Your Hosts Personal Testimony

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It. So hey, a couple of weeks ago I was praying and I asked the Lord for a topic

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and without a second between my question and his answer, I heard him say, share your

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testimony.

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My response was like, okay, really?

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Wait a second here.

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Are you serious, Lord?

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So I went to some friends and asked them what they thought.

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To my surprise, they were all all for it.

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So here I am opening up my heart and my past

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to share with you.

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So I can once say I once was lost, but now I'm

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found.

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That's what we are going to discuss today here

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on the podcast The Busy Believer.

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But just before I do that, I need to tell you

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and give you a reminder that if you find yourself short on time for Bible reading and

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study, you could sign up for my show on The Busy Believer.

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Captivate FM now let's get to my personal testimony.

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Hey everybody, welcome back to the show.

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Thank you for following me today on The Busy

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Believer.

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I've got a new one for you, a totally

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different one.

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I was sitting with the Lord last week and I

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was like, Lord, I need something to be able to talk and share with the people and encourage

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them on their day to day hustle in life.

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What do I talk about?

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Well, the Lord.

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Just as I got the question out, the Lord

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quickly replied and said, share your testimony.

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I was like, wait a minute, okay, this is going to take longer than 20 to 30 minutes, Lord,

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and usually you're sitting down and you're kind of telling people that you're hanging out

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with, but I had to obey him and just said, okay, I'm going to do this.

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So I've sat down and I actually have some notes here that I'm going to share and

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hopefully I can keep it in the 20 to 30 minutes time frame for you guys because I know

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that you are on your way to work, school or you are just out there in the hustle.

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So before I get started, I do want to give a couple of shout outs.

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I have some subscribers on Patreon that are supporting me and helping me to get content

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out to you people.

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They're helping me get my book out.

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They are supporting me in that we are trying to release a book of poetry that is going to

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try to be released by the end of summer.

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And so I want to give them their due and their

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shout out.

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So I want to send support and a shout out to

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Robin, to Holly, to Ange, to enrietta, Gloria and Jake.

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And without you guys and the support of this page on Patreon, I could not do it without

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you.

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So I thank you and appreciate you guys so very

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much.

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You are my heroes and I love you all.

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So with that, if you guys want to help me out and subscribe to my patreon page.

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You can do so at www.patreon.com and it will be my name as one word.

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And it's Monicahanson and it's Hansen.

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And I'll put it in the description below of

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this podcast so that way you guys can have it.

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And so with that, let's get into my testimony.

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I grew up in a very strict home.

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I mean, it was the rule of the law by my

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stepfather.

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He raised us in a very authoritative manner.

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We were controlled by everything.

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We were told what to wear to school.

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We were told when to get up.

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We were told what we were allowed to watch.

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We weren't even able to watch TV Monday through Thursday because it was schoolwork

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chores and you need to go outside.

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And so our environment was very controlled.

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We grew up in church, but even that was controlled.

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I mean, it came to the point of we had to sit in the front row.

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We could not sit with our friends.

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We had to wear dresses to church, sit in the

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front row.

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And you had to whip out your notebook and

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write notes and follow what the pastor said.

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And when we got home, he would ask you about

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it, what did you learn while you sat there in church?

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And so everything was just controlled.

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So it wasn't a very fun time growing up.

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So when it came time to actually graduate high school, I was running.

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I was running like I don't know what.

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I had to get out from under my father's hand,

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my stepfather's hand.

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But where was I going to go?

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What was I going to do? Well, I decided to look at the military and I

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thought, well, I want to travel the world.

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I want to go see everything, so why not do it

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through the military? And I decided to join the army.

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But when I joined have you ever done this? Where you come to God and you go, I will do

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this if you'll do this? Well, that was me.

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See, I came and told God, I'm going to join the army, but you have to stay at home.

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I didn't want God anymore.

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I saw him as authoritative.

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My freedom was taken away.

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Everything was controlled because of my

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parents.

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Now, that's not to say that that's who God is.

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And clearly, I'm not saying that that's how my stepfather was, but that's not what the Lord

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is like, but that's who I saw Him as.

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So I upped and joined the army, and I decided

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to just leave God at home.

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But we all know we don't tell God where to

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stay and when to come follow us, do you? So I joined the army, and I did seven years in

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the military.

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And I found myself in the first Gulf War.

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And I have about a couple of deployments under my belt.

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I have about three deployments under my belt.

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I began to just realize in Iraq, wow, I am

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really at war here.

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I did sign a paycheck that says up and

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including my life, and it really became real a couple of times.

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There was once where we were in these barracks in the Green Zone where we were told this was

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the safe area where you could wear your shorts, your uniform shorts, and you just had

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to walk around with your gas mask.

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And you didn't have to walk around with a

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loaded M 16.

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You could just leave everything back with your

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unit.

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Or if First Sergeant allowed you to leave your

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weapon back there, you could leave it.

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We went to the Green Zone, where you could

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have your store, where you could have your shower.

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You have your free phone calls to back home, to wherever you were calling.

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And it was a time limit.

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We all got, like, the four hour time limit for

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everybody to do everything and relax and come back.

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We had our day where we did all of that.

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We jumped on the vehicle.

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We end up going back.

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But on our way back to the units, there was a

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huge explosion behind us from where we came from.

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And when we finally got back to our units, we were trying to get somebody to explain to us

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what in the world just happened, because everybody is in a frantic.

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Everybody's hustling around everybody.

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You hear phone calls in the talk room.

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Everybody's just going crazy.

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Finally, somebody says, the barracks that you

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were just at was just hit by a scud and it took the entire building down.

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Nobody survived.

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It was in the Air force barracks.

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And we were like, you're kidding me? They're like, no, that was the explosion.

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That was what happened.

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We don't know how it got that far back.

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Now you'd have thought I'd have sat there and go, okay, God, you're real.

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You could stay with me, right? Thank you for protecting me.

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No, that didn't even cross my mind.

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I totally was just like, wow, I made it back.

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I'm alive.

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Here is the unwritten code of every soldier in

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the military.

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Even those eleven bravos.

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You never call home, and you never tell him what you're actually going through.

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You just say everything's fine? I'm fine.

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Send smoke, send jerky, send socks, send deodorant.

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That's all you call home for, not Miss Monica.

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I didn't know about this code until after my

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first deployment.

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Because you're coming in as a Greenie, right?

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You don't know anything.

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So there I am, getting on the phone and I'm

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going, guess what, mom? I just survived this gun missile attack.

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And I began telling my mom, and you're calling home.

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When you call home, you have to call to at and T. We built phone booths out there, actual

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phone booths.

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If you can remember phone booths, then we are

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the same age, right? So we had built phone booths out there, and

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you would call the operator, and you would give them the phone number that you wanted to

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reach, they would connect the call to you and say, You've got 15 minutes free.

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And the time starts from the moment that operator picks up the phone.

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It's not the time that they connect the call.

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It's the moment that they pick up the phone.

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So I get a hold of my mom, and I began telling her what happens.

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And you would think she would say, oh, my gosh, Monica, I'm so glad you're alive.

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Thank you, Lord.

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I'm so glad.

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I love you.

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Thank you.

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Is there anything you need? I didn't get that.

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She was, like, freaking out, crying on the phone, which I understand as a mom.

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But then my stepdad takes the phone, and he's like, what did you tell your mother?

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I was like, dad, you got to hear this.

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So I began telling him, and he's like, don't

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ever call here with that type of news.

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Click.

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And I was like, Are you serious? I'm actually trying to swallow what just

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happened right now.

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I could not be here.

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I could be dead.

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I could have been in that barracks, and you

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would get a totally different phone call or somebody knocking on your door to tell you

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that your daughter's dead.

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I'm sorry.

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And they just say, don't call here with those stories.

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Well, I decided that I was not going to tell anybody at home what I went through throughout

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my career in the military since that day forward, and I never did.

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And I had more deployments under my belt and dealt with all of those, made it back alive.

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But it's so weird is that even though I told God he couldn't come with me while I went to

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go play soldier, I always knew that he was there.

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For some reason, I knew he was there.

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And it was because of my mother's prayers that

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I knew God was still looking out for me.

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Well, there was another incident that happened

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to me right before I got out.

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We had been on some deployments, and I came

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home pretty exhausted.

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We had done training in California, what is

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infamously known as the National Training Center in Death Valley, California.

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And everybody goes there for 30 days, 45 days, and we all do desert training.

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And so I had did desert training out there two times in a row.

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And when I came back, I had also did a stint in Cuba for 90 days.

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And so when I came back, I was completely exhausted.

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I had no time to relax.

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It was just next thing, next thing, next

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thing.

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And mind you, at the time, because I spoke

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fluent Spanish, well, actually, I was the only one that went to Cuba from my unit because I

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spoke Spanish, I was fluent.

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I hung around a lot of Spanish speaking

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friends and just picked it up.

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So after all of that, after the California

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training.

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After Cuba, I decided I was going to take some

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time and just rest.

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Well, a friend of mine decided to come by and

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say, hey, let's go have dinner.

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I want to go see an ex girlfriend, she's

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pregnant with my kid and I'm going to go buy you dinner.

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And I'm just like, oh my gosh, seriously, I literally have to be at work at 04:00 in the

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morning.

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Oh, I'll have you back in plenty of time.

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Well, we didn't ever got back in plenty of time.

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We ended up going to different places.

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I was the driver.

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I took them here, there and everywhere.

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I was basically the taxi service but I was so

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tired that when we finally got on the road to come back, my body completely shut down.

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I fell asleep at the wheel and we landed upside down in a ditch.

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I know right? And it was horrendous.

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All I remember you guys as I was coming in and out of consciousness, I began to hear, like,

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metal being ripped.

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And then I remember feeling cold.

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And I remember trying to holler for my friend.

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And I remember a pilot, a female pilot looking

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at me.

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And the next thing you know, I'm, like, laying

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in a hospital bed, like, wrapped from head to toe.

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Literally.

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I mean, just everywhere.

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And I was thinking that like I was dreaming.

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I'm supposed to be in Colorado.

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And then I had both my parents standing there looking at me and my grandmother looking at me

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and I didn't understand it.

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We'll come to find out as the injuries were

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reported to me, I had broken a lot of different things throughout my body that

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you're just like, I'm not going to even go through it all.

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I ended up getting back on my feet when they told me I wasn't supposed to walk for six

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months.

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Six months is great compared to those that are

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being told that they're never going to walk again.

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But I was so full of anger at what had happened that I just refused any kind of

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service, any kind of help, any kind of recuperation because I knew that my military

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service was over.

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I knew that I couldn't pass any attest.

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I knew that I was done for and I couldn't take it.

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Well, eventually they helped me get back up.

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I walk, I talk and I know that even if you

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hear a little bit of a slur in me, like it sounds like I have a lisp it's because I broke

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my jaw in two different places.

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And my best friend, well, he was doa when the

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rescue team said got there.

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So I recovered and it was time to get out of

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the military and I'm working on getting out.

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I'm working on getting all kinds of benefits.

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They're like, don't worry about it, you will never have to work.

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You'll be 100% disabled.

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The VA will take care of you.

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And I was like, okay, I guess I have to get out.

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Well next thing you know here comes a lawyer and they're actually serving me papers that I

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need to come down and see them.

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And I'm like, Why?

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So I go down and go see them.

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This is my first time now I go down and see

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them.

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And apparently my best friend, his parents had

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decided to tell the military that they needed to do something about me and not let me off

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scot free.

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That I was responsible for my best friend's

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death.

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Next thing you know, my entire life just

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stopped.

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We had to go to court.

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I was charged with murder and I had nobody.

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I had hired a civilian attorney, I had a

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military attorney.

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And I called my mom and I was like, can you

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come over here to Colorado and help me? And she's like, no I can't.

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I was like, what do you mean you can't? My life here, they're getting ready to charge

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me with murder and you can't come over here.

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God told her to get out of his way and I'm

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like, here we go with the God thing again.

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And I was just like, are you kidding?

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I'm all alone.

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But did I bother to look up and say find God,

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I'm going to ask you for help? No I didn't.

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I was still angry.

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I refused.

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Well I go to court, they find me guilty.

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They dropped the charge of murder to

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involuntary manslaughter on my best friend.

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And it was a complete accident.

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My body shut down.

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I couldn't do anymore.

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I had been to two rotations of training.

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I had been to Cuba and my body shut down.

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And it was just as simple as that, my body shut down.

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I ended up getting sentenced to three years in a military prison in Colorado.

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Can you believe it? I know, but what was the purpose?

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Why did God have me there? That's where I started seeing different little

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things.

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But it wasn't enough to change me.

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I was still running from the Lord.

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I couldn't turn my heart over to him 100%.

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And so here's what I want to do.

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I want to take just a quick break and tell you

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about my newsletter.

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I actually have a newsletter going on and it

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comes out every Saturday.

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And this newsletter I've actually named it the

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Warrior newsletter.

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Pretty cool name don't you think?

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It's positive stories and updates in your email.

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When the world has gone mad I can shed a little bit of light and give you some

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uplifting stories, some crazy creature features, some bible quiz things.

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And so if you go to my link tree and I'll put it in my description here, but you can

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subscribe over on my link tree, you'll find my newsletter there.

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And linktree is L-I-N-K-T-R-E-E thebizybeliever and there you can find my

Monica: 00:20:17

newsletter and subscribe, and it will automatically send the information to me and I

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will be the only one that has it.

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And I will send you my newsletter every

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Saturday morning with a cup of coffee, and you can sit there and read some good news in the

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midst of a chaotic world.

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And so I'll be sure to put that link in the

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description, and you can have that in there.

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And so let's get back to my personal

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testimony.

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The recovery time was pretty much spent in

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prison, as you can imagine.

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I did a lot of physical therapy in there.

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And I remember different times that the Lord started revealing himself to me, even in

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prison.

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But I refuse still to go, no, this is what

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you've done to me.

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See, I almost died in Iraq.

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See, I had this car accident.

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I was supposed to be in a wheelchair for six

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months.

Monica: 00:21:20

You took my best friend.

Monica: 00:21:22

Now I'm in prison, and you want me to surrender to you?

Monica: 00:21:26

And I refused.

Monica: 00:21:27

And then here I am, sitting there in prison

Monica: 00:21:31

and waiting.

Monica: 00:21:31

What was I going to do next?

Monica: 00:21:33

All I could do is just give up and just say, fine, if I'm in here for three years, I've got

Monica: 00:21:39

a roof over my head and three hots in a cock.

Monica: 00:21:41

But then my civilian attorney comes over and

Monica: 00:21:44

he's like, hey, we have a new general of the base.

Monica: 00:21:49

Let's submit your story.

Monica: 00:21:50

Let's let him know what happened and see what

Monica: 00:21:53

he says.

Monica: 00:21:53

So I was like, okay, whatever.

Monica: 00:21:55

Let's do it.

Monica: 00:21:56

We submit all the evidence.

Monica: 00:21:59

We'd submit everything to him.

Monica: 00:22:00

They come back, they drop everything.

Monica: 00:22:03

They dropped all charges.

Monica: 00:22:04

They said, Get her out.

Monica: 00:22:06

And they said, don't ever come to the base again in Colorado.

Monica: 00:22:10

You got to leave the military.

Monica: 00:22:11

And I have a brand new clean record.

Monica: 00:22:15

There's nothing there.

Monica: 00:22:16

All charges were dropped.

Monica: 00:22:17

There is no criminal record at all.

Monica: 00:22:20

And I walked away, done, scot free.

Monica: 00:22:23

A free person.

Monica: 00:22:24

Now, you would think that I would be, thank

Monica: 00:22:26

you, Jesus, and give him my life, right? No, I didn't.

Monica: 00:22:32

I didn't look at it that way.

Monica: 00:22:34

I still ran from the Lord from that time on.

Monica: 00:22:38

At 24 to 26 years old, I ran.

Monica: 00:22:43

And we're going to fast forward all the way

Monica: 00:22:45

through November 2020 at about 50 years old.

Monica: 00:22:54

I remember I was sitting in Texas, and I

Monica: 00:22:57

started watching this TV program, and I remember seeing this guy jamming out on a

Monica: 00:23:04

piano.

Monica: 00:23:05

He had, like, an accent, like an African

Monica: 00:23:08

accent, and he had the greatest and he would jam out on a piano, jam out on keyboard, and

Monica: 00:23:15

he ran a team of worshippers.

Monica: 00:23:17

I was like, wow, this guy is just amazing,

Monica: 00:23:21

right? And I began to just watch him.

Monica: 00:23:25

203:00 in the morning, I would stay up and just watch and go, what is this?

Monica: 00:23:31

And time and time again, I found myself just watching him throughout the week.

Monica: 00:23:35

And next thing you know, I was just like, Here is Jesus.

Monica: 00:23:40

I have never been given Jesus like this in my life.

Monica: 00:23:45

He shows a friendship with Jesus, but he shows a fear and awe of Jesus.

Monica: 00:23:52

And he says, this same Jesus you can have.

Monica: 00:23:57

And I wanted it, and I was just so impressed

Monica: 00:24:02

with it.

Monica: 00:24:03

It was drawn to it.

Monica: 00:24:06

And I had a friend one time on Facebook a couple of years back, he told me, he said,

Monica: 00:24:11

Monica, he says, witnessing to somebody is exactly like this.

Monica: 00:24:18

He says, you have two people running a race in the desert.

Monica: 00:24:22

I'm like, Here we go with the desert again.

Monica: 00:24:24

I know the desert, right?

Monica: 00:24:26

And he says, you have two people running a race in the desert.

Monica: 00:24:29

And he goes, One of those people ends up finishing the race, and the prize that they

Monica: 00:24:36

get is this bottle of water.

Monica: 00:24:38

And that bottle of water, they're just

Monica: 00:24:40

drinking it.

Monica: 00:24:40

And finally they go running back to the person

Monica: 00:24:43

trying to finish the race.

Monica: 00:24:47

He says, man, and you're drinking that water

Monica: 00:24:49

down, and you're telling them, oh, man, this water wait till you finish the race.

Monica: 00:24:53

This water is so good.

Monica: 00:24:55

And you're drinking that's my version of

Monica: 00:24:59

drinking.

Monica: 00:25:00

And he says, you're drinking this water down,

Monica: 00:25:02

you're just like, oh, man, just wait till you get in.

Monica: 00:25:04

It'll quench your thirst.

Monica: 00:25:06

It'll be so good.

Monica: 00:25:08

It's cold water or it's room temperature water, whatever you like, wait till you get to

Monica: 00:25:14

the end.

Monica: 00:25:14

You're going to get this water.

Monica: 00:25:16

You'll feel so much better.

Monica: 00:25:17

You'll feel energized.

Monica: 00:25:19

It'll rehydrate your body.

Monica: 00:25:21

And he goes, instead of telling them about the

Monica: 00:25:26

water, he said, Monica, you just give them and he goes, that's what Jesus is like.

Monica: 00:25:33

Just give them the water.

Monica: 00:25:36

And it really stuck with me.

Monica: 00:25:38

And because this guy that I was watching on TV did the exact same thing for me.

Monica: 00:25:44

He gave me the water.

Monica: 00:25:46

He gave me Jesus.

Monica: 00:25:48

And he showed complete reverence to the Lord, fear of the Lord and awe of the Lord, but a

Monica: 00:25:56

friendship with the Lord.

Monica: 00:25:58

And I was like, that is all one package deal.

Monica: 00:26:01

I want it.

Monica: 00:26:02

And then this preacher started singing a song

Monica: 00:26:08

called Mercy Seat.

Monica: 00:26:11

And you may know him by just saying his song,

Monica: 00:26:14

but one of his choruses to the song has said, if I forget your mercy seat, let my hands

Monica: 00:26:23

forget their skill.

Monica: 00:26:24

Let my tongue grow silent, cold and still.

Monica: 00:26:28

Let my heart forget to beat if I forget your mercy seat.

Monica: 00:26:35

And the way he sang the song, and it's actually his version of Amazing Grace, and he

Monica: 00:26:42

sang that song, and I was like, this is totally me.

Monica: 00:26:46

And I melted.

Monica: 00:26:47

She had been tired of looking over my shoulder

Monica: 00:26:50

so long to go, Did I miss the rapture? And I would quickly dial my mom and say, okay,

Monica: 00:26:57

if she answers the phone, then I know I didn't miss the rapture.

Monica: 00:27:01

And so when she'd answer the phone be like, okay, I'm good.

Monica: 00:27:05

And then I would start going to church again.

Monica: 00:27:08

I was like, I'm going to do this.

Monica: 00:27:09

I'm going to commit this time.

Monica: 00:27:12

Or I would take my kids to church going, I

Monica: 00:27:15

just got to take them to church so that they'll be good kids when they get older or to

Monica: 00:27:19

keep my mother off my back.

Monica: 00:27:21

But she was never about my relationship with

Monica: 00:27:25

the Lord that I did any of it.

Monica: 00:27:26

I didn't have the water.

Monica: 00:27:28

I wasn't given the water throughout my entire life.

Monica: 00:27:31

When that song played, it gripped my heart.

Monica: 00:27:35

And I knew, I knew that.

Monica: 00:27:37

I knew I was tired of running.

Monica: 00:27:40

Jesus had me at that point at 02:00 in the

Monica: 00:27:43

morning on my knees in my office going, I am tired of running.

Monica: 00:27:52

I just want to come home now.

Monica: 00:27:55

I want to give my heart to you and I can't do

Monica: 00:27:59

this anymore without your help.

Monica: 00:28:01

And so I gave it all to him.

Monica: 00:28:04

And you know what? He gave me the water.

Monica: 00:28:07

I don't thirst anymore.

Monica: 00:28:10

I have freedom in my heart.

Monica: 00:28:12

And it's the same freedom that you if you're listening to this and you don't have Jesus in

Monica: 00:28:17

your heart.

Monica: 00:28:18

Take the water.

Monica: 00:28:19

I'm giving you the water.

Monica: 00:28:21

All you got to do is take it and he'll change

Monica: 00:28:25

your life forever.

Monica: 00:28:27

You'll never be the same again.

Monica: 00:28:29

He'll wipe away the old man.

Monica: 00:28:32

My old man was the drinking and the partying

Monica: 00:28:35

and just living my own lives, having my own idols, doing whatever I wanted to do instead

Monica: 00:28:43

of living a life for the Lord and honoring him and being a queen.

Monica: 00:28:48

Or a princess in his kingdom and to be able to one day go to heaven and see him face to face

Monica: 00:28:55

because he washed all of that old nature away.

Monica: 00:28:58

And behold, I have become a new creation in

Monica: 00:29:01

him.

Monica: 00:29:03

And now everything in my past is gone, erased.

Monica: 00:29:08

All my sins are forgiven.

Monica: 00:29:10

And it's the same thing, listener, that you

Monica: 00:29:13

can have out there too, if you just reach out and take the water and ask him to come into

Monica: 00:29:19

your heart and to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness and

Monica: 00:29:25

confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior and he will save you.

Monica: 00:29:29

What happened after that time? Oh, man.

Monica: 00:29:34

Man, can I tell you some stories? But you know what?

Monica: 00:29:39

That's for another episode today.

Monica: 00:29:42

I am right here with you.

Monica: 00:29:44

I am giving you my testimony and I hope that it blesses you more than it has blessed me in

Monica: 00:29:51

sharing it with you.

Monica: 00:29:52

And I will come back and I will give you part

Monica: 00:29:57

two of my personal testimony of what is your host doing since the Lord has saved you.

Monica: 00:30:04

And with that, have a blessed day, everybody.

Monica: 00:30:09

Well, hey, thank you so much for listening to

Monica: 00:30:12

this episode of the podcast, The Busy Believer.

Monica: 00:30:15

And if you like the episode or think it will be useful for someone else.

Monica: 00:30:20

Hey please give us a review over@podchaser.com forward slash busybeliever.

Monica: 00:30:28

And if you have any questions you can jump on over to Truthsocial and follow me at the

Monica: 00:30:34

busybeliever.

Monica: 00:30:35

And remember, fear not, for I have redeemed

Monica: 00:30:39

you.

Monica: 00:30:39

I have called you by name.

Monica: 00:30:41

You are mine.

Monica: 00:30:43

Isaiah 43 one.