Blog #Christian inspiration

Coach Lisa Pickart

Founder of the LifeBack System, Nutritionist, and Health Coach

These are Coach Lisa's favorite scriptures...

Coach Lisa Pickart shared her story on...

Truth, Talk & Testimonies

Coach Lisa's testimony is also on VictoryEmbraced: Truth, Talk & Testimonies podcast platforms

Lisa, you have been on an incredible health journey because you lost 118 pounds—I can’t even imagine each step you took. But I know God was with you. What was your turning point? Because I know, from your bio you shared, that you had a lot of inflammation, thyroid disease, and fibromyalgia. What happened? 

I want to hit two separate sides here—one side is health, and the other side is spiritual. And then, of course, you have a mind that connects your body with the spirit, right? And sometimes, that can be a battle. We’re brought up one way: we hear certain things and come from different spiritual backgrounds and denominations. We have all of this pre-imprinting going on between birth and 18. During that timeframe, we also can have a lot of baggage, which I embrace—my baggage—and I’m thankful for it because I think it’s crucial to acknowledge God through it. For instance, I have molestation on my belt, failing and accelerating grades, being a tomboy and outgoing, then teachers and people in our lives who speak negative things to us. I even had a fifth-grade teacher tell me, “The way you smile and laugh all the time, you’re never going to amount to anything but a high school cheerleader.” So these voices go on; that’s just the external, but we have what was going on internally. Parents try their best. There are a lot of dysfunctional homes, and even functional homes can be dysfunctional.

So, I did a lot of yo-yo dieting and had a mom who also did the same. My mom was from the era of Joan Crawford and Elizabeth Taylor and raised me with an extravagant approach to fashion, hair, and makeup. I was the youngest of three girls. And so, having two older brothers, I became pretty athletic, definitely more of a tomboy. There were a lot of words from my father, whom I adore, who will now be 93 next month and is my strength internally. I wouldn’t have had my current strength without my father raising me, but his approach could have been better.

Jumping into my 30s and 40s, signs of menopause started. At 36, I was told that I should have a hysterectomy because cancer cells were present with a Pap smear. Having a hysterectomy didn’t seem right to me. Why would we lose our uteruses and ovaries? Thankfully, I didn’t listen to the doctor’s recommendation because, at 46, I had a child—I did lose six children before her in miscarriages. Still, I didn’t know at 46, when I gave birth, that 12 years later, we would be faced with losing her father. The next day after Eliya was born, I got sick every day for months. I thought I had food poisoning because everything I ate made me ill. It escalated to where I was afraid to eat anything. Well, now we know that it was liver disease and gallbladder disease, which were feeding hyperthyroidism. I ended up with thyroid eye disease, in which my eyes popped out of my head.

The underlying cause was a lot of stress, having a child later in life, being on the road, traveling worldwide, and blowing up buildings for our business. The stress kept building inside me, but God always told me it was okay and that He would go before me. We had a child on the road and were living in a vehicle 12-14 hours a day—driving 4,000 miles in four days is pretty intense, and then stopping to breastfeed—it was a lot. I felt like I was Wonder Woman, but I was getting sicker, and the inflammation was getting worse, to the point where my blood circulation was horrible. I started getting blood clots and neuropathy in my feet, and my health was snowballing. The bigger picture wasn’t about me but God's plan. When Eliya was shy of 12, she woke up one day and told me she didn’t want to travel anymore. I responded to her by saying, “Well, you know what? You were born into this life, and God has given it to you.” She is the youngest of the first six, and the others already left the house. Also, we did ministry on the road—we spoke at churches, went to many places, and wore three crosses on our construction hard hats, sharing God’s Word with everyone. Eliya begged me and shared her heart that she wanted to be a normal child and be home on the ranch with her horses. 

So I went to my husband, Eric, before he passed away; he wasn’t even sick that we knew of. And I told him, “This is going to be difficult, but you’ll need to take the guys on the road. Then, I will fly in for the day of the blast and do the implosions. He was surprised, but I explained her importance: she’s deeply knowledgeable in Scripture, loves the Lord, has been baptized, and has baptized other children. I said, “She wants to be home for a reason.” I ended up taking on three grandchildren in full custody and raising them. Eliya and one of them are the same age, so we call them Irish twins because they were born six weeks apart, and then there’s one 18 months older and one 18 months younger. So, I was raising four, and we were on the road, just living life. There were a lot of undercurrents, like a riptide in the ocean, but the boat was still floating on top. Amid everything, I was still yo-yo dieting and would gorge and get sicker every day. When I started getting deeper into reading the Bible, the Lord showed me that gluttony and worry are sins. At this time, I was 57 and nearing 58, and we needed to go to two overbooked jobs, so Eric went to Atlanta and called me. He was coughing badly, and I said, “You don’t sound good. You need to go to an urgent care.” Urgent care told him he had walking pneumonia. We have our family Christmas time in Idaho, and nobody knows that Eric is dying of cancer—even Eric. This persistent cough wasn’t going away, so he went to the emergency room with some prompting. I noticed that he was getting weaker.

When they diagnosed Eric, I wasn’t with him, as I was in Washington with the girls, and he was in Idaho when he called me after he collapsed in the driveway. I told him to call 911, so he called them, and then they called me to tell me they had a man in my driveway. I told them, “Yes, that’s my husband… please get him to the emergency room.” They life-flighted him to the hospital and took out four gallons of fluid from his lungs. And he called me and said, “Yeah, I’m sick, but it’s a blessing and proceeded to tell me that he has cancer. I dropped to the ground and was crying and didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. He then told me that if he had come in six months earlier, he probably could have fought it, but there wouldn’t be a fight because he was surrendering. Eric gets restored either way, and he believes that God will heal him on this planet or in heaven. I was bawling, and it was hard talking without getting emotional. It was a blessing for Eric because he loved the Lord so much, but the news was excruciating for me. I told the kids to start packing up so we could head back home to Idaho and told Eric that I needed to be with him, but Eric interjected and said, “No, no, no… You don’t need to be with me. Jesus is with me. I’ve already been through the garden… It’s going to be fine. Please take care of the girls, enjoy the weekend, and then when you come back, stop by the hospital.”

I was feeling overwhelmed, and everything in my life started getting a hundred times worse, including my weight. I asked Eric why he felt like having cancer was good news, and he replied, “Because it’s mesothelioma. We need to tell the family immediately because both of my grandparents died from mesothelioma, and the odds are that because I was by them, I got it off of their clothes.” Mesothelioma is a tiny spur that gets in your lungs. I said, “Are you sure it’s not from work?” He says, “No, I’m positive I got it from my grandparents because it takes 40 years to rear its ugly head." So I was like, okay, “I’m going to try to find the blessing in this.”

Upon our arrival at the hospital, he was in a jolly mood and felt great, in contrast to my frazzled and absolute basket-case state. I was the woman; when we weren't near each other, I almost thought I couldn’t breathe—our lives were so intertwined and meshed. I knew I needed to trust the Lord wherever He took this. I needed to be strong and believe we’re going to make it, so every day, I would say to God, “God, your will over mine, your will over mine, your will over mine, whatever that looks like, Lord, but I’m going to ask you that you hold me and direct me because you know what it will take for me to process this because I’m a person who is a long thinker, I don’t make rash decisions, and I like to plan.” The oldest was 14, then there were double 12s and a 10, and they asked, “Mom, why do you feel like crying when Dad’s dying? And I said, Well, that’s an excellent question.” At that moment, God reminded me how we raise our children to trust the Lord. Suddenly, I doubted if I was fully trusting God, and I started to question my faith because I was asking myself, do I trust? One day, one of my daughters said, Mom, put your arms out. I’m going to jump to you," and at that moment, I knew the Lord was saying… “My arms are up… Jump.”  

On March 19th, the hospital said, “Go home and get your affairs in order. And my husband goes, “You don’t know my God; you don’t know what He has in store. Don’t tell me I’m dying,” but we all knew that the tumor had moved over on top of his aorta, and he could no longer breathe. His breath was getting shorter and shorter. And from that day, March 19th, to April 1st, it was the time that it took for his body to shut down and pass away. 

I was very ill during this time, but I had to put my health aside because caring for Eric and our children was the priority. It wasn’t about Mom; the children were quickly learning this new way of life. We had 200 acres to take care of, running the dozer and tractor, changing the oil, cutting wood, and taking care of the horses and cows, and the girls stepped in and took care of things. We all laugh about it because they learned so much in a short time that maybe they would have never learned had we not gone through this challenge.  

It was about three days before Eric passed that our youngest asked me while breaking down in tears, “I don’t understand why God is so mean.” I said, “He’s not, but one by one, He calls us home, and this is your goal to get yourself there one day too… It takes a lot of courage to have that faith, just like you do with me. You trust me every day, but I don’t want you to trust me—I want you to trust that God knows what’s best for our family.”

We turned our family room into an area for everybody to sleep, hang out, and spend those last hours together. We had a lot of visitors that week who came and prayed over him and said their goodbyes. Eric had been incoherent those previous days because of the morphine. The pain had gotten to where it was excruciating. You know that marriage isn’t always perfect—it doesn’t matter who you are because we’re all broken people. Eric looked at me and said, “I’m sorry for everything.” And I said, “Oh, we’re good. You are so forgiven. Don’t worry about it. It’s all good." And then, he told me, “I love you,” and his eyes never opened again or spoke another word. After he passed, I got the girls, and there was a lot of crying and hugs. 

The next night after Eric’s passing, we remained very quiet—we spoke few words but shared a few jokes and memories. When I woke up, four girls were in bed with me, which they never did before. I said good morning to them, and everyone said, “Are you ready? What are we going to do now?” In my head, I was wondering that I had no clue because I needed to shut my business down; I was facing losing the property and finding a new place to live, and suddenly, I replied in faith to the girls, “We’re going to live and love life and celebrate.” My favorite Scripture that came to mind about our day of death is more significant than our day of birth is Ecclesiastes 7:1. So I said, "You know what, we’re going to live, and we’re going to love life." I embraced all four of them and said, “All I can tell you is that when I had you guys and looked at you, that was the greatest moment of my life. Dad is in heaven in the arms of the Lord, and that is a time to rejoice. Now, it’s our books and chapters that we need to live for God.” To this day, they all serve God, and their goal is to get home to heaven, and we’ll all be reunited.

A couple of days went by, and I realized that I was getting sicker. And it scared me because I was the only surviving parent. It was a significant burden, and the stress was pretty high financially. Eight months went by without health insurance, and finally, I got some coverage through the state for myself and the girls for dental and essential health. I made a doctor’s appointment for myself and was informed that my liver wasn’t good, my thyroid had Graves disease, and my body was acting like an 88-year-old woman and getting closer to shutting down. Then, the sheriff notified me that they would be taking the property, and we didn’t have a place to live. In between everything, I had people stopping by to ask if they could start helping us pack or move the animals. The children became agitated, saying, “Do not touch my dad’s clothes. We’re not leaving this property. God’s going to save our house.” A lot of hope was going on amid everything else. I told the girls, “Maybe God has a bigger plan, and because we’re stuck in our chapter, we can’t even see the great gifts coming to us.” I noticed that as soon as I started seeing the picture in a different light, they, too, increased in hope and faith for our future. It was also at this time that I could hardly walk. 

The children were grocery shopping for me, which was usually my responsibility. I gave them the money and told them what to get on the cell phone, so we were a wreck. However, their willingness to take on this responsibility showed their maturity and understanding of our situation, which was a source of pride and inspiration for me. We had a feast on Thanksgiving Day, and on December 4th, we needed to surrender our home. Out of nowhere, this lady I don’t know told me they had some cabins—they didn’t have running water or a toilet. Still, if we wanted to put our horses on the back property and bring the girls, she would give them to me. Four minutes before the bank took the property, someone purchased it, which helped me pay off my debt to Medicare. One business debt was handled, and I was given a check for $25,000. So we had a little breathing room and had two weeks off the property, but we were packed up in four days. God closed the door; we were blessed to live there but needed to leave.

On Christmas Eve, we celebrated Christ, and New Year’s came; on January 7th, I received a call that my mother had only hours to live, and she passed on January 9th. It was overwhelming because I had one support system gone, and now another was, too. My thyroid had a considerable flare-up, and my eyes were now wholly extended from my head. It was a lot to deal with at one time with all the underlying pressure, but I heard God speak and say to me, “Are you trusting me?” All things are possible with God, according to Philippians 4:13. I needed to focus on the Lord and forget all things going on in my world—the stress, people, and anyone judging me—and it didn’t matter. 

When my mom passed away, she left me $40,000, and another friend carried a mortgage on a house, so we lived there to help. It was a double-wide house, and it was me and the girls. The move-in day was April 1st, the first anniversary of Eric’s passing. I felt like the Book of Job, losing everything and then everything being restored. When we were moving into that house on Facebook, our reunion group from high school was praying for Eric and me, the girls, and the family. My high school sweetheart, who went to the Air Force, asked if that was Lisa because he didn’t recognize the married last name. A good friend of ours said yes and told him that her husband was sick and passed. Kenneth gave me a call but hit the camera by accident. He had never used the camera for a video call before, but he was shocked and said, “Oh, my gosh, there you are!” And on my side of the phone, before I answered, I said, “Oh my gosh, this guy I know is calling on video chat—I can’t talk; I’m broken, and my life is a wreck.” I got the courage to answer, and he asked if I was OK. I told him, “No, I’m so broken and don’t know how the future looks, and I can’t even comprehend anything that’s happened over the last three years.” He told me he would come to see me and would like to help us in any way possible. Here, we lived in a 1,100-square-foot double-wide, and we used to have a 5,000-square-foot home. COVID was going around, and we just got over COVID ourselves. I knew, though, to take one step at a time—put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walking out the door.  

Kenneth and I started a relationship about a year later, and then we made plans to get married. He said, “If you’re not busy in four years, will you marry me? I’ve waited 45 years to marry you. Would you please marry me?” And I was like, “No, I’m a broken mess; I’ve got kids and all this other stuff.” Well, we finally decided to get married on July 3rd of 2021, and on July 1st, he had three grand mal seizures and was in the hospital. I dropped to my knees for the second time and said to God, “Lord, I can’t do this again. There’s just no way. I don’t understand. We’re going to be a family. We’re moving.” Clearly, in a vision, God showed me a drawn line in the sand, speaking to my heart, saying, “Lisa, everything on this side of the earth means the world to you, but on this side, it doesn’t mean anything to me—not the house, not the car, not the job, not the money. I need you. I need your thoughts, your faith, and your eyes. It will be OK if you trust me.”

While Kenneth was in the hospital, I told him that I didn’t think we should get married, and he responded, “If it’s the last thing I do before I take my last breath, we’re getting married.” So, the next day, we got married, and we watched him for three months for seizures.

Meanwhile, I made a phone call, and this phone call didn’t go to the person I called. The person who answered told me how he helps people heal their livers, and one of the root causes of seizures is liver dysfunction. One of the significant symptoms is if you had hepatitis C and now have liver cirrhosis, which was where Kenneth was. So we started changing our diets and a program immediately. That was in July, and by September, he needed to go in for blood work at the Mayo Clinic to see if he could be a candidate for a liver transplant. The answer was no because, after the age of 60, it gets less likely because the average age for a man to pass away is 74, so they would rather give that healthy liver to a healthy person than to an older one. 

With this news, we quickly removed all chemicals from our house and stopped consuming carbohydrates and sugar—everything was gone—it was a struggle because you don’t realize how addicted to sugar you are. As a nutritionist, I went back, and I looked at every single scientific study and documentation from the beginning of time, moving all the way forward and searching for when fatty liver disease became the death of humans versus liver cirrhosis by alcohol. Like, when did that happen? So here I was, looking all this up. Big Pharma has been in bed with the FDA and the Food Administration. All the chemicals and stuff we’re getting in our system are the culprits of what’s destroying our liver. 

So, now I’m on fire—I have a spark of light and am on a new adventure—and God is showing me so much, and it was Holy Spirit-led on how to heal the liver. So we pursued what we have been applying to our lives, and in January, we both went in for blood work, and for me, it was the first time in 5 years since I had blood work. I am on the back burner again because I went from caring for myself to caring for someone else. And my words of wisdom for anybody are that taking care of yourself is not selfish. It’s selfish not to because people need you. They ran the blood work, called us back a week later, and said, “There’s something wrong here.” And I said, “What do you mean?” And they said, “The blood work of the man we have from July is a man with one leg in the grave, and this blood work is like a 32-year-old man’s blood work.” I then asked the doctor what my thyroid looked like, and he told me that I didn’t have a thyroid issue. I told him, “No, I do; check my records. I have hyperthyroidism, Graves disease, thyroid eye disease, and a list of 12 autoimmune diseases. And he said, “Well, you don’t have them now. And I was like, “What!” And he said, “You don’t have anything. You have somehow or another had bad blood work, or something happened, but this is all gone.” So Kenneth and I were on to something and continued to follow a carnivore diet because everything else was spiking insulin and causing liver issues and brain fog. Then, a friend of ours heard that Kenneth had liver cirrhosis. He asked how he was doing and told him, “You’re not going to believe this, but we are one month from celebrating one year of life after he was told 30 to 90 days to live—they didn’t even want to do treatment or to have any hope for him because he was under 10% functioning of his liver. So obviously, God has bigger plans, and it has been an absolute miracle moving forward to today, the LifeBack name came because we all want our lives back—everyone wants to go to heaven, but we don’t want to go today—we want to get to the Lord and go to heaven, but if you’re called home today, are you ready to surrender everything and go? 

When you are going through tough times, it seems you are stuck somewhere in the hallway, be steadfast about His business. Be faithful and immovable. 1 Corinthians 15:58. Even though he may not have opened the door or a window, and you don’t know where you’re going, you still need to be busy with His work. What does it mean to be about His business or work? Being a good disciple, having a sound mind, and following His lead. This is surrendering—literally every day, it was all about sweet surrender and trusting Him in the storm. He gives me an understanding that surpasses our own because He knows what’s best. We think that we know it all—that we’re brilliant—that we’ve got an education and degrees and experience and all this stuff, but He told me, “You’re just my child; you’re my child, and I’m your Father, and you need to listen to me.” 

Through all this, and coming to today, the LifeBack System was birthed by a high school guy who introduced me to another guy, who became my business partner. He said, “Your story is incredible, and the information on the liver is so powerful to help people get their life back.” This is where the name was born because when God takes us through the journey or the wilderness, it’s not to have us have pain and sorrow—it’s having us draw closer to Him, so when the time comes, we are ready to go home. God is so faithful. God gave me His peace, not my own, and He was so profound in helping me understand that I’m just dust to dust; it’s just a blink or moment in time, and the future of me is in His hands, and how I was going to show my children to have the strength and courage and have blind faith and put everything in His hands.

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Estelle

Regulatory Oversight Specialist

These are Estelle's favorite scriptures that ministered to her during her healing process from trauma.

Estelle shared her story on Truth, Talk & Testimonies

Estelle's testimony is also on VictoryEmbraced: Truth, Talk & Testimonies podcast platforms

Did you grow up in a Christian home?

I grew up with relatives who were Christian. My mom was a Christian, but my father was not, and they got divorced when I was a baby. My mom introduced me to the Lord, and my grandmother and aunts knew the Lord. I was told that I was around 5 years old when I became saved and accepted Jesus in my life to save me from my sins. My mom asked me if I accepted Jesus, and I said, “Yeah, mom, and I felt Him. So that's what I'm told. For most of my childhood, I loved the Lord and spent much time in church. 

You shared with me that you went through trauma and abuse—can you share some of that? 

Yeah, my stepfather abused me. My mom remarried when I was about 4 years old, and my stepfather was an alcoholic. When I was 11, for a prolonged period, he was abusive to me. He would molest me—it wasn’t as bad physically as what I hear a lot of people experience in a situation like that, but I think for me, it was the psychological trauma of it, the way I was groomed and tricked and manipulated—it was very devastating and traumatizing because I also wanted to have a close relationship and father figure, but he took advantage of that. I have a good relationship with my biological father, but I didn’t see him very much. So, my stepdad took advantage of an 11-year-old girl who wanted to have a wholesome father figure in her life. It was just very traumatizing, and it happened over a prolonged period. I was a zombie as a kid because I couldn’t process what was happening to me. 

You told me you received help in the church. 

Yes. In my junior year of high school, I didn’t have a safe place to stay because my mom was in the hospital, and I was alone with my stepdad. To my knowledge, no one was aware of my abuse. He stopped abusing me at that point, but it wasn’t safe for me to be there. One of my aunts, a Christian, came to check on me, and she discerned it wasn’t safe for me there. I believe that was the Holy Spirit. I thank God she checked on me, and for about a month, until my mom got out of the hospital, I stayed with my assistant pastor’s family. They treated me like I was part of their family. It was one of the best experiences of my life because I could see what a healthy marriage was and what a Christian household could look like—it was just a wonderful experience for me. It gave me a great impression of myself and something to think back on even when I grew up. It served as a helpful gauge for me to evaluate relationships. God used that experience. 

God used that experience there in that household. Did anyone know what was going on at home?

I don’t think anyone knew at that point that someone had molested me. The interesting thing is that going back to when I was 11, I think people knew something was going on with me because I remember meeting with the pastor of my church at one point. He asked me if my stepfather was touching me, which to me was an odd question—I don’t understand a lot of the circumstances that were happening in my life back then, but at that point, I think I couldn’t even admit it to myself, and I knew I was lying to him, but I told him no. Also, a man asking me was uncomfortable, even though my pastor was someone I respected and was a safe person. Still, when I was living with my assistant pastor’s family, I think they most likely knew I came from a troubled home. My stepfather was an alcoholic, and obviously, my aunt didn’t think it was safe for me to be there. I don’t think they knew the extent of what was happening. Eventually, my mom and I did go to a therapist and would talk about how his alcoholism affected me. That was when I had many memories resurface because, for a while, I was blocking everything out as a protection. It was too much for me to want to admit or face—I think I was around 17 or 18 when I went to that therapy session with my mom. I tried to talk about what happened to me, but I did it vaguely. I blacked out and don’t remember much from that session because it was traumatizing. 

Did you go to college then, and if you did, what for?

I did end up going to a Bible college. The pastor of my church, who loved the Lord and Scripture, inspired me. He was so serious about the Word of God, and it was fascinating when he would share about all these fulfilled prophecies in the Bible, and I would be on the edge of my seat. And he would get so emotional about what Jesus did for us—he was very analytical, scholarly, and innovative. Jesus’ death, and the grace and mercy He gave us forgiving all our sins caused him to weep at the pulpit. This made a great impression on me, and I wanted to learn more about the Bible. I felt so blessed by my church. I would go to youth group, and I went to church on Sundays and Wednesdays regularly. That might sound like a lot, but I loved being around other believers and receiving support. It was a place of stability, and I wanted to learn more about the Bible and pay forward how the church helped me.

When you started college, you took ministry courses but veered off. What caused you to get off track?

There were a couple of things—I mentioned that I viewed my pastor as analytical, and I’m very detail-oriented and analytical, so while studying theology, I began to notice things in the Bible that I thought were contradictions, but we know God never contradicts Himself or the Word. I knew Jesus wants to save everyone, but yet narrow is the way—and there is a hell. I had doubts and questions. I think I was missing discipleship—looking back, some things were missing in my walk with Christ, but the idea of hell was so triggering to me and my trauma because I grew up feeling in danger. Something I didn’t mention is that I did try to get help as a child and reach out to someone, but I don’t think I thoroughly explained what was happening to me, and the abuse continued. I tried, and I was just a kid, and it was a lot to process. 

I ended up standing up to my abuser. One day, I snapped and started screaming at him—exceptionally intensely. I was a skinny pip-squeak of a kid, and I stood up to this grown man, and he actually apologized to me, and he never did it again, but it could have happened again as I got older because he was still drinking, and my aunt was noticing things that I was not safe. That dangerous environment compromised my safety. I always thought that I was in danger, and I couldn’t handle the idea of someone being in danger of going to hell. When I was in danger, I put a stop to it, and I think that the idea of people going to hell is just so triggering to me. And I thought, oh, people are in danger, and I felt responsible—I didn’t know how to save these people. And we know that we’re not the ones who save them—Jesus does—I didn’t trust God that He’s responsible for saving them. I couldn’t handle the idea of hell, and I had a lot of questions. I think I had a lot of pride, and I started to drift away from the Lord and think that I didn’t need Him very much. There were a lot of things going on, and eventually, I became a closet atheist while in Bible college. I remember reading the story of the prodigal son a bunch of times. I felt like I didn’t believe it. Should I admit to myself that I didn’t believe it? I thought that maybe God wanted honest disbelief over blind belief, and I ended up throwing my faith away. I didn’t share with many people what I was going through. Some of my close friends knew, and they were pretty devastated. I graduated from college and lived on my own with roommates—For at least 15 years, I lived as a nonbeliever.

Did you get involved in the New Age and things like that?

Yes, at first, I started as a secular humanist and didn’t believe in anything supernatural. I still wanted to be an ethical person and have morals. I studied philosophy and ethics, and it was so empty, and there’s no philosophical system that’s good or comparable to what the Bible teaches us. Nothing that I could find was satisfactory, and it felt very empty. There was a part of me that still craved spirituality. Also, I was hurting—for the most part, I had managed to keep things together even though I had this trauma that affected almost every area of my life, and I always knew something was wrong with me but managed to keep it under wraps.

In 2013, my half-brother, who had been in the military and had gone to Afghanistan and Iraq, went missing; we found him, and he had committed suicide. There were a lot of circumstances around that, and it was re-triggering to me, as well as things related to communication. Things with communication triggered me my whole life because I tried to reach out for help, but I didn’t communicate well, so communication was a big deal for me. I found out about my brother through someone I was friends with on Facebook, and they said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I saw a news report.” I searched on Google to see if there were any leads, and I saw from an online newspaper that my brother passed away. I called a family member, and she told me she knew nothing. It was so traumatic. I called the police, and they were cold towards me because I wanted to know who in my family knew. I then called my dad, which was the hardest thing ever. I decided that I needed to tell my dad that his son had passed away. We hoped that maybe he was just eccentric and went off-grid and did something crazy. But that whole thing with my brother re-triggered many things, and my life spiraled from there. I just needed something, so I was going to therapy and doing different treatments. I was also more open to spirituality, so I started listening to certain preachers who watered down the gospel. Hence, the teaching was more palatable to me. I was more open to that kind of spirituality, but I also dabbled in things like Reiki, got deep into yoga, and got my yoga teacher certification, which they taught as a spiritual practice. I also got into Native American shamanism.

You shared that you had PTSD, but you don’t have it anymore. How did the PTSD go away?

Praise Jesus, I don’t have PTSD anymore. I knew my brother had PTSD from the military, so I was curious about PTSD and did some research and had already been going to regular therapy. I talked to my therapist about it and was watching videos and hearing people describe flashbacks and I thought, “Holy smokes,” that’s what I experienced all the time. I didn’t know that’s what it was, so whenever there was a specific trigger, I would re-experience certain situations in my childhood, where someone miscommunicated with me. I would feel like I was in physical danger because of that miscommunication as a kid. I had this false belief that if I didn’t communicate well, I would be in danger. So, if I had a simple miscommunication with a friend, I would feel in physical danger. I would describe it as I felt I was in a burning building and needed to get out. I felt such an urgency, and living an everyday life like that became difficult because you communicate with people regularly. There were other triggers, too, and I saw a lot of specialists who claimed to be able to help with PTSD, so I did anything I could think of, and a lot of the things helped take the edge off of the symptom. I did cognitive-behavioral therapy; I went to an intensive program that you would go to almost every day, and they did a lot of group therapy work. I tried dialectical behavioral therapy and prolonged exposure therapy. EMDR, dance therapy, neurofeedback, mindfulness meditation, and all the new-age stuff—I tried anything because I was desperate. They gave me temporary relief, but they weren’t healing me. When I re-dedicated my life to Christ and became a believer again, I did cognitive processing therapy because it helps you identify your false beliefs and determine a more accurate belief. After all, their theory is that your emotions and triggers are based on a particular belief. So, if you pinpoint what your beliefs are, you can replace them with more accurate ones. I felt like I was spiraling and not getting better, and the main therapist I went to was trying to get me to accept that I had PTSD. It’s something I’ll need to live with for the rest of my life and manage the symptoms instead of looking for a cure, but I knew I couldn’t sustain it and was highly motivated to heal. I was also scared because therapy wasn’t working—I tried everything and worked so hard and was highly motivated to heal—I was going into depression and threw so much money at different therapies and treatments and couldn’t fix myself, so I gave up and out of desperation, I prayed and said, “God, I don’t even know if you’re real, and if you are real, I don’t even know if you would want me back, but I can’t do this anymore. I don’t have a solution—you’re my only hope. If you want me back, I’ll do things your way, and we’ll see if you can do something with this mess." I completely surrendered. 

I learned that it was my trauma that caused me to go down the rabbit trail of not believing. When I look back, seeds were planted along the way, and even when I wasn’t serving the Lord, there were so many situations, and I know the Lord was carrying me. After surrendering to Jesus, I bought a Bible, started praying, and attended church. I was still going to cognitive processing therapy. The reason why I was open to going was I asked my therapist if I could use scripture to learn and come to know more accurate beliefs—I was committed to doing things God’s way, and one by one, using scriptures, my false beliefs were replaced by accurate beliefs rooted in God’s Word. I stopped going to therapy and doing what the Bible says to take every thought captive, so when I felt like I was in physical danger, I would remember that the Lord is my protector. 

Earlier, I described how when I would have a flashback, I would feel like I was in a burning building, and I would think about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and how they were in a fiery furnace because that was their punishment. After all, there was a rule about worshipping the king, and they refused to worship anyone but their God. The king looked into the furnace and saw a fourth person there, so I would remind myself that the Lord was with me. Isaiah 43:2 was such a meaningful scripture for me. I knew I wasn’t in danger, but I would think about the Lord being with me and protecting me. Those flashbacks were the most horrific thing—I just felt tormented, and they were excruciatingly painful, and it would take me days to recover from them. And they were just physically challenging—my body was constantly in crisis mode, so it took a toll on my health, too, but I learned to praise God during my suffering. I learned that despite suffering, I could rejoice, and that God would use these circumstances to build character. I have the joy of the Lord and complete freedom in Him—what He has done for me; He can do for anyone!