's all gone, it's.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
All one at the ground level, that we're all one
right the ground level.
Speaker 8 (26:22):
We need to get everybody else to be that part
of that one right.
Speaker 6 (26:25):
And that's you know, we resist that to some degree.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
You know, she she she had the revelation, she had
this moment. Now we have someone else that's going to
be joining us for the Matthew Wes to end. He's
a pastor and he had a moral failure and he
told me in his testimony that we're going to be
showing on the screen at Matthew Wes. You know, for
fifteen years I talked about grace, but I never knew
(26:50):
what it was until I had the moral failure, and
he's given the description.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I felt like I was in a pit and.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
People would walk by, and you had your nonchalant people
would walk by and go, oh, that's a shame. Then
you have your other people that walk by and go
you deserve every bit of it.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
You have your other people that will walk by kind
of like they're.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
Looking at a zoo animal, like oh man. And then
then he said, I never I talked about grace. I
preached about grace and all these things for fifteen years,
but I never knew what it was till I realized
I wasn't by myself in that pit, and it was
actually his wife.
Speaker 6 (27:29):
In there with him, and she gave him the.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Grace to forgive, to reconcile and come back strong. And
they've come back stronger than ever. It's an amazing story. She
had this revelation when at the well, this is something different.
Who was that person in your life that was in
(27:52):
the pit with you, that made that helped you connect
the dots on the Gospel of grace and what it
truly means.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
I mean Jesus first and foremost, but humanly speaking, you know,
Jesus and skin and bones. It really was for me
first my mom. She was the first person that really
when I found out I was pregnant at eighteen years old,
and I was terrified to tell my parents that I
(28:22):
was pregnant because I was like, I've ruined their lives.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
I don't know what I'm going to do, you know,
I mean scared to death.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
You didn't write a letter to or did you?
Speaker 6 (28:30):
No?
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Sorry, I'm joking with him.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Yeah, I've got a similar testimony where I grew up
in the church. My mom was a church organist, dad
was a deacon an elder, and I was a pretty
clean cut kid.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I didn't party in high school or any of that.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
I went to a Christian school, went to a Baptist
college in Oklahoma. Met a girl she was eighteen, I
was nineteen. I got her pregnant, and the same type
of thing where my family, my family and her family
were so just the way they were reacted and the
grace at the extended in our churches too. The churches
that we went to didn't miss a beat, like they
(29:06):
were in there with us, and and you know, we
made it like we're still together all these years, which
is again God's grace.
Speaker 7 (29:16):
That's who was there with you in the pit. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
no that I mean my I was terrified. One of
my friends, actually my ex it was my ex boyfriend.
I wasn't I didn't even have a boyfriend at the time.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
We had dated for over a year.
Speaker 7 (29:32):
We had broken up several months before I found out
I was pregnant for some significant reasons. We were not
going to be back together. His best friend told my
parents that I was pregnant. And I was sitting in
my room and it was kind of it was in
the evening and my mom, I'm sitting there terrified. My
mom walks in, and I'm just like more terrified, because
(29:55):
I mean my mom was like, you know, she wanted
me to turn out right, so she was like, you know,
law laden in some ways, and I respected that. But
she walked in and she stood beside my bed and
she said, Sean called me, and I know that you're pregnant,
and I just, I mean, I felt like every ounce
(30:15):
of blood in life left my body, and in that
same instance, she fell like down to the side of
my bed and just hugged me and said, why didn't
you tell me who else would.
Speaker 6 (30:27):
Understand better than me?
Speaker 7 (30:30):
Because she had me when she was fifteen, And in
that moment it was like she I remember she slept
with me that night, like she stayed huddled up with me,
and just it's like you said, it was just a
flood of grace in a way that honestly, if that,
if she and my dad would have had any other
(30:50):
reaction in that moment that was less than that, I
don't know how I would have made it through the
following years that it went beyond, because it was so
incredibly foundational for me. It was my first tangible experience
of one way love from God to me in a
moment where I knew I was guilty, I knew like
(31:13):
an unseen sin was Saul, you know, like it's seen
right now. I cannot hide it. You can't be a
little bit pregnant. You either are or you're not. And
it was you know, I felt the ugliest and the
most unlawful that I had ever been at that point
in my life, and everything I got was just grace
(31:37):
from my parents and was just unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Well, and so at a very very young age, you
experienced that type of grace that most people don't. Maybe
they don't experience that for another.
Speaker 6 (31:46):
Twenty or thirty years exactly.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
And I think if I hadn't gone through what I did,
maybe if I knew somebody else who was unmarried that
got pregnant in one of my classmates, maybe I would
have who knows, maybe I would have judged them. But
instantly and this happened, there were girls that would come
to my wife, you know, because again we got married
and we finished school and you know, we had our daughter,
but there were girls that would come out of the
(32:09):
woodwork and would come talk to my wife and say
I might be pregnant. They were considering abortion, and so
my wife would talk them through that. And so God
really used it in a powerful way.
Speaker 6 (32:20):
No, I totally believe.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
That if we hadn't gone through that, then you know,
who knows.
Speaker 7 (32:26):
I think one thing that's beautiful about stories like that,
especially if they happen at a young age. I mean,
Jesus is the wounded Healer, and we talked about this jokingly,
but it's true. There's you know passages in the Gospel
about the fellowship of the suffering and the only way
that we become wounded healers in service to God. I mean,
(32:48):
those are the really the only people in service to
loving others.
Speaker 6 (32:52):
Horizontally, God doesn't need us to do that. He doesn't.
Everything he needed from.
Speaker 7 (32:57):
Us, he already has and it has been finished in
the person of Jesus.
Speaker 6 (33:02):
We get to love people. We get to. We don't
have to. We get to and that's different. I don't
have to.
Speaker 8 (33:08):
It's like your father, he wants to help you. You
can only help you if you come to him. And
you're talking about like you sat here with this shame
in isolation. You didn't want to tell your parents because
as humans, we oftentimes paint the worst possible outcome that
they're going to be angry with you. That the enemy
wants you to say, you know what, keep it to
yourself because they're going to be disappointed in you. You
should have shame, And because of that, we sit there
(33:28):
without the grace that we could receive because of that,
and we do it to this day.
Speaker 6 (33:33):
I mean, it's an unacceptance of it. It's there all
the time.
Speaker 7 (33:36):
I just it's like having the best gift right here
in front of me, the cold drink of water. You need,
the thing that you actually need, it's right there and
you can have it anytime. And I you know, a
lot of times we're like, I'm not taking it. I
don't deserve it. It's not for me, but it is,
you know, take and drink.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
This is for you.
Speaker 8 (33:55):
And if you knew your mom was going to receive
it so well, you probably have told her day one,
but I would have been relieved absolute. But you decided
that you know, this is not going to go well,
So I'm just gonna we do this all the time
for something. And then we do it. We're like, that
went so great. I should have done that right away.
Speaker 6 (34:09):
Yeah, I contemplated everything. I believed. I never would contemplate everything.
Speaker 8 (34:14):
The imagine issue was wild in the worst way.
Speaker 7 (34:16):
Sometimes everything, And like you're saying, from then on, within
my own family, because I'm the oldest of fifteen first cousins,
I have a lot of girls in my family, honestly,
tons of girlfriends from elementary school and high school and
just in general. And I've become you know, inadvertently, it's
(34:37):
an unplanned ministry that you end up having not formal,
not professional ministry, but unplanned ministry that you end up having.
That that's the place where God will have you speak
into other people's lives about how great He has been
for you, how how he's met you and your suffering,
how much he loves you, how much he forgives you,
and when you become that listening ear for other people,
(35:01):
sometimes being heard is the most powerful thing there is
because in those moments, we just need we just need
to vomit, and we just need to be heard, and
we need to be heard without judgment. You know, we
need to be heard without somebody telling you what you
need to do. Not you know, we're unless you're soliciting
advice that's rarely heard when it's given, especially in those moments.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
Well you should have done this, and you should shouldn't
have done that. Well, no shit kind of.
Speaker 8 (35:28):
Time machine exactly. And we have to allow ourselves to
our pain to be used for God's glory. Like Brad said,
like who knows if one abortion was saved because of
your your testimony or your story you're walking through, and
who knows what that person's life did for the kingdom.
They could have gone on to do something great because
of what your struggle at eighteen. You know, it's it's
beautiful when you look.
Speaker 6 (35:49):
At it, right.
Speaker 7 (35:50):
Yeah, we don't know how God will use you know,
he uses the foolish things and foolish people, and he
really does.
Speaker 8 (35:56):
I love that analogy you talked about a tapestry and
how we're on the backside this thing. We're seeing crazy
colors and all this chaos and we don't know how
any of it makes any sense. But we get to Heaven.
We get to see the front side of the beautiful
thing that God's been weaving all along, and we get
to see. We just have to trust that he knows
what he's doing and where the clay, and he's the potter.
We don't get to tell the potter with to do
the clay.
Speaker 6 (36:17):
No, No, we're not the creator, we're the creatures.
Speaker 8 (36:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Yeah, I mean nobody can redeem a story like he can.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And life happens to all of us.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
So it's like at some point we're going to have
some embarrassing failure or something, and so it's it's how
we deal with that.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Do we turn to him?
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Do we allow him to use that to minister life
to other people?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I mean, that's what That's a huge, powerful thing that
he does. And so I love hearing those stories.
Speaker 6 (36:41):
To me, that's the real me too.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Yeah, it's not so much about oh no, you did
this bad thing. It's like, how did God turn that around?
How did he use that?
Speaker 6 (36:47):
Look what he did with this?
Speaker 8 (36:48):
Yes, and when you come out. I watched your sermon
on YouTube, and when I watched that night, I saw
the courage it took to give your patht to talk
to talk about those dirty things that you know that
the Samaritan things that other people can also feel that
the power to come out and say, hey, I need
to talk about this. I need healing from this. I
need to share what I've gone through so I can
be healed.
Speaker 6 (37:08):
And that's really what we telling.
Speaker 7 (37:09):
And I get messages, you know, on social media, emails
literally every week that just say, I don't have anybody
in my life I can tell any of this too.
I don't have a person at my even if they
are in a church. I can't tell anybody at my
church this thing that's happening in my life, in my marriage,
(37:30):
with my children, whatever, with my job, with my anything.
It is amazing to me every single day and how
much people need that and they don't have it, which
is sad.
Speaker 8 (37:44):
Because it's heavy to carry these things. I mean, trace hearts.
Some men tell him some stuff that's just heavy to
hear about much less have walked through in life. But
the power of just getting that darkness and shining light
onto it and allowing God to deal with it.
Speaker 7 (37:56):
Right, Well, I'm huge into I've never had a since
abuse addiction, but I'm huge on the twelve steps of
a unpacking them in light of the Gospel specifically, and
I lead women's studies to do that at our church
because I think if I would have had those tools
(38:16):
as a teenager in my tool belt to cope with life,
like you know, I might have made some different decisions.
But to do that now in confession being one of
those things, like to be able to share with somebody
that's a trusted ear, I mean, that's part of those
twelve steps.
Speaker 6 (38:33):
And you know, I'll hold your hair.
Speaker 7 (38:35):
I tell women all the time, I'll get a bucket
or you know, we can go in the bathroom, but
I'll hold you let better out than in. I mean,
that's what therapists say, and it's really true. I just
got to get it out, like I just have to
tell somebody this, so it's not inside me, eating away
at me day in and d day out. And it's
a powerful thing to be that listening near to honor,
(38:57):
to be that listening near to so many people.
Speaker 6 (39:00):
Just need to get it out, just need to vombit, you.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
Know, our corner, our cornerstone mission versus James five sixteen.
Confess your sins to one another and through prayer be healed.
And we like to not to add anything to the Bible,
but we like to say genuine Christian brotherhood, We're gonna
come alongside you. And then of course Paul talking about
burying each other's burdens in the Book of Galatians. I
stole something from a friend of ours and I use
(39:23):
it all the time, and I give him credits sometimes.
But Nate Larkin a lot of times he wraps up
his talk with brothers, I'm looking at you now. I
want you to tell me who the six men are
that are going to carry your casket. I gave that
question on Monday night at the rescue mission, and afterwards
(39:43):
several guys came up and goes, I don't have six guys,
And Nate, you know Nate. Nate brings it great and
he's an amazing storyteller. He spent the night with us,
you know a few years back, and I just sat there.
All I want to do is like you last night,
I just wanted to write down there and you said,
but it's amazing how we go into overdrive to solve
(40:07):
our own problems. We go into overdrive of people going, well,
you've done this, you need to go do that, and.
Speaker 6 (40:18):
This performance driven society that we're in.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
Closing word of thought to people that are listening, Stacy,
how freeing is it when you understand the power of
grace too, and how grace actually changes you. Michael Thomas
says it all the time. People say, oh, you got grace,
you can do whatever you want, and Michael goes, exactly,
I'm going to do what I want because Grace changed
what I want to do.
Speaker 9 (40:44):
Right.
Speaker 6 (40:44):
We loved because he first loved us. That's so what that.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
Means around this the whole topic your story, just encouragement
of the Saint.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
You buckling down and gearing up.
Speaker 5 (40:57):
Buttercup, this is this is something deeper and bigger than
you can ever imagine.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Any closing thoughts on that.
Speaker 6 (41:02):
I mean, it really is.
Speaker 7 (41:03):
Grace is the thing that reminds us of a freedom
we already have in Christ. And we don't know that
we really have that until we find ourselves so enslaved
to something, whether it's a secret, an addiction, a situation
(41:24):
to actually in that moment go Wait, I'm not a
slave to that. Wait, I don't have to live that way.
I'm forgiven for that. We conflate the horizontal with the
vertical all the time. We equate how God thinks about us,
the way people are reacting to us, and that's just
(41:46):
simply not true. And it's very hard for us to
pull those two planes apart. And so living in that
freedom feels like I have nothing left to lose. So
I don't care if I talk about the ugly things
in front of you. It's not it's not for me
to hide. It is something to steward. There's there's nothing
that we share more as humanity than scars, no matter
(42:11):
how we got them self induced or induced by the
world or people around us in our lives. That is
the thing that we have to steward. Scars, not our successes,
not things that are you know, looked at as you know,
character building qualities, But scars, How are we stewarding our
scars to one another in service to one another, to
(42:34):
love one another? And when you when you stand up
in front of a crowd and you show like, here's
this huge scar that I have and here's how I
got it, and here's what Jesus did with it, there's
something in that that goes me too.
Speaker 8 (42:49):
Yeah, come on, yeah, And the scar is only a
wound that's healed, right, so some people may have a
partial opening of that wound that's not fully healed. It's
it's more than just sensitive skin. It's it's still open.
Speaker 5 (42:59):
So it.
Speaker 7 (43:01):
Absolutely people that Naughtia bolts Weber actually said several years ago,
which I love and applaud this statement, speak from your scars,
not from your wounds. And when you're bleeding on everybody,
and people do this online all the time or you know,
bleeding all over those keyboards but social media's but speak
(43:25):
from those scars, not from your wounds.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
You know, there's a special place.
Speaker 7 (43:30):
Yes, it is so helpful, and it really if you
have something to say to someone that would be helpful,
you're probably going to be speaking from a healed place,
a more healed place. If you're in ICU an unstable
and blood you know is gushing, you are no help
to anybody else. If you picture yourself an icy, you
(43:50):
are no help to anyone you need help.
Speaker 8 (43:53):
Sounds like.
Speaker 7 (43:57):
And even make that up, but that is really true,
you know, and it love that analogy. We're all in
the hospital all the time, and there are moments that
I'm going to be in the ICU again and again
and again. But there are also moments that I'm like
pushing the little cart, you know, down the hall, because
I'm healed enough to do that, and I'm like, here,
here's a drink, here's your meds, here's something to help you,
(44:17):
here's some food. We can help others in that sense.
We're healed enough, but you know, we're not always We're
not always pushing the cart around, and we're never the position,
so we have to keep that.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
So your story, I saw that message you gave and
just knowing you had like been with you a few times,
I thought, man, I got to get her down to
help us with this thing, and I'm just so thankful.
Speaker 8 (44:42):
That you're here.
Speaker 5 (44:43):
Closing thought anything you want to put a bow on
with your story, like tie this up and that I'm
using a trayism that they always make fun of me on.
But any any thoughts for especially the women that might
be listening as it relates to you maybe your life.
Speaker 7 (45:01):
I think grace one thing that really comes to mind,
especially during that specific sermon that you're talking about, when
I preached on this marriage.
Speaker 5 (45:10):
We'll put it on our We'll put it on those
podcasts at links, people could check it out that particular.
Speaker 7 (45:16):
I mean, Tullyan has been my in house seminarian, my
professor for the last almost ten years. Honestly, he always
is like, finds something that's pressing in you know. It's
not an application of like, you know, three steps to
have a good marriage, how to live with integrity? Right,
five easy steps, you know, preach the law, preach the gospel,
(45:39):
find that in the text and preach it.
Speaker 6 (45:42):
And I'm okay.
Speaker 7 (45:44):
And at that point, the heaviest thing on me was
not being invited to my youngest son's wedding because of
twenty years before that a divorce and just the unforgiveness
that still existed between me and X in laws and
X at my ex. My son and I had a
(46:04):
good relationship, close relationship, and so for me not to
be invited and knew. I knew for the last several
years that that would be the case. I was like
not looking forward to the day that I knew he
would get married and I wouldn't be there.
Speaker 6 (46:21):
And as a woman, for a woman to not.
Speaker 7 (46:24):
Specifically you know dads, people get divorced, and dads may
not have their kids full time.
Speaker 6 (46:30):
Usually the mom does. All of that was opposite for me.
All of it was opposite for me.
Speaker 7 (46:36):
And being invited to this wedding, not being invited to
my son's wedding as a mother and woman, there's a
huge stigma attached to that, like what's wrong with you?
What kind of mom have you been? Why wouldn't your
son invite you to a wedding? Like there's so many
questions that go along that, and so much instant judgment.
Speaker 6 (46:58):
And for.
Speaker 7 (47:00):
Because I preached that that didn't change, Like that wasn't
the catalyst, you know, that changed it. God was already
doing things. But for me to stand up there and
be able to talk about that most painful thing and
show how even if that didn't change and circumstances stayed
(47:21):
the same, I went away from that well telling everybody
that Jesus has known everything about me.
Speaker 6 (47:30):
He knew everything about.
Speaker 7 (47:32):
Me, and like that was the most beautiful part of
that that even because at that moment when I gave that,
when I preached that I wasn't going to my son's wedding.
But at four point thirty that afternoon, he texted me
and asked me to go to his wedding. And it
was a catalyst of my husband. After that sermon, Tullyan goes,
(47:54):
I came home from church, you know, and he's like, Babe,
that was like amazing. That sermon was so great, and
he's like, I can't take it anymore. I got to
talk to Hunter about this, and so he reaches out
to my son and says, I really think that you
gotta you just got to invite your mom.
Speaker 6 (48:09):
Like you have to. And so he did.
Speaker 7 (48:13):
At four point thirty that afternoon, Hunter invited me to
the wedding, which would was the next Saturday. And I
got on a plane Wednesday and I was there at
that wedding. And what a redemption story, Like what a
moment of like absolute grace in practice in the thousand
different ways for me.
Speaker 6 (48:33):
But if that wouldn't have happened, Grace.
Speaker 7 (48:36):
Was still in practice for me because not all the
stories in that way, not everybody gets to go to
the wedding, you know, and I wasn't expecting to be
able to go to the wedding.
Speaker 5 (48:47):
Yeah, stupid, silly question.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Oh great for the last thing? Love ready?
Speaker 6 (48:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (48:55):
All been together? How many years? Ten?
Speaker 7 (48:56):
We met ten years ago this July. Yeah, yep, coming
up on tay.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
I just gotta know, first time you walked in and
met granddad?
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Oh my god, what was like meeting Billy Graham?
Speaker 6 (49:10):
Stop it? Let me tell you.
Speaker 5 (49:12):
So.
Speaker 7 (49:12):
First of all, Tualian and I went to We traveled
for our honeymoon in early September twenty sixteen, and part
of our travel was to North Carolina. So on our honeymoon,
we were in Black Mountain, Montreat, where his grand grandparents lived.
(49:34):
Gigi still lives there. It Tullian's mom, and we were
going to go see Daddy Bill that's what they call him.
And his house is on top of a mountain, so
there's this literally winding road that goes up this mountain.
And I felt, I mean, I've known who he was
since I was a little girl.
Speaker 6 (49:51):
I mean, I grew up in the buffle of the
Bible Belt.
Speaker 7 (49:53):
So in Texas, you know Billy Graham, he's basically the
Pope of Texas.
Speaker 6 (49:59):
If you don't know who is are you even Texan
or Christian?
Speaker 7 (50:04):
And so I We're driving up there, and I felt
like I was going to meet Moses.
Speaker 6 (50:11):
Literally.
Speaker 7 (50:12):
I felt like, yeah, literally, I felt like something is
gonna happen, Like Jesus may come back right now, I felt.
Speaker 6 (50:21):
And I was praying for it. I was like, God,
if it would happen right now?
Speaker 7 (50:24):
Yes, perfect, yes, And I was. So that's the feeling.
I can't say any other feeling. And when he came out,
I mean he was old, you know, very very old
by the time I met him. And he was actually
in one of those like recliners that's like a wheelchair,
but it's also a recliner. And when we got there,
they wheeled him out to this their front room that
(50:46):
has this picture window that overlooks the edge of a mountain.
Speaker 6 (50:49):
It's just gorgeous.
Speaker 7 (50:52):
And Gigi went up to one side of him, Tullyan
went up to the other side, and he had to
wear like a little hearing apparatus and you had to
speak into the microphone so that he could hear you,
and you know, he he kind of recognized them and
and was you know, responsive, and then telling said, you know, daddy, Bill,
this is my wife Stacy. And he has this picture
(51:12):
of us, like me getting beside him and him looking.
Speaker 6 (51:16):
At me and me looking at him.
Speaker 7 (51:19):
I don't even know what was happening in that moment,
but it was one of the most powerful moments. And
I was right before I moved up to buy his
head to meet him, I was watching them both tell
him high and I was holding his feet because he
was like propped up like a recliner and his feet
were right here. I mean, he's he's a tall man,
so he had some big feet, and so I'm here,
(51:40):
I'm holding his feet and I'm looking at them, and
I'm like, these feet have stood in front of more
people than any other human on the planet to preach, Yes,
these feet, these right here. God used to stand in
front of more humans than ever before to talk about Jesus,
(52:01):
which is crazy to me. It was an existential complete
I don't even know. It was one of the most
profound moments in my life to meet him because of
he was the first person ever that I remember Billy
Graham saying God loves you, like looking straight through the TV.
(52:24):
And I just remember sitting.
Speaker 6 (52:25):
There as a little girl, going he does, God loves me,
He does. And he was the first person that just
kept repeating that.
Speaker 7 (52:31):
It always stuck with me, and then to meet him
was just over the top, over the top.
Speaker 5 (52:39):
Well, Stacey, you're blessing to us. I can't explain how
excited I am that you're part of our project. We've
got some amazing Grace video testimonials there being filmed. You're
going to be a part of at May thirty first
at the King Center. It's our sixth experience with Matthew
West called the Grace Experience. We're going to have to
(53:00):
be an out of grace and worship, uh, messaging about
our partners with a Migos and Cristo, the a VET
Project and the Christ is the Answer Rescue Mission.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
We're going to be there and we're.
Speaker 5 (53:10):
Going to be raising awareness of and some money and
paying a few bills and all that kind of good stuff.
But most importantly, we're hoping one or two people at
a minimum walk.
Speaker 6 (53:20):
Away knowing Jesus a little bit deeper and or.
Speaker 5 (53:23):
Annoying Him at all. So we're We're thrilled you're gonna
be a part of it. You can check out the
Matthew West and get your tickets at the Kingcenter dot com.
Kingcenter dot com and go to our website at Impactmanistries
dot org.
Speaker 3 (53:36):
That's mp Actministries dot org.
Speaker 5 (53:39):
If you're watching us right now on YouTube, click the
like button, share us, follow us, subscribe to the you know,
all the good stuff doesn't cost you a time. Or
if you'd like to support the ministry, you can go
to our website and click the good button.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
We would love to.
Speaker 5 (53:55):
We would love for you to help us crush Satan
under our feet, so we would.
Speaker 6 (53:59):
We would really appreciate that. So a joy having you
than you guys.
Speaker 3 (54:03):
Awesome for you to be here.
Speaker 5 (54:05):
We will catch you next week with Michael and Jeremy
may be back at the other Jeremy maybe back in
as well. We'll figure it out. Michael's gonna be gone
for a couple of weeks, it looks like, so until then, everybody,
I'm Trey, I'm Jeremy, I'm Brad, I'm Stacy, and we are.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
The rustin ch Christians. Come on.
Speaker 5 (54:27):
I could not imagine walking up into his living room
and meeting him.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
I met him once right now.
Speaker 7 (54:34):
It was like one of the most the craziest moments
of my life.
Speaker 5 (54:38):
I was in Jacksonville, staying at the Sawgrass Marriatte on
a business meeting, and I came back from dinner and
there was this limousine out front, and there was this
Yo, what are you doing right now?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
We are going to get real about men's issues, who
Jesus is and who we are as men in Christ.
We're gonna hear Trey, Jeremy, Michael, and Brad break it down.
These guys call themselves the cussin Christians. All right, guys,
what is going on?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Remember that I had no clue about Fabio.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
That's that's the vision for Trey's hair flowing in the wind.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Well you cut off, dude. I just cut my two
weeks ago. It was like shoulder length, but it wasn't working.
Speaker 5 (00:37):
I talked to someone that was disappointed in your haircut.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Oh really, yeah, no, she's the girl that cuts my hair.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
Said I love that guy with the long hair that
plays left handed guitar.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
And I said that hair ain't long anymore.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It's a Viking look.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
And she was disappointed. Works disappointed. He looked really cool.
Well he's still cool.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
We'll see, Yeah, we'll see how it goes, see how
it goes.
Speaker 6 (01:01):
But but we're going to talk about hair that night.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Well, then we ramble for a few minutes always.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
And uh, we have a guest with some hair.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Then we have a guess with hair today. But no, Phronsie,
thanks for being here.
Speaker 7 (01:16):
Bro.
Speaker 8 (01:17):
Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (01:17):
Prayers for Michael Thomas, who's serving in West Virginia with
his company disaster relief. It's kind of a tough go
up there. He did run into somebody in West Virginia yesterday.
The said aren't you on the Custom Christians?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yes, how cool is that? Yeah, I says someone that
works for his company.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
I guess word got out and they they started talking
about Jesus yesterday.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
So hey, wow, cool we reached one person.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, man, it's been worth it. We got one listener
four years.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
It's been worth it. Yes, one hundred and sixty two episodes.
Speaker 7 (01:51):
Yeah, perly after that conversation, he didn't go unfollowed.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
No hope not. Oh not as well.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
But if you're watching us on YouTube, we appreciate it,
or listen to us on your favorite audio channel.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
There's so many cool things happening with our ministry right now,
because we've been filming our Grace testimonies for the Matthew
West event on May thirty first, and Brad. Brad's about
to get busy in his laboratory. So what's it like
when you're editing and cutting things do you like sometimes
just laugh.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
Well it's funny because now I edit things in real time.
So when Michael and Jeremy are here and they're talking,
I'm like, that's I'm cutting that out, Like you're taking
too long, Like I'm.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Already doing it in my head. So you're like, it's funny.
Speaker 5 (02:31):
You're like Trey, you get to the point, to the
point you've done too much of a setup, you.
Speaker 8 (02:36):
Might stop talking. I'm gonna cut this out anyway.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
I'm gonna do a handsoning for like you're cut.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, you're done, You're done, Just move on. That's fun.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
I would love to sit and look over your shoulder
while you're doing it and see your facial expressions, and
I can see you going I'm not gonna work.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
A lot of disgust, a lot of just shaking my head, kids,
But it's fun.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
But and Chef he had a work call.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
So we've got three stooges here with our beautiful friend
Stacy Tavisi, and thank you for coming and joining us.
We're going to be getting you in the hot seat
here in a little while for the video for the
Matthew West event that we're working.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I'm so glad you drove up to join us.
Speaker 7 (03:19):
Thank you, guys, Thank you for having me, Thank you
for inviting me and just including me.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
Well, we had the honor of having you break some
bread at our house last night and catching up and
Tolly and we know all your secrets, not that you have.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Any, but he put there a long time.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Yeah, he kind of wrote a book.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
But anyway, but I learned about what he likes to eat,
what he doesn't, and how picky he is and all that.
We're so glad you're here on your church in Jupiter
with you and your husband. The sanctuary. I visited a
few times. Just love the vibe. I love the redemption, recovery,
(04:05):
come as you are, way that you guys handle things.
I know you guys came and joined us for a
men's conference a couple of years ago, always left to Mark,
and as we were getting getting our thoughts together for
the Matthew West event, which is our sixth event that
we're doing, I really I saw I saw a testimony
(04:25):
you gave to your church, and a friend of mine
called and said, you.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
Gotta get Stacy on this thing.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
And so I'm just thankful that you're here to just
talk about stacy and life and how Jesus has impacted
you and the power of God's grace in your life,
and we are thrilled to death you're joining us for
this project and to share a little bit of your story.
Our ministry's tagline is discovering Grace one man at a time.
(04:56):
I just saw I discovered grace through a suicidal experience,
and I'm obviously here telling you about it now.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
So it worked out, worked out fine.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
It wasn't always smooth, but it worked out. I love
hearing stories of the revelation of Grace on our lives.
All of us have come from different backgrounds in the church,
and we all bring something different to the party. We
may not always agree, but we're going to grow a
little bit more today because of you, and I'm glad
(05:25):
you're here. So what led me to call you was
a sermon you did six.
Speaker 6 (05:33):
Weeks ago, maybe five weeks ago, about the about.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
The woman at the well, and I wanted to really
explore that today on this podcast because as you're reading
John chapter four and Jesus going to Samaria, a place
probably shouldn't have been walking through.
Speaker 7 (05:52):
Anyway, he avoided, and so did every Jew, every Jew
of every jew right, and I I would love for
you to share a little bit we've all watched it,
just and pick your brain a little bit about.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
You representing that woman. Talk to me growing up in Texas,
high school athlete, you know, popular kid on campus.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Talk to me about what.
Speaker 6 (06:19):
Talk to me about this revelation you've had. Well, I
did grow up in Texas.
Speaker 7 (06:25):
I'm a seventh generation Texan, so like really Texan.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
And so my big family.
Speaker 7 (06:33):
Is dysfunctional in a lot of ways relationally, especially lots
of cousins of mine children including myself, born out of wedlock.
My mom was fifteen when she had me. My grandmother
was fifteen when she had my mom. So there's only
thirty years between my grandmother and I, and so we
have you know, I started out with a reputation of
(06:57):
my family just being really kind of looked down upon,
especially within the church. I grew up in a Baptist church,
a loving place. I loved going to church, but I
definitely felt, you know, looked down upon, like a second
class Christian for lack of a better term. And so
(07:17):
growing up like that, I really felt the need to
be better and like find my way in the church somehow,
and I wanted to do better for my family, Like
you guys did something that turned out well, so they
didn't really have to push me to be a good
student or be an athlete or any of those things
in school.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
And I loved it.
Speaker 7 (07:38):
But right after graduation I found out I was pregnant,
which like bashed any dreams that I had of like
going to college and doing the things that I wanted
to do. And it felt like I messed up everything
for everyone in my life. And fast forward from the
(07:59):
age of eighteen to an adult who's now been married
twice divorced twice. Tullian's my third husband. You know, no
one steps into adulthood planning on getting divorced. Like that's
you know, you don't go, oh well, I mean if
this turn doesn't turn out okay, I mean I'll just
(08:20):
get divorced. I mean that's you know, that's not the mentality.
It's I'm going to get married. And for me, especially,
staying married was like such a huge goal.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
Even if I.
Speaker 7 (08:31):
Didn't want to be in the marriage, just not being
divorced was more of an idol, you know, just to
I don't want to be into I don't want to
be in that category because my whole family is in
that category and I wanted to avoid it.
Speaker 6 (08:44):
But I didn't.
Speaker 7 (08:45):
And in two thousand and five, I divorced my first
husband and we shared one child, my youngest son, and
it really felt like I was kind of ostracized in
a new way that I had not been to that point,
which was now I am that.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
Divorce woman, that person that is that I didn't want
to be.
Speaker 7 (09:09):
And through that there was just a lot of support
from my family, but also, you know, a new label
attached to me that was unwelcome. And you know, it
wasn't when I was growing up. It wasn't popular to
be a teenage mom. It wasn't a reality show that
you were getting paid for. In nineteen ninety two, when
(09:32):
I found out I was pregnant, it was still very taboo,
and you know, I had friends scatter, So, you know,
redeeming myself by getting married and going through a marriage
and doing all the things I did when I was
married the first time it felt like a little redemption.
But there's always that Samaritan woman just like buried in
there that you can't escape.
Speaker 6 (09:56):
And I didn't. I don't think I I know that.
Speaker 7 (09:59):
I didn't realize that until I was well into my
mid thirties. I didn't realize how much I related to
her until then.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
You know, she he walked to the well. Obviously she
looks at him. She's so skeptical. She's been burned by
the church so much, and you know, she made bad
decisions she's paid consequences for. So that's life, you know
that that is life. And Jesus was trying to tear up, like,
(10:29):
you know, hey, if he knew the gift of God
and who this is that's talking to you right now,
and I say, give me a drink, you would have
asked him and he would have given you a living water.
I mean, he's trying to tear up to prompt her
to and she doesn't bite.
Speaker 7 (10:44):
No. What I think is so interesting about her is that,
I mean, it's the obvious things that we learn. She
goes at noon by herself, so she's an outcast of
the outcast, so she's she doesn't even have girlfriends to
go with her. She's not even she's not even going
at a regular time that any person that's accepted in
(11:06):
her own society would go.
Speaker 9 (11:07):
Heat of the day, heat of the day to carry water,
which is you know, in the Old Testament, water is
so use so often as some sort of judgment, and
in the New Testament it's used over and over again
for baptism and for absolutely for cleansing.
Speaker 7 (11:25):
For renewal, for some newness of life, some resurrection. And
so that's what's so beautiful in part that Jesus himself,
as you you know, I'm an expedient person. I like
to take the most efficient route anywhere I go. So
it was point A to B and Jesus didn't take it.
He was like, I'm gonna stop over here in a
(11:46):
place that nobody in my culture stops at all.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
And would not dare to.
Speaker 7 (11:51):
I'm going to go where the most unclean of the
unclean are. And he knew he would meet her, specifically
that most unclean of the unclean, the outcast of the outcast.
He knew it, and he was going to ask her
for a drink, you know, like that's unheard of.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
That would be that would defile him. It would make him.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Unjust to have the conversation, just to have the.
Speaker 7 (12:14):
Conversation, much less ask her for a drink, which is
like one of the most astounding parts of it because
then we hear him later actually say, you know, I
thirst when he's on the cross, So I mean he
really was asking a you know, a question that he
was showing us, like foretelling, like I'm gonna I'm gonna
(12:36):
take the drink that you're going to give me.
Speaker 6 (12:37):
I'm going to take your unclean and I'm going to
drink it.
Speaker 5 (12:40):
You know, it's crazy that when he sets her up
at the beginning and says, you know, you know who
you're talking to, she fires right back because she's been
obviously been burned, and she looks at him and goes,
you want to drink something?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
You don't.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
You didn't even bring the tools with you to get
a drink, skeptical, throwing it back at him.
Speaker 6 (12:59):
Right, how do you relate to that with your life?
Speaker 5 (13:02):
With the situation you were in, not fully understanding Grace
yet you're scared, you're confused, and as someone comes to
you and talks about Jesus or whatever, Oh yeah, right,
look what's happened to me? And you know, looking reflecting inside,
(13:22):
you're going, Okay, I've made some mistakes, but at the
same time, this Grace thing can't be real because of
the ostracizing or people turning their backs, your friend friend groups,
scatters or whatever.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
You're going to be skeptical, sure about it?
Speaker 5 (13:37):
Right?
Speaker 6 (13:38):
How sure?
Speaker 3 (13:39):
You put yourself there and let me know.
Speaker 7 (13:41):
You know, when we know the unlovely parts about ourselves,
it's really difficult to think that you are actually loved
when you know that you don't deserve grace, not just
from God but from anybody. You know your children, that
you've hurt, your family, that you've hurt, friends, that you've hurt.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
Even myself, I've hurt myself.
Speaker 7 (14:03):
So to accept grace is one of the hardest things
that we do because we know ourselves to the degree
that we do, We know our unloveliness, those ugly parts
of us, and it's hard to think that somebody could
actually love this ugly person.
Speaker 8 (14:20):
Yeah, Stacy, and you said in the season you felt
like a Samaritan woman yourself. How much of that do
you think was the public perception looking at you versus
how you viewed yourself on the inside.
Speaker 6 (14:31):
I think it was.
Speaker 7 (14:34):
Like probably half and half, like part and part just
because I knew what I wanted to avoid, you know,
what stigmas, what labels, what life choices. I wanted to avoid,
and it was like, those were the very choices, you know,
the losts of the trespass without you even knowing.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
Sometimes it's not like a rebellion. It wasn't you know.
Speaker 7 (14:53):
I was rebelling outwardly, but I was essentially That's what
I was doing, was actually, you know, the losts of
the trespass, the very thing I don't want to do
I am doing.
Speaker 6 (15:04):
It's Paul, It's very yes.
Speaker 7 (15:07):
And that made it very real to me, like like
I'm really I really don't have control in the ways
that I think that I do.
Speaker 8 (15:16):
I think one of the powerful revelations as a Christian
is to identify that what you've done is not who
you are, right, So you put yourself in a box
based on what mistakes you've made versus your newness in
Christ right revelations.
Speaker 6 (15:27):
Daily right, and you do.
Speaker 7 (15:29):
I mean it is inevitable that we're all part unbelievers
until we die.
Speaker 6 (15:34):
I mean, we're not.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
Fully believing in the love of God for us through Jesus.
We just don't fully believe it. We believe it to
the degree that God has given us the faith to
do that. But where that unbelief is are the places
that he meets us most because that's where the desperation is,
that's where the isolation is, that's where the suicidal thoughts
(15:56):
are ideations, that's where, you know, we get in to
a place where we're at the end of our rope
and I reach my limitations and like, I can't change
this thing about myself and does it matter? Does it
actually matter in the big scheme of things where Jesus
is concerned, And he says no, like, I'll take all
of that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Was your family supportive of you? Once that happened?
Speaker 7 (16:18):
My family, I mean I almost can't talk about them
without crying. As dysfunctional as my family is relationally, I
have been loved so well by my family.
Speaker 6 (16:32):
It's unbelievable. I just had a talk with a.
Speaker 7 (16:35):
Woman who is non local to Jupiter, but she's part
of our church family. We call it friends that are family,
And she said, I'd never heard anybody say that, but
I actually think that about my own family. You know,
they have their own dysfunction, and you know, it doesn't
matter what your so ceo economic group is or your status.
(16:56):
If you've been loved well through some really hard times,
you can make it. Yeah, you really can make it.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
What was your family still involved in church at that point?
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, And how was the reaction from
the church.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
You know, I wasn't.
Speaker 7 (17:12):
I think I was so lost in a lot of
my pain and just having to you know, take the
next step to do whatever I was having to do daily.
I know that the church has historically treated people who.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Are divorced or have children out of wedlock.
Speaker 7 (17:30):
You know, they don't really know what to do with
people like that because they don't think that those kind
of people should have a voice. Ironically, Yeah, and you know,
so the people that have done things that are visibly
bad are usually treated different. I mean when I became
single after I was divorced, I mean, church doesn't know
(17:50):
what to do with single people either, Like it really doesn't.
It's like, well, we have to get you married. That's
like the thing we have to do, and we have
to protect our spouses from you the single person, instead
of just going we just need to love you right
like you're you're also still a daughter of Christ and
someone God loves and saved and forgives and how can we.
Speaker 6 (18:13):
Love you best?
Speaker 7 (18:14):
And so fortunately the churches that I was a part
of were actually very loving and kind. But I know
that that's not the norm, right, because I hear stories
like that every week.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Yeah, and that's so much of a good testimony of
how Jesus was with a Samaritan woman. I think we
almost expect the church to ostracize and to push people away,
but when they don't, it's like, how much more powerful
is that?
Speaker 6 (18:37):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (18:37):
It is the power that is where the power is,
Like the church is a tapestry of sinners that are saved.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Right, absolutely, Oh, it's just a matter of time.
Speaker 8 (18:49):
And I figured it all out now. I'm looking at
Romans five point twenty, and this is so hard to
put in practice, especially within the church, where it says
the law was brought in so that the trespass might increase,
But we're sending increases grace and increases all the more
so that just as rain and death, so also might
grace reign through righteousness to bring in eternal life through
Christ is our Lord. So so like, how hard is
(19:10):
it to increase the grace where it's needed and not
just look at the sin and say that's ugly. I
don't want to see that. You know, it's difficult as
believers to show that grace when it's needed.
Speaker 7 (19:21):
Well, I mean and in that context of that, you know,
I mean when they ask like, well, then what do
we do? You know, do we keep sinning? And it's like,
that's not the point. You've missed the whole point of it,
the entire point. It's like, no, that's when you push
it in deeper and you go, life is grace in practice,
it is forcing us to go do you really believe that?
(19:43):
Do you really believe in grace in this instance? Which
has nothing to do with like, you know, allowing people
to be criminals and allowing them to get away with
bad behavior and blah blah blah, all of the stuff
that the church is known for behavior modification in one
way or another extent. The only reason grace exists is
(20:03):
because of the deficit.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
It is unmerited favor. So it is only there for
the deficit. You never deserve it never.
Speaker 7 (20:10):
So nobody it's you know, like, oh, that person's like
full of grace? Are they really are they faced with
something really ungracious in their life? And like what does
it look like then when they have to accept somebody
or are faced with the opportunity to accept someone, forgive someone,
love someone in the face of the unlovely in the ugly,
(20:33):
like the ugly.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
Parts of it, and that's it's rare. It's rare. But
that's really where the rubber meets the road, isn't it.
Speaker 8 (20:40):
That's the application. It's focusing more on the solution than
is the problem.
Speaker 6 (20:46):
Like do you actually believe it?
Speaker 7 (20:48):
Because we can say we believe it until you're faced
with having to show that you actually believe it.
Speaker 8 (20:53):
Yeah, because if we're not careful, we can become fruit inspectors.
Speaker 7 (20:56):
We're just looking for They don't even get me started
with spots on them and get me started with the
produce section of Christianity, because I mean it's terrible.
Speaker 8 (21:05):
Yeah, a lot of walk talk to Matt McMillan, and
he was joking. He says, like, what are we gonna
do about all the sinin? Like we're just so focused
can be so focused on the sinin, we don't focus
on the solution.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
I had an experience one time where I was talking
to a deacon and I guess one of the staff
members was going through a bad time and with his marriage,
and the only thing he focused on was we can't
let him get divorced. So that's the sin, and it
bothered me to hear that. I'm going, wait a minute,
let's talk with this guy and just see, let's get there.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
We just want to keep him from doing We want
to keep him from making.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
That bad decision. Well, I don't want anybody to get
divorced either.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Romoting that, but that's promoting that.
Speaker 5 (21:46):
But the focus of grace is something deeper and bigger.
And if you look at the definition of grace from
Titus too, grace saved me and grace trains me. I mean,
that's the basic thing from you know, Paul's words, it's
training me to walk more upright. Every day, I'm gonna slip,
but you know what, I'm gonna dust off my bretches
and get back on the horse and keep going.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
And that's part of like the way that I personally
and as I talk to actual people who truly experience grace.
It's in the moments where you have some new awareness
that you do not deserve it, that you are totally,
absolutely unmerited in any way. You are not a Holy
(22:31):
Hall monitor. You do not have a pass. You do
not you don't get a pass for the things you've done.
And when you realize the level of the law and
your inability to keep it to the degree that God
has set, not some Christian version of the law where
it's a level that.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
You can jump over or achieve when you realize, like the.
Speaker 8 (22:52):
Law is break, you break one law, you've broken at all.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Yeah, it is perfection.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I took care of that.
Speaker 6 (22:58):
Not good enough.
Speaker 8 (23:00):
The most of the most subtle sins are still just
as evil.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
Started with somebody eating fruits.
Speaker 7 (23:05):
Yeah, okay, so those things that we think are the
big sins, you know, adult trees start and it started
with a bite, just like a rebellion.
Speaker 8 (23:14):
Anything that goes against God's will, sin.
Speaker 7 (23:16):
That unbelief of like I'm going to be God myself
and this is it started with somebody eating fruit. And ironically,
now we're trying to point it out and everybody you know,
trying to gauge it.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I think we strive so hard to look perfect and
to look like we've got it all together and be
all buttoned up, because that's what most churches are. But
like you said, when you've been on the receiving end
of that grace, and what I love about your church
is that there's no pretense that hey, we're all perfect,
We're all shiny, and you know, it's like, come as
you are and whatever's going on will help you deal
with them, help you get through it. But I think
(23:49):
a lot of churches they don't want they don't want
divorce associated with their church. They don't want people to
hear oh so and so this church got divorced, or
this guy's going through alcoholism or whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
We just try to sanitize it all.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
If you have a face tattoo, you can never come
to church again, or something like that.
Speaker 7 (24:04):
Any blemish that's determined as a blemish they don't want,
they don't know what to do with. It's so funny
because our church does get a lot of the misfits,
you know, we don't there's it's funny telling and I
have talked about it a few times. We keep getting
people sent to our church from this one guy who's
a therapist locally. We've never met the guy, don't even
(24:27):
we've heard his name, but we don't know him. And
these people that go to him to talk about, you know,
their divorce or addiction or some kind of problem. He's
a Christian and he's like, you know what church you
should go to? You should go, you should go visit
the sanctuary and they have you know, some recovery groups
you could be a part of. And so this guy
keeps sending people who have been in other churches, but
(24:50):
like they're not, you know, getting anywhere. So he's like,
you should go to that church. And we're like, come on,
like the doors are open, welcome. Yeah, and you know,
people are like, I there's no judgment. I thought there
was no judgment in church. And I'm like, hey, you know, let.
Speaker 6 (25:06):
There's still people here and we're judge.
Speaker 7 (25:08):
People can be judge. It's not that we're judgment free.
God is judgment free, and that's what we're talking about here.
You're still going to encounter humans when you come into
this church. Absolutely we're jacked up, you know, so broken, right,
and we're like we know it.
Speaker 6 (25:24):
So we're not trying to say that.
Speaker 7 (25:27):
We're like, come in here and we're going to be
you know, we're going to do the best we can.
But we're still human, you know at the end of
the day, and so are you. And we expect humans
to be human.
Speaker 8 (25:37):
And how beautiful Like this passage in John chapter four
about the Samaritans, like it's personal to you, but it's
also like, how can easy as Christians distill view ourselves
as the Jews and other people that are full of
sin as Samaritans and create a divide between us because
of their uncleanliness or because of their background or how
they were raised, like that can be something that separates
(25:58):
us from me able to share grace.
Speaker 7 (26:00):
We're both honestly, we're Pharisees about the Pharisees. We're phariseical
about that, and we're the Samaritan woman. You know, we're both.
And if we can't see that about ourselves, then there's probably.
Speaker 8 (26:12):
I think we need to have the revelation that Paul says,
there's no Jew nor Gentile, there's no Greece, there's no like,
it's all gone, it's.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
All one at the ground level, that we're all one
right the ground level.
Speaker 8 (26:22):
We need to get everybody else to be that part
of that one right.
Speaker 6 (26:25):
And that's you know, we resist that to some degree.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
You know, she she she had the revelation, she had
this moment. Now we have someone else that's going to
be joining us for the Matthew Wes to end. He's
a pastor and he had a moral failure and he
told me in his testimony that we're going to be
showing on the screen at Matthew Wes. You know, for
fifteen years I talked about grace, but I never knew
(26:50):
what it was until I had the moral failure, and
he's given the description.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
I felt like I was in a pit and.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
People would walk by, and you had your nonchalant people
would walk by and go, oh, that's a shame. Then
you have your other people that walk by and go
you deserve every bit of it.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
You have your other people that will walk by kind
of like they're.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
Looking at a zoo animal, like oh man. And then
then he said, I never I talked about grace. I
preached about grace and all these things for fifteen years,
but I never knew what it was till I realized
I wasn't by myself in that pit, and it was
actually his wife.
Speaker 6 (27:29):
In there with him, and she gave him the.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Grace to forgive, to reconcile and come back strong. And
they've come back stronger than ever. It's an amazing story. She
had this revelation when at the well, this is something different.
Who was that person in your life that was in
(27:52):
the pit with you, that made that helped you connect
the dots on the Gospel of grace and what it
truly means.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
I mean Jesus first and foremost, but humanly speaking, you know,
Jesus and skin and bones. It really was for me
first my mom. She was the first person that really
when I found out I was pregnant at eighteen years old,
and I was terrified to tell my parents that I
(28:22):
was pregnant because I was like, I've ruined their lives.
Speaker 6 (28:25):
I don't know what I'm going to do, you know,
I mean scared to death.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
You didn't write a letter to or did you?
Speaker 6 (28:30):
No?
Speaker 3 (28:31):
Sorry, I'm joking with him.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Yeah, I've got a similar testimony where I grew up
in the church. My mom was a church organist, dad
was a deacon an elder, and I was a pretty
clean cut kid.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I didn't party in high school or any of that.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
I went to a Christian school, went to a Baptist
college in Oklahoma. Met a girl she was eighteen, I
was nineteen. I got her pregnant, and the same type
of thing where my family, my family and her family
were so just the way they were reacted and the
grace at the extended in our churches too. The churches
that we went to didn't miss a beat, like they
(29:06):
were in there with us, and and you know, we
made it like we're still together all these years, which
is again God's grace.
Speaker 7 (29:16):
That's who was there with you in the pit. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
no that I mean my I was terrified. One of
my friends, actually my ex it was my ex boyfriend.
I wasn't I didn't even have a boyfriend at the time.
Speaker 6 (29:30):
We had dated for over a year.
Speaker 7 (29:32):
We had broken up several months before I found out
I was pregnant for some significant reasons. We were not
going to be back together. His best friend told my
parents that I was pregnant. And I was sitting in
my room and it was kind of it was in
the evening and my mom, I'm sitting there terrified. My
mom walks in, and I'm just like more terrified, because
(29:55):
I mean my mom was like, you know, she wanted
me to turn out right, so she was like, you know,
law laden in some ways, and I respected that. But
she walked in and she stood beside my bed and
she said, Sean called me, and I know that you're pregnant,
and I just, I mean, I felt like every ounce
(30:15):
of blood in life left my body, and in that
same instance, she fell like down to the side of
my bed and just hugged me and said, why didn't
you tell me who else would.
Speaker 6 (30:27):
Understand better than me?
Speaker 7 (30:30):
Because she had me when she was fifteen, And in
that moment it was like she I remember she slept
with me that night, like she stayed huddled up with me,
and just it's like you said, it was just a
flood of grace in a way that honestly, if that,
if she and my dad would have had any other
(30:50):
reaction in that moment that was less than that, I
don't know how I would have made it through the
following years that it went beyond, because it was so
incredibly foundational for me. It was my first tangible experience
of one way love from God to me in a
moment where I knew I was guilty, I knew like
(31:13):
an unseen sin was Saul, you know, like it's seen
right now. I cannot hide it. You can't be a
little bit pregnant. You either are or you're not. And
it was you know, I felt the ugliest and the
most unlawful that I had ever been at that point
in my life, and everything I got was just grace
(31:37):
from my parents and was just unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Well, and so at a very very young age, you
experienced that type of grace that most people don't. Maybe
they don't experience that for another.
Speaker 6 (31:46):
Twenty or thirty years exactly.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
And I think if I hadn't gone through what I did,
maybe if I knew somebody else who was unmarried that
got pregnant in one of my classmates, maybe I would
have who knows, maybe I would have judged them. But
instantly and this happened, there were girls that would come
to my wife, you know, because again we got married
and we finished school and you know, we had our daughter,
but there were girls that would come out of the
(32:09):
woodwork and would come talk to my wife and say
I might be pregnant. They were considering abortion, and so
my wife would talk them through that. And so God
really used it in a powerful way.
Speaker 6 (32:20):
No, I totally believe.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
That if we hadn't gone through that, then you know,
who knows.
Speaker 7 (32:26):
I think one thing that's beautiful about stories like that,
especially if they happen at a young age. I mean,
Jesus is the wounded Healer, and we talked about this jokingly,
but it's true. There's you know passages in the Gospel
about the fellowship of the suffering and the only way
that we become wounded healers in service to God. I mean,
(32:48):
those are the really the only people in service to
loving others.
Speaker 6 (32:52):
Horizontally, God doesn't need us to do that. He doesn't.
Everything he needed from.
Speaker 7 (32:57):
Us, he already has and it has been finished in
the person of Jesus.
Speaker 6 (33:02):
We get to love people. We get to. We don't
have to. We get to and that's different. I don't
have to.
Speaker 8 (33:08):
It's like your father, he wants to help you. You
can only help you if you come to him. And
you're talking about like you sat here with this shame
in isolation. You didn't want to tell your parents because
as humans, we oftentimes paint the worst possible outcome that
they're going to be angry with you. That the enemy
wants you to say, you know what, keep it to
yourself because they're going to be disappointed in you. You
should have shame, And because of that, we sit there
(33:28):
without the grace that we could receive because of that,
and we do it to this day.
Speaker 6 (33:33):
I mean, it's an unacceptance of it. It's there all
the time.
Speaker 7 (33:36):
I just it's like having the best gift right here
in front of me, the cold drink of water. You need,
the thing that you actually need, it's right there and
you can have it anytime. And I you know, a
lot of times we're like, I'm not taking it. I
don't deserve it. It's not for me, but it is,
you know, take and drink.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
This is for you.
Speaker 8 (33:55):
And if you knew your mom was going to receive
it so well, you probably have told her day one,
but I would have been relieved absolute. But you decided
that you know, this is not going to go well,
So I'm just gonna we do this all the time
for something. And then we do it. We're like, that
went so great. I should have done that right away.
Speaker 6 (34:09):
Yeah, I contemplated everything. I believed. I never would contemplate everything.
Speaker 8 (34:14):
The imagine issue was wild in the worst way.
Speaker 7 (34:16):
Sometimes everything, And like you're saying, from then on, within
my own family, because I'm the oldest of fifteen first cousins,
I have a lot of girls in my family, honestly,
tons of girlfriends from elementary school and high school and
just in general. And I've become you know, inadvertently, it's
(34:37):
an unplanned ministry that you end up having not formal,
not professional ministry, but unplanned ministry that you end up having.
That that's the place where God will have you speak
into other people's lives about how great He has been
for you, how how he's met you and your suffering,
how much he loves you, how much he forgives you,
and when you become that listening ear for other people,
(35:01):
sometimes being heard is the most powerful thing there is
because in those moments, we just need we just need
to vomit, and we just need to be heard, and
we need to be heard without judgment. You know, we
need to be heard without somebody telling you what you
need to do. Not you know, we're unless you're soliciting
advice that's rarely heard when it's given, especially in those moments.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
Well you should have done this, and you should shouldn't
have done that. Well, no shit kind of.
Speaker 8 (35:28):
Time machine exactly. And we have to allow ourselves to
our pain to be used for God's glory. Like Brad said,
like who knows if one abortion was saved because of
your your testimony or your story you're walking through, and
who knows what that person's life did for the kingdom.
They could have gone on to do something great because
of what your struggle at eighteen. You know, it's it's
beautiful when you look.
Speaker 6 (35:49):
At it, right.
Speaker 7 (35:50):
Yeah, we don't know how God will use you know,
he uses the foolish things and foolish people, and he
really does.
Speaker 8 (35:56):
I love that analogy you talked about a tapestry and
how we're on the backside this thing. We're seeing crazy
colors and all this chaos and we don't know how
any of it makes any sense. But we get to Heaven.
We get to see the front side of the beautiful
thing that God's been weaving all along, and we get
to see. We just have to trust that he knows
what he's doing and where the clay, and he's the potter.
We don't get to tell the potter with to do
the clay.
Speaker 6 (36:17):
No, No, we're not the creator, we're the creatures.
Speaker 8 (36:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:20):
Yeah, I mean nobody can redeem a story like he can.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
And life happens to all of us.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
So it's like at some point we're going to have
some embarrassing failure or something, and so it's it's how
we deal with that.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Do we turn to him?
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Do we allow him to use that to minister life
to other people?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I mean, that's what That's a huge, powerful thing that
he does. And so I love hearing those stories.
Speaker 6 (36:41):
To me, that's the real me too.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Yeah, it's not so much about oh no, you did
this bad thing. It's like, how did God turn that around?
How did he use that?
Speaker 6 (36:47):
Look what he did with this?
Speaker 8 (36:48):
Yes, and when you come out. I watched your sermon
on YouTube, and when I watched that night, I saw
the courage it took to give your patht to talk
to talk about those dirty things that you know that
the Samaritan things that other people can also feel that
the power to come out and say, hey, I need
to talk about this. I need healing from this. I
need to share what I've gone through so I can
be healed.
Speaker 6 (37:08):
And that's really what we telling.
Speaker 7 (37:09):
And I get messages, you know, on social media, emails
literally every week that just say, I don't have anybody
in my life I can tell any of this too.
I don't have a person at my even if they
are in a church. I can't tell anybody at my
church this thing that's happening in my life, in my marriage,
(37:30):
with my children, whatever, with my job, with my anything.
It is amazing to me every single day and how
much people need that and they don't have it, which
is sad.
Speaker 8 (37:44):
Because it's heavy to carry these things. I mean, trace hearts.
Some men tell him some stuff that's just heavy to
hear about much less have walked through in life. But
the power of just getting that darkness and shining light
onto it and allowing God to deal with it.
Speaker 7 (37:56):
Right, Well, I'm huge into I've never had a since
abuse addiction, but I'm huge on the twelve steps of
a unpacking them in light of the Gospel specifically, and
I lead women's studies to do that at our church
because I think if I would have had those tools
(38:16):
as a teenager in my tool belt to cope with life,
like you know, I might have made some different decisions.
But to do that now in confession being one of
those things, like to be able to share with somebody
that's a trusted ear, I mean, that's part of those
twelve steps.
Speaker 6 (38:33):
And you know, I'll hold your hair.
Speaker 7 (38:35):
I tell women all the time, I'll get a bucket
or you know, we can go in the bathroom, but
I'll hold you let better out than in. I mean,
that's what therapists say, and it's really true. I just
got to get it out, like I just have to
tell somebody this, so it's not inside me, eating away
at me day in and d day out. And it's
a powerful thing to be that listening near to honor,
(38:57):
to be that listening near to so many people.
Speaker 6 (39:00):
Just need to get it out, just need to vombit, you.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
Know, our corner, our cornerstone mission versus James five sixteen.
Confess your sins to one another and through prayer be healed.
And we like to not to add anything to the Bible,
but we like to say genuine Christian brotherhood, We're gonna
come alongside you. And then of course Paul talking about
burying each other's burdens in the Book of Galatians. I
stole something from a friend of ours and I use
(39:23):
it all the time, and I give him credits sometimes.
But Nate Larkin a lot of times he wraps up
his talk with brothers, I'm looking at you now. I
want you to tell me who the six men are
that are going to carry your casket. I gave that
question on Monday night at the rescue mission, and afterwards
(39:43):
several guys came up and goes, I don't have six guys,
And Nate, you know Nate. Nate brings it great and
he's an amazing storyteller. He spent the night with us,
you know a few years back, and I just sat there.
All I want to do is like you last night,
I just wanted to write down there and you said,
but it's amazing how we go into overdrive to solve
(40:07):
our own problems. We go into overdrive of people going, well,
you've done this, you need to go do that, and.
Speaker 6 (40:18):
This performance driven society that we're in.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
Closing word of thought to people that are listening, Stacy,
how freeing is it when you understand the power of
grace too, and how grace actually changes you. Michael Thomas
says it all the time. People say, oh, you got grace,
you can do whatever you want, and Michael goes, exactly,
I'm going to do what I want because Grace changed
what I want to do.
Speaker 9 (40:44):
Right.
Speaker 6 (40:44):
We loved because he first loved us. That's so what that.
Speaker 5 (40:48):
Means around this the whole topic your story, just encouragement
of the Saint.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
You buckling down and gearing up.
Speaker 5 (40:57):
Buttercup, this is this is something deeper and bigger than
you can ever imagine.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Any closing thoughts on that.
Speaker 6 (41:02):
I mean, it really is.
Speaker 7 (41:03):
Grace is the thing that reminds us of a freedom
we already have in Christ. And we don't know that
we really have that until we find ourselves so enslaved
to something, whether it's a secret, an addiction, a situation
(41:24):
to actually in that moment go Wait, I'm not a
slave to that. Wait, I don't have to live that way.
I'm forgiven for that. We conflate the horizontal with the
vertical all the time. We equate how God thinks about us,
the way people are reacting to us, and that's just
(41:46):
simply not true. And it's very hard for us to
pull those two planes apart. And so living in that
freedom feels like I have nothing left to lose. So
I don't care if I talk about the ugly things
in front of you. It's not it's not for me
to hide. It is something to steward. There's there's nothing
that we share more as humanity than scars, no matter
(42:11):
how we got them self induced or induced by the
world or people around us in our lives. That is
the thing that we have to steward. Scars, not our successes,
not things that are you know, looked at as you know,
character building qualities, But scars, How are we stewarding our
scars to one another in service to one another, to
(42:34):
love one another? And when you when you stand up
in front of a crowd and you show like, here's
this huge scar that I have and here's how I
got it, and here's what Jesus did with it, there's
something in that that goes me too.
Speaker 8 (42:49):
Yeah, come on, yeah, And the scar is only a
wound that's healed, right, so some people may have a
partial opening of that wound that's not fully healed. It's
it's more than just sensitive skin. It's it's still open.
Speaker 5 (42:59):
So it.
Speaker 7 (43:01):
Absolutely people that Naughtia bolts Weber actually said several years ago,
which I love and applaud this statement, speak from your scars,
not from your wounds. And when you're bleeding on everybody,
and people do this online all the time or you know,
bleeding all over those keyboards but social media's but speak
(43:25):
from those scars, not from your wounds.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
You know, there's a special place.
Speaker 7 (43:30):
Yes, it is so helpful, and it really if you
have something to say to someone that would be helpful,
you're probably going to be speaking from a healed place,
a more healed place. If you're in ICU an unstable
and blood you know is gushing, you are no help
to anybody else. If you picture yourself an icy, you
(43:50):
are no help to anyone you need help.
Speaker 8 (43:53):
Sounds like.
Speaker 7 (43:57):
And even make that up, but that is really true,
you know, and it love that analogy. We're all in
the hospital all the time, and there are moments that
I'm going to be in the ICU again and again
and again. But there are also moments that I'm like
pushing the little cart, you know, down the hall, because
I'm healed enough to do that, and I'm like, here,
here's a drink, here's your meds, here's something to help you,
(44:17):
here's some food. We can help others in that sense.
We're healed enough, but you know, we're not always We're
not always pushing the cart around, and we're never the position,
so we have to keep that.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
So your story, I saw that message you gave and
just knowing you had like been with you a few times,
I thought, man, I got to get her down to
help us with this thing, and I'm just so thankful.
Speaker 8 (44:42):
That you're here.
Speaker 5 (44:43):
Closing thought anything you want to put a bow on
with your story, like tie this up and that I'm
using a trayism that they always make fun of me on.
But any any thoughts for especially the women that might
be listening as it relates to you maybe your life.
Speaker 7 (45:01):
I think grace one thing that really comes to mind,
especially during that specific sermon that you're talking about, when
I preached on this marriage.
Speaker 5 (45:10):
We'll put it on our We'll put it on those
podcasts at links, people could check it out that particular.
Speaker 7 (45:16):
I mean, Tullyan has been my in house seminarian, my
professor for the last almost ten years. Honestly, he always
is like, finds something that's pressing in you know. It's
not an application of like, you know, three steps to
have a good marriage, how to live with integrity? Right,
five easy steps, you know, preach the law, preach the gospel,
(45:39):
find that in the text and preach it.
Speaker 6 (45:42):
And I'm okay.
Speaker 7 (45:44):
And at that point, the heaviest thing on me was
not being invited to my youngest son's wedding because of
twenty years before that a divorce and just the unforgiveness
that still existed between me and X in laws and
X at my ex. My son and I had a
(46:04):
good relationship, close relationship, and so for me not to
be invited and knew. I knew for the last several
years that that would be the case. I was like
not looking forward to the day that I knew he
would get married and I wouldn't be there.
Speaker 6 (46:21):
And as a woman, for a woman to not.
Speaker 7 (46:24):
Specifically you know dads, people get divorced, and dads may
not have their kids full time.
Speaker 6 (46:30):
Usually the mom does. All of that was opposite for me.
All of it was opposite for me.
Speaker 7 (46:36):
And being invited to this wedding, not being invited to
my son's wedding as a mother and woman, there's a
huge stigma attached to that, like what's wrong with you?
What kind of mom have you been? Why wouldn't your
son invite you to a wedding? Like there's so many
questions that go along that, and so much instant judgment.
Speaker 6 (46:58):
And for.
Speaker 7 (47:00):
Because I preached that that didn't change, Like that wasn't
the catalyst, you know, that changed it. God was already
doing things. But for me to stand up there and
be able to talk about that most painful thing and
show how even if that didn't change and circumstances stayed
(47:21):
the same, I went away from that well telling everybody
that Jesus has known everything about me.
Speaker 6 (47:30):
He knew everything about.
Speaker 7 (47:32):
Me, and like that was the most beautiful part of
that that even because at that moment when I gave that,
when I preached that I wasn't going to my son's wedding.
But at four point thirty that afternoon, he texted me
and asked me to go to his wedding. And it
was a catalyst of my husband. After that sermon, Tullyan goes,
(47:54):
I came home from church, you know, and he's like, Babe,
that was like amazing. That sermon was so great, and
he's like, I can't take it anymore. I got to
talk to Hunter about this, and so he reaches out
to my son and says, I really think that you
gotta you just got to invite your mom.
Speaker 6 (48:09):
Like you have to. And so he did.
Speaker 7 (48:13):
At four point thirty that afternoon, Hunter invited me to
the wedding, which would was the next Saturday. And I
got on a plane Wednesday and I was there at
that wedding. And what a redemption story, Like what a
moment of like absolute grace in practice in the thousand
different ways for me.
Speaker 6 (48:33):
But if that wouldn't have happened, Grace.
Speaker 7 (48:36):
Was still in practice for me because not all the
stories in that way, not everybody gets to go to
the wedding, you know, and I wasn't expecting to be
able to go to the wedding.
Speaker 5 (48:47):
Yeah, stupid, silly question.
Speaker 3 (48:50):
Oh great for the last thing? Love ready?
Speaker 6 (48:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (48:55):
All been together? How many years? Ten?
Speaker 7 (48:56):
We met ten years ago this July. Yeah, yep, coming
up on tay.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
I just gotta know, first time you walked in and
met granddad?
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Oh my god, what was like meeting Billy Graham?
Speaker 6 (49:10):
Stop it? Let me tell you.
Speaker 5 (49:12):
So.
Speaker 7 (49:12):
First of all, Tualian and I went to We traveled
for our honeymoon in early September twenty sixteen, and part
of our travel was to North Carolina. So on our honeymoon,
we were in Black Mountain, Montreat, where his grand grandparents lived.
(49:34):
Gigi still lives there. It Tullian's mom, and we were
going to go see Daddy Bill that's what they call him.
And his house is on top of a mountain, so
there's this literally winding road that goes up this mountain.
And I felt, I mean, I've known who he was
since I was a little girl.
Speaker 6 (49:51):
I mean, I grew up in the buffle of the
Bible Belt.
Speaker 7 (49:53):
So in Texas, you know Billy Graham, he's basically the
Pope of Texas.
Speaker 6 (49:59):
If you don't know who is are you even Texan
or Christian?
Speaker 7 (50:04):
And so I We're driving up there, and I felt
like I was going to meet Moses.
Speaker 6 (50:11):
Literally.
Speaker 7 (50:12):
I felt like, yeah, literally, I felt like something is
gonna happen, Like Jesus may come back right now, I felt.
Speaker 6 (50:21):
And I was praying for it. I was like, God,
if it would happen right now?
Speaker 7 (50:24):
Yes, perfect, yes, And I was. So that's the feeling.
I can't say any other feeling. And when he came out,
I mean he was old, you know, very very old
by the time I met him. And he was actually
in one of those like recliners that's like a wheelchair,
but it's also a recliner. And when we got there,
they wheeled him out to this their front room that
(50:46):
has this picture window that overlooks the edge of a mountain.
Speaker 6 (50:49):
It's just gorgeous.
Speaker 7 (50:52):
And Gigi went up to one side of him, Tullyan
went up to the other side, and he had to
wear like a little hearing apparatus and you had to
speak into the microphone so that he could hear you,
and you know, he he kind of recognized them and
and was you know, responsive, and then telling said, you know, daddy, Bill,
this is my wife Stacy. And he has this picture
(51:12):
of us, like me getting beside him and him looking.
Speaker 6 (51:16):
At me and me looking at him.
Speaker 7 (51:19):
I don't even know what was happening in that moment,
but it was one of the most powerful moments. And
I was right before I moved up to buy his
head to meet him, I was watching them both tell
him high and I was holding his feet because he
was like propped up like a recliner and his feet
were right here. I mean, he's he's a tall man,
so he had some big feet, and so I'm here,
(51:40):
I'm holding his feet and I'm looking at them, and
I'm like, these feet have stood in front of more
people than any other human on the planet to preach, Yes,
these feet, these right here. God used to stand in
front of more humans than ever before to talk about Jesus,
(52:01):
which is crazy to me. It was an existential complete
I don't even know. It was one of the most
profound moments in my life to meet him because of
he was the first person ever that I remember Billy
Graham saying God loves you, like looking straight through the TV.
(52:24):
And I just remember sitting.
Speaker 6 (52:25):
There as a little girl, going he does, God loves me,
He does. And he was the first person that just
kept repeating that.
Speaker 7 (52:31):
It always stuck with me, and then to meet him
was just over the top, over the top.
Speaker 5 (52:39):
Well, Stacey, you're blessing to us. I can't explain how
excited I am that you're part of our project. We've
got some amazing Grace video testimonials there being filmed. You're
going to be a part of at May thirty first
at the King Center. It's our sixth experience with Matthew
West called the Grace Experience. We're going to have to
(53:00):
be an out of grace and worship, uh, messaging about
our partners with a Migos and Cristo, the a VET
Project and the Christ is the Answer Rescue Mission.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
We're going to be there and we're.
Speaker 5 (53:10):
Going to be raising awareness of and some money and
paying a few bills and all that kind of good stuff.
But most importantly, we're hoping one or two people at
a minimum walk.
Speaker 6 (53:20):
Away knowing Jesus a little bit deeper and or.
Speaker 5 (53:23):
Annoying Him at all. So we're We're thrilled you're gonna
be a part of it. You can check out the
Matthew West and get your tickets at the Kingcenter dot com.
Kingcenter dot com and go to our website at Impactmanistries
dot org.
Speaker 3 (53:36):
That's mp Actministries dot org.
Speaker 5 (53:39):
If you're watching us right now on YouTube, click the
like button, share us, follow us, subscribe to the you know,
all the good stuff doesn't cost you a time. Or
if you'd like to support the ministry, you can go
to our website and click the good button.
Speaker 3 (53:53):
We would love to.
Speaker 5 (53:55):
We would love for you to help us crush Satan
under our feet, so we would.
Speaker 6 (53:59):
We would really appreciate that. So a joy having you
than you guys.
Speaker 3 (54:03):
Awesome for you to be here.
Speaker 5 (54:05):
We will catch you next week with Michael and Jeremy
may be back at the other Jeremy maybe back in
as well. We'll figure it out. Michael's gonna be gone
for a couple of weeks, it looks like, so until then, everybody,
I'm Trey, I'm Jeremy, I'm Brad, I'm Stacy, and we are.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
The rustin ch Christians. Come on.
Speaker 5 (54:27):
I could not imagine walking up into his living room
and meeting him.
Speaker 3 (54:32):
I met him once right now.
Speaker 7 (54:34):
It was like one of the most the craziest moments
of my life.
Speaker 5 (54:38):
I was in Jacksonville, staying at the Sawgrass Marriatte on
a business meeting, and I came back from dinner and
there was this limousine out front, and there was this
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