Ep 028 || Nothing too Hard for God - A Mother's Day Special

Well, what's up, Pando family? We are so excited to be back with you today. I have a couple of new guests I'll be introducing you to here in just a minute, but if you came across this video for the very first time, we are so glad that you're here. If you're a recurring viewer or listener, we're glad that you're here as well, and welcome back. My name is Derek. I'm part of our online team here at Southeast Christian Church, and these wonderful ladies with me here today is Sharon and Carissa, and they're so excited to be able just to talk about Mother's Day and what that looks like, but even more important than that, God's faithfulness in the midst of life when things don't necessarily always go according to plan and how we deal with that, but we're so grateful that you're here with us, and we'd love to just hop in and give you guys opportunity to introduce yourselves and what you do here at Southeast, and then we'll kind of dive a little bit more into your all's journeys just as a person and following Christ and what God's doing in your life, and so, Carissa, you want to start? Tell us who you are and what you do here at Southeast. So my name's Carissa Schmidt. I am a ministry associate on our SE recovery team. Love that. So yes. And how long have you been on staff here at Southeast? I have only been on staff for about three months. Awesome. Yeah. Well, welcome. Thank you. We're glad that you're here. Glad to be on the podcast. Yes, me too.

That is awesome. And Sharon? I am Sharon Neville, and I am the administrative assistant for the chapel in the woods. I support Murphy Building, and before that, I was a contractor for Murphy Leading Widow Ministry. Okay. Yeah. And what was so funny is that I guess I had never realized that you were a contractor. I just figured she was just on staff, and so when I saw her on the New Hire stuff just a little bit ago, I was like, Sharon, what? But she... She got that reaction from everyone during orientation. It keeps happening. It keeps happening. We've been plugged into the life of our church for quite a while. And so, but we're glad to have you guys on here, glad to be able to talk and just be able to give you guys an opportunity to share your story of where you come from, what God's doing in your life, because I know there are so many people that are watching this that probably resonated a lot with the sermon this past weekend, whether they were male or female or mom or not, and that, golly, there's so many of us that maybe cancel ourselves because we think that, man, like my life doesn't look like I think it should look like, or I've made these mistakes, and I don't know if God can use me. And so we're kind of all in the same boat of knowing that like, hey, like, you know, we need God's grace and mercy in our life. But Carissa, for you, tell us a little bit about your story and kind of how you've kind of ended up to where you are today. Yeah, so I grew up in a broken home. My mother left whenever I was really young. She was in active addiction herself. And so I tell this in my story, but I remember being a young kid laying in bed at night,

just wondering where my mom was. You know, she would make promises that she was going to show up on Christmas and things like that, and she would never show up. So I remember having that anxiety as a small kid of where's my mom? I remember thinking, I hope she's not found dead in a ditch somewhere. And then, you know, growing up, I also told myself, you know, if I ever have kids, I would never do that to them. And so little did I know my story was going to end up looking a lot like hers. I started using alcohol and drugs very early in my teen years, and it progressed throughout. I became pregnant whenever I was 16. So very young mom, a lot of responsibilities pretty early on. And you know, my life kind of started to spiral. I got a little heavier into drugs and alcohol. And I had my son and my daughter. And then, you know, it was just like my mom's life all over again. That's what I had essentially done to my kids. And in 2011, I lost custody of my son and my daughter. CPS came and took them. And so from 2011 to probably 2015, I struggled on and off with, you know, trying to go to rehab, trying to get sober. caught some criminal charges and I had never reported to Probation and Parole, I was always on the run, they were always looking for me. So you know, I spent a lot of time incarcerated actually, and during those years I actually gave birth to two more kids. And those kids were born addicted to opiates and spent many weeks, both of them, detoxing in the NICU. And I still had custody of those two kids for the time being. And there would be times, I remember they were one and two. So this was about 2014. And I would be homeless in the streets of Louisville, Kentucky with the two babies,

and we had nowhere to go. I remember riding the TARC bus all day long because we just didn't have anywhere else to go. Gave you a place to be. Yeah, it gave us some shelter. We did have a vehicle at one point in time, and I remember sleeping in like Walmart parking lots and things like that. And like I said, they were still very, very young. But you know, this probably went on for about six months, sleeping in parks outside. I remember putting them in the slide, you know, just so they would have some shelter. And I think at the time, my family really didn't know where I was at. I distanced myself from everyone and, you know, I was scared. I just didn't know that I had resources at the time. And I was so afraid of losing these two babies. So my dad ended up talking me into letting a family friend take care of them while I went into treatment. And so I agreed to that, and I gave them to a family friend, and I did not go to treatment. And is this still all in Louisville? This was still all in Louisville, yeah. And so at the time, this was April 28th of 2015, was the last time that I seen my kids. Because of my decisions, I went on the run, I decided not to go to treatment. They were eventually put in foster care. And so like I was saying a while ago, I spent a lot of time incarcerated. Whenever the cops finally did find me, they had put me in jail for a long time. And I knew I was facing at least a year in jail. And so my attorney came to me one day and asked me if I would be willing to sign over my rights. And so I did, to the two younger ones, and they were adopted shortly after. So I didn't know at the time, I was so angry, and God was the only one I had to blame. And I did not have a relationship with God at the time.

But looking back on it now, I was incarcerated for a total of 14 months during that time. And ever since that I got out of jail in 2017, I've been sober ever since. So I really needed that time. I really needed that time. I really feel like that was God's kind of push, like sit still. And I'll still say today, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. Yeah, God used that. Yes. Was being in jail for that long. And it was hard. It was hard on my two older kids. My grandparents had custody of them. But looking back now, it's just like, I remember praying every single night for God to one day just reunify me with my two kids that were adopted. You know, it was a closed adoption, I was not allowed to know where they went. And so since I have been out, and I've been sober, it's just so crazy how God works. I still didn't have a relationship with Him. I didn't want anything to do with church, probably until I was about six years sober. And my husband, I remember my husband asking me, hey, come to church with me. And I just was not interested. And a couple years ago, one of my coworkers, she is a member here, and she just discipled me. And it was like God put her in my path just for that reason. And I remember my first time coming here, I asked God one question. I asked, can I be forgiven? And it was just so clear that His answer was yes. And, you know, all that shame and that guilt that I had carried around. for so many years, inactive addiction, and also being sober, I was able to hand that over to God, finally, you know? Because even though I was sober from drugs and alcohol for the six years, I was not free from the bondage of shame

and guilt. It's heavy. That, yes, that what I had put my kids through, I struggled with that so much. And so about a year ago, the adoptive mom actually reached out to me. Out of nowhere. She had been following me on Facebook this whole time that I've been sober. She knew everything about me. She reached out to me, and I'm telling you, like, this is why I know that God is real, and He orchestrated it, because I prayed that prayer for eight years, you know? And He waited until I had surrendered my life, you know, to Him and had that relationship with Him before He brought that into my story and into my life. And so now me and the adoptive mother, we speak often, she shares pictures of them, you know, and they're still fairly young, so you know, I know that if it's God's will, I will have a relationship with Him one day. But this is, like, the best, the next-to-best thing that could happen is just get to see their faces and know that they're doing okay, you know? And also I do want to say that my two older kids, I got custody back of them several years ago. That is awesome. So yeah, it's just, like, the things that God has been doing in my life the last couple years, it's just, it's been so amazing. What a testimony. What a testimony. That's awesome. Yeah, and I truly mean that, because it reminds me of what we've been talking about as a church the past couple weeks of, you know, I'm sure getting that, you know, that other mom reaching out and following you on Facebook of feeling like, God, like, you see me. Like, you saw me through that, but you see me. Yes. Like, and I think it's in those moments, like, when we've been praying those prayers for such a long time, and we don't know God's timing, right? Like, if we're reading a chapter of a book that we're like, man, this is a long chapter. Like, we, and well, if we're reading a physical book, we can kind of look ahead a few pages and be like, all right, there's like 11 pages left. I can get through it. But life doesn't work like that, you know? But it's in those moments where God answers that prayer that I, just in my own life, of like, man, that increases my faith and my love for Him, because it's like, He saw me. Yes. He saw me. I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that is awesome. And so, Sharon, what about you? Tell us

about your story. Tell us about all the things that leads to today. What brought me here now, huh? Mm-hmm. Well, let me just start with, I'm the adoptive mother of children whose mothers were incarcerated. Mm-hmm. Wow, isn't that crazy? That's why, yeah. And Chris didn't know that. I did not know that. Oh, really? That is, yeah. Yeah. I have four children, total of eight, over ten years that the Lord brought to our home. Four of those children were reunified with family, two of those with their mothers, and two with other family members, but four remained. But here's what, the beauty of that, what you finally got, my mother's had at the beginning, because for every single one of those children, I had a relationship with the mom. Mm-hmm, yeah. Because there was a program out at KCIW, out at the women's prison, called the bonding program, and right at the beginning of that was when we got the first phone call to, would you consider taking in a child? And we said yes. Then here's what we said. Lord, if this is you, open every door, and if this is not you, close every door. Close it. I had never been in a correctional facility, I didn't know anybody you had, at least to my knowledge, I didn't know anybody you had. And a thing that never happens is that you're allowed to go and do a personal visit with somebody within 24 hours. There are background checks. They needed to know I wasn't a crazy person that was coming in to visit. But the mother was two weeks from delivery, and the person who was supposed to take her child was not going to be able to do it. And so the call was, can you do it? And if so, can you do it fast? And everything, every door opened. This was on a Friday, and on Saturday I was allowed to come in and visit her. It was pretty extraordinary. And she didn't know me from anybody. We were not state foster children. We were not trained in any way. We were simply called. And because I was in my, I was, it was at our weekly prayer meeting where this phone call came in, all of the women that I pray with regularly and have now for 30 years were there, and they were all witness to this. And after this child was born, it changed everything for us. Frank and I had grown children. Sure. Well, our youngest, mine was 15 at the time, and his were significantly older. So he already saw

this... He was at the end of child rearing. Sure, yeah. It's a whole new journey. Here came a baby. And what we agreed to, we thought, was 10 months. She has 10 months to serve. And okay, 10 months. And people donated things. Oh, we had a bed, we had clothing, we had all the things. Because all the women that are in that prayer group were moms. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they took care of you. They wrapped around us. And three years later, she was being released. And... But over those three years, four other children came into our home. It was ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. She told someone else who was there, and then they told someone else who was there. And we just kept saying, yes, Lord, if this is you. But each time the story was different, obviously. But here was the thing that just really grabbed me, and I never let go of it. I shared motherhood with these mothers. Okay, yeah. When I would go for the bonding visit, I would take the child in and immediately hand him over. Yeah. The room where we got to have the visit was set up to look like a nursery. So there were murals on the walls, and there were cribs, and there were rocking chairs. And it was, for a two-hour visit, it was just the mom and her child and me, if she wanted me in the room. And I was very privileged that, for the most part, they would want me to be in the room, because they wanted to hear about their child. Sure. And what I came to know was how very difficult that was for her. As amazing as it was, that for two hours she didn't have to be an inmate. She had the privilege of being a mother. And then at the end of two hours, she had to hand her child back over. And the Lord gave my heart the capacity to not only love this child on her behalf, but to love her, and to be able to witness to her, to be able to share God's love with her, to have the grace for the way she parented versus the way I would have handled when he fussed. Yeah. But it was a relationship I got to have. It was an extraordinary gift, and it was... I never had difficulty seeing it as anything other than holy. I had not been a phenomenal parent, and I wasn't even as I was raising these kids. But I knew that it was a privilege, it was an extraordinary thing, and I'm significantly older than all of my mothers. So my role was more grandmother, and our children that came into our home, and I say our children

because the ones who moved on to be reunified, they're still in the count of our children. The four who remained and grew up under our roof... of our children, but I shared motherhood with every single one of their moms. As the four, I'm going through the list right now, as the four each came to a certain age, I had decided early on that when it became a reasonable time I would empower this child to be able to have the ability to reach out as they had the capacity to do so, to connect with mom again, because for them to remain in our home meant that mom had not succeeded when she was released. And I knew we had such hope, we had hope in each case. This one, this is the one, this one. And she did too, and life is hard. And all of our kids always knew we prayed for mommy. We prayed for mommy. We called her mommy. And until they became ours committed, I was still Nana. And when that switch would get flipped each time, it was almost a heartbreak, and yet it was real. They're my kids, they're totally my kids, and now they're 30, 29, 29, and 25. Wow, yeah. Yeah. But their moms are still talked about, but now they're talked about by their names. They're called their names. And yeah, and every single one of them

has connected with their biological mom. Every single one of them, yeah. It was important, it was critical. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. And so Chris, as you hear that story, kind of what goes through your heart and mind in the midst of hearing that? I just have such a love for the women who have sacrificed and have chosen to help take care of our kids when we cannot. The thing that I learned about the adoptive mom of my children is that she has always been honest with them, right? She's always let them know that they were adopted. She said that she is currently keeping a scrapbook of things, and that she has always kind of been open about who I am. And so it's just so beautiful to hear your story and to hear the other side of it, and how awesome that program is. In my jail, I didn't get anything like that. So it's just, it's beautiful, and thank you for sharing that, because we need women like that. And it's just like, it's definitely life-changing. One of the things, one of my moms had, at that time, her son had been with us for three years, and now he had outgrown the bonding program, and so we just had to come on regular visiting days. So my husband came, and she had known,

she had met Frank, but he was not part of the bonding visits. And we're there in regular visiting, and in regular visiting, there are vending machines, and the visitors have the privilege of going and purchasing things to be eaten at the table. And of course, when you take a little kid, that's all the little kid wants to do, is go to the vending machines. Yes, no question about it. And so I knew that was part of the deal. Frank stayed at the table with the mom, while I got up with the little guy, and let him pick out all the things we were gonna get to bring back to the table. Later, Frank had to leave the room, go use the restroom, or he even maybe took, I don't even know why, but he wasn't there. And she leaned across the table, and she said, I can't believe you did that. And I said, what do you mean? I visited you before, what are you talking about? That you would leave me here with your husband and he didn't make any moves. Oh, wow, okay, yeah. And I said, well, I would imagine he wouldn't. Yeah. Yeah, and she said, I've never met a man who wouldn't. That he's rare. And I said, oh, I am so sorry that that's your experience

because my experience is there are many men who would not. And that he would honor you and it wouldn't even dawn on him to dishonor you in that way or to dishonor me or even your son by doing anything like that. And it was, and this had been, we were about 10 years in at this point in raising these children. And I had never heard that perspective. And when I told him, he was shocked. So then I asked my other mothers and they said, yeah, yeah, we know, we know. Wow. That that's normal to have some, if she gets up, he tries to make a move at the table. Wow. And now to recognize that we had moved in very different worlds. And she asked if it was just because he was a Christian. And I said, well, I'm sure that has a great deal to do. My husband acts the way he does. I said, but he's also this good man. And, but we're doing what we're doing because he loves the Lord deeply. And he gave an opening for me then to talk about the nature of our relationship built on Christ and that there's nothing he could ask us to do that we wouldn't do. And that this was part of that.

But having a relationship with her was as much a part of all of this as having a relationship with her son. So that seed planted in her, that I'll never forget hearing that and thinking how heartbreaking it is that this is your perspective of men in general. Chris, what's your response to that? I can definitely, I can relate for sure. And I think it's just comes with the lifestyle. Unfortunately, there were many years where I was surrounded by not so nice men. And there were a lot of things that I did for money. Let's just say that, and so having healthy relationships, period, I didn't grow up having healthy relationships. My dad was there for me, but he was a truck driver and he was gone most of the time. I've never had a healthy man in my life. And I think a lot of that, looking back, a lot of the things that we go through as a child, the abandonment of our family, the things make us resort to drugs and alcohol to change, to numb our suffering or to numb the pain or things like that. So it all kind of contributes to how we were raised, the things that happened in our childhood, and then it carries on into adulthood where later on with drugs and alcohol, we lose the ability to control what happens. I really appreciate you sharing that

because I'm sure there's a lot of people that are watching this that relate to that. And one of the things that breaks my heart, number one, I wasn't even expecting that to be the other side of that story you shared. And so I imagine in the moment how out of left field that felt of like, oh, wow, okay, I've never even thought about that. And so it breaks my heart for a lot of reasons, but especially because I know either male, female, whoever we are, that the father figure or even just male figures that we've had in our life can unfortunately have a reflection on who we believe God is, right? And how we, who we believe, like, is he good or is he not? Is he gonna try to manipulate things in my life to hurt me? Does he love me? Well, what does love mean? And so, Christa, for you, like, what have you... you had to almost unlearn over the past several years and maybe relearn about who God is? So, for the longest time, God for me was punishing. He was very distant, and He was not, He certainly did not love me because of the decisions I had made. You know, I did grow up going to church, but I quickly, I mean, probably by the time I was a teenager, I stopped going. And so I didn't really form my own opinion of who He really was. I just based it on, well, you know, I'm doing all these things. I know I'm sinning. I'm, you know, I'm out in the streets doing all these, committing all these crimes. There's no way that God loves me. And I remember the very last night that I was, before I went to detox and turn myself in, I was in a old, dirty hotel room by myself after I had probably just, you know, sold my body for drugs or whatever. I was in the bathtub, and I remember feeling like I was dying. I was overdosing. And in that moment, I was such at peace with leaving this earth, you know? And I didn't know

it then, but God was with me in that hotel room. He was with me, and He had plans for me that I didn't know even existed at the time, you know? And so looking back on that, it was just like, you know, I had to completely relearn who the true God was. Yeah, totally. That He is loving, He is forgiving, that He will never forsake me. You know, He will... just everything that I never knew growing up, you know, of who He was. Yeah. For sure. You know, it's funny. I made a decision for the Lord at 32 when I found out He still wanted me, because I had also grown up in church, and then I had married, and I had had a child, and then I left that marriage. Mm-hmm. And I went nuts for about five years. And where I didn't become addicted, I have no idea how, because I refer to it as my five years of insanity. And I knew, I believed, because I knew the rules and regs of going to church, and what I thought were the rules and regs of being a Christian, and in my understanding, I had abandoned that. And so didn't really matter what I did at that point. I still did responsible things, I kept a job, I paid bills, kinda. I pretended I was doing all right, and I protected my parents from what I was doing, I thought. Meanwhile, they knew what I was doing, they just knew that I wasn't gonna listen to them. And I like to think that the Lord and anybody He had around Him was going, you're really gonna have to get ahold of her, because she's going off the edge. Yeah. The trajectory's not great. This is not looking good. This is just not... I know you got a plan for her, Lord, but she's not seeing it, and she's just not going in the right direction. And I was going hard and fast in any direction opposite to that. And I had remarried to this great man who was running from the church, but knew he couldn't run from the Lord. And so when he found out that I thought, I was doomed to hell, so he was going, this is the woman for me, because I can go ahead and do anything I want. And the Lord got hold of us on the same night. On the same night, when somebody revealed to me what Frank knew, but never told me, was that Christ was still waiting, with His arms open, and completely welcoming right where I was. And I mean, in a moment, in a moment, I believed a lie, and suddenly I heard truth, and my soul was changed.

And Frank was sitting in the same room, and he watched it. I later found out when he was being interviewed for something, in that moment he went, oh man, it's now. But from that moment, they say, you know that you know that you know that you know. There's nothing anybody could ever do or say that could convince me otherwise now. I know. I've had that transforming experience, and my daughter, who is now 46, is completely aware of when that happened. Mom before, and mom after, and mom, all the rest of the kids got the new mom. Which is absolutely true, but he's so good, and he doesn't waste any of it. So all of my story that was ugly, he has had me use... He has used me in ways to have conversations with people, to reveal that there's not a single thing, for each one of my moms, there's not a single thing she could have told me that would make me go, well, I can't talk to you anymore. No doubt. And then for him to go, oh, while you're in this visit, share that. Oh, I can't share that, because I sure as the world can't share it with those ladies I pray with every Friday. Tell her. Yeah. Because she'll get it. And the thing is, over these 30 years, they all get it too, poor things, they've heard all of it. Yeah. And it's... When we hear, he sees us, he is with us in the midst of it, he was there with you in the midst of that, he was with me all along. I just couldn't hear it. In Scripture, when it says that our hearts are made ready ahead of time, I know I've heard the phrase, prevenient grace, when he has kept me so that in that moment when it

would occur, I would still be around to hear it. It's true, my heart was ready to hear it. Yeah, I love that, the image that you gave of his arms were there open, which is such a contrast from the lie that we tend to tell ourselves of that, oh, he's gonna be actually sitting back, arms crossed, coming and saying, see, I knew, I knew you'd do that, and here's all the ways that I'm gonna condemn you because of it. And yet what we see in Scripture is that, gosh, there is nothing more that God loves than to see his kids come home. There's nothing more. We think of if there's a story in Scripture called the prodigal son, and it really could be son, daughter, any of us, but in Scripture, it's the prodigal son, and it's the son that goes away, is away for a long time, and once he's, I think, eating some pig slot realizes, I think, man, the servants back at home have it better than me, and so I'm gonna go back home. And he's having this speech about, hey, what am I gonna say, and I think we've all been there where we're trying to figure out, what are we gonna say to our boss or our mom and dad or our spouse, whoever it is, knowing that we messed up, and Scripture tells us that while we were still far, he was still far off, and that dad started running. He was waiting, and most of the time, that is, if I were not to say, all the time, that's what God's posture is towards us, right? And so for you all, when you started to understand that, wow, God is actually looking at me with open arms, how did that change your heart and your mind and start to change the other things in your life? For me, you know, it was just like, it wasn't a sudden thing, it wasn't, you know, but whenever I really started opening up my heart to the idea of who God is and can I be forgiven and can I still be loved, you know, it was, it was just like a, I don't really know how to explain it, but I do know that it was just like a, it was just like a, I don't really that it was like it felt like he was running towards me and was just completely saying, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what your past looks like, it doesn't matter the things that you've done, it doesn't matter how many times

you've denied me, you know, like here I am and he continues to pursue me. And the doors that he has opened in these last couple years because of my obedience and because, you know, I've surrendered, it's just, it's just, just crazy and beautiful and yeah, it's, it's hard to explain, but one thing that I always try to explain to my two older kids who currently do not go to church and that's something I've prayed for for a long time for them is, you know, when they're ready, they're going to know who God is, and it's hard, you can't force that on your kids, you know, if they're not... It's frustrating, right, but you just can't, and but the way that I come to find God is just, it's beautiful in itself that he is just all-loving, all-loving, so yeah. I have that son who is trying to find his way back home, and that loud voice of shame is still speaking to him too hard, and what I know is that he loves me, I know that he knows who Jesus is, I know that he knows he has been rescued from death too many times, that there's a purpose, and he reaches out every now and again, I love you mom, I'm still here, can we get together? And then months later, I love you mom. I hear him wanting it, I hear him wanting Christ, and like you said, at some point, at some point, the Lord who rescued me will show him that his arms are wide open for him, the same God, the same God, and my prayer is that I will be a witness to him coming up out of the water the same way I watch those men on a Thursday night and on a Sunday, whose lives are so dramatically changed in that moment. When I see that happen for him, I can't tell you, every time I see it, I sob, because I can see it. I can see it coming. And so what I do for him is I let him know I'm here, and I want you, but I'm not God. I can't change his heart, and I can't remove the shame, but I can love him, and I can be available in a safe way to have a relationship with him, to let him know I'm still here, and I still want you. Yeah, well that's that's such a powerful way to put that, because you're right, like you aren't God, none of us are, right? There's only one, there's only one God. It's the same God who's pursued all of us that's pursuing him right now, but like you just said, I think that is so powerful that to keep reminding him that I'm here, that I still want you, you know,

and that's the same message that God is continually reminding us of, and that's even for those of us that do have a relationship with Christ, where we're like, you know, I'm not like this person, or gosh, I've made this mistake, and I'm not like this person, and there's a lot of times we can talk ourselves out of spending time alone with him, of like, I know I'm probably disappointing him, you know, and yet we serve a God that does give us discipline in our life, for sure, for good reason, right? And he helps mature us and walk us through things, but he does it in such a way of a loving father that does it because he wants what's best for us, and I can only help but think there may be people watching this right now that have never had someone in their life that wanted what was best for them, right? There's probably been a lot of people that have wanted what was best for themselves in that moment, but not wanted what was best for them. But I know that especially on, you know, this podcast coming out after Mother's Day, it can be gosh, probably such a hard time for so many people. And that could be somebody that, it could be a man right now in prison that has a broken relationship with his mom, right? It could be someone that is in prison and is not married to the wife of his children anymore, or the mom of his children, or it could be a mom that doesn't have her kids, or it could be all over the spectrum. But I would love for you guys, just kind of directly into the camera, where kind of the light will be, of just individually, just speaking to that person that God puts on your heart right now, of like, hey, we know you may be in this season,

but I wanted to encourage you with this. So what would that be for the person that's watching this? So I think that one of the main things that we struggle with, whether we're a mom or a dad, if we're incarcerated, is the shame and the guilt that we carry. And that's a really hard thing to overcome. And I've learned that shame is feeling that you're wrong inside, right? Guilt is when you have done something wrong, but shame is when you feel like you're wrong. And so for me, my encouragement would be just to get in the word, because our identities are in Christ. And through my relationship with God and surrendering, I have come to learn that I am no longer a shame. And it took so many years for me to accept that and to just give that to God. And it's been so freeing. And that would be my encouragement, is to really try to use God's word and prayer in your relationship with him, just to try to overcome the shame and the guilt that keeps us down and keeps us out for so long. So, yeah. That's a great word. And Sharon, what about you? I'll just come from this mother's heart. And you are loved.

You are deeply loved. And you are wanted by the God who created you. You are loved by Jesus, his son. You are desired. You are held precious. There is nothing that you could do or think or believe you have to hide that is too great for the love of God. He has the complete ability. It's so hard to fathom, but he has the complete ability to forgive every single thing. It is possible for you to ask him for forgiveness today and to believe that he hears you because the God of our understanding is not as large as the God who created us. I cannot begin to fathom what it's like to be able to forgive and to forget, but he does. And I am completely evidence of that. I no longer walk in the shame of that 28-year-old who walked away from her family or who didn't parent as well as that mother that I know or that mother that I know. I love the Lord deeply and I trust him with my life and I trust my children. And that means the one I gave birth to, the two that came to me as bonus children from my husband and the eight children that the Lord brought into my life because this one and then this one and then this one needed somebody for a time when their mother couldn't

for whatever reason. And my heart got to be bigger. I got to love better because the God who loved me more saw more in me than I could possibly see in myself. So those who are around you who are speaking about this Jesus, they mean it, it's real. Seek him, seek to find out more. Read the word, pray, listen to the teaching, it's real. That's so encouraging, both you're so right and dead on in what you said, and it's this idea of surrendering, right, a word you used a little bit ago, this idea of surrendering of like, okay, like I have tried so many different things, and probably more than I'd be willing to even say, and yet I find myself kind of at the end of the rope, at the end of myself, where do I go, right? Well, at the end of that rope, or maybe even at the end of that road, it's not, you're not going to run into a God who has his arms crossed. That's there saying that. See, I knew you'd end up like this. Right? No, he's he's a father who has his arms open. You know, we serve a God that doesn't call us to kind of metaphorically metaphorically go up this mountain, right? But he actually came down the mountain, right, that Jesus accomplished everything necessary for our salvation on that cross, so that all of us, right, could be forgiven and redeemed and that we are no longer our shame, we're no longer the things that we've done, we're no longer our regrets, like we have a new future, we're new creations, although not perfect, right, but we follow a God who is. Right. And he will meet us right in our mess, you know, and it's such a beautiful thing, because we don't have to have it all together, you know, and so I have just really kind of come to figure that out, you know, that he will meet us right where we're at, you know, so

yeah. Absolutely. Well, y'all, thank you so much for being on here. I guarantee you that what you all shared will have such a positive effect on someone that's going to be watching this, whether it's tomorrow or in a couple months, I guarantee it. Thank you. But Pando family, we love you. We hope that as you've been watching this, that you know that we are a part of a body of believers as a church that recognize that none of us are perfect, right? We don't have a relationship with Christ because we've got it all figured out. That's not part of it, right? He does, and that's why we want to follow him, you know, with our life, and so it's about surrendering and trusting and saying, okay, God, I can't do this on my own. I need you. And so whether that's writing us a letter here at Southeast and asking, you know, hey, how can I do that? We would love to be able to write you a letter back and talk about that. Maybe you need to find who the chaplain is in your area, in your part, where it's like, hey, I need to ask those questions, or maybe talk to somebody that does know Jesus, like y'all had mentioned, and ask, hey, tell me more, tell me a little bit more about your life, because I promise you that may be the best decision that you ever make. But y'all, thanks so much, Sharon, Carissa, again, for having, for being on here with us. We're grateful to have you. Thank you. Thank you for inviting us. Yeah, absolutely. Well, y'all, we hope you have a great week, and we will see you next time.