It’s Not Over: Julie Seals’ Story of Redemption - Revival of Hope 2026

and had the opportunity to go into the prison in Florida that her husband is the chaplain at. And I met this little spitfire who I'd been hearing about. Someone told me, "You have got to put this lady on the cover of your magazine." And Christina, who had been working with you on the story, she just kept talking about this Julie. You know, it's hard sometimes when you haven't met someone yourself, but the day I met her in that prison, and I realized who she was, I was so excited, because we already had her story slotted, and I felt so good, because I was like this woman's story, and her heart for God is so pure and so amazing. And I'm so thankful that you are my friend, that she also has come alongside and is joining us on our writing team. And now she's interviewing people, and she is helping ghost write the stories that you'll find in our magazine. So I want when you leave to make sure you get the magazine constants. Can you hold the magazine up over there? These are free. They have Julie's story on the covers in Spanish and English, so we invite you to come get one of those. But I know tonight that her story is going to bless your heart. So thank you, friend, for coming all this way from Florida. Thank you for doing this thing called "Life With Me." I love you. [applause] It's an honor to be here tonight, and I know we're all hot, and I know we're all sweaty, but the presence of the Lord is here, and I just know that there is something he wants to do that's very special. The theme of this conference is "It's Not Over." And I know that from whatever walk of life you're from, there's hard things we face in this world. Our world is getting crazier and crazier. And we are seeing more and dealing with more. Maybe some of you have kids who have gone the wrong direction. Maybe there's somebody in here, and you have gone the wrong direction. But I just want to tell you that we can never run so far that God can't grab us and turn everything around for his glory and his good. Jeremiah 29.11 says, "For I know," say it with me if you know it. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future." And like Christie said earlier, part of my story is also incarceration, but my story of looking like things had no hope began before prison.

When I was born, I was born with a birth defect called spina bifida. Does anybody know, has anyone heard of spina bifida? Well, 61 years ago, that's how old I am, the doctors did not know what to do. And so, my spinal cord was coming out through a hole in my back, and the doctors gave me to my parents so that they could take me home and I would die at home. But God had a different plan. And the fact that we're all here in this, under this tent tonight at the, it's not over revival of hope means that God has a different plan for me and for you. He's got a different plan for your family. He's got a different plan for your situation. So, I grew up in Southern California. And when I got to be, the doctors did a surgery on my back. My mom and dad brought, they brought me back and said, "Well, she's still alive after six months." And they sewed up my back and they said that I would never walk again. So, how many of you know that God will trump the doctors' diagnosis? Amen? [applause] When I was 12 years old, I started getting pressure ulcers on the bottom of my left foot due to neuropathy caused by the spina bifida. And it was like there were big holes in the bottom of my left foot. They got infected. And after, well, it was years of infections and surgeries. And I had another back surgery when I was 12 years old. And again, the doctor said that I was never going to walk again. And again, God had a different plan. I did not grow up in a Christian home. I grew up with parents who, well, they were, I guess, what we would maybe call functional alcoholics. They would come home every night and they would drink. They would have martinis, they would have wine coolers.

And so I grew up in a home where alcohol was normalized. I thought alcohol was a normal part of life. And what we grow up with in our home and what we see in our home, we think that that's normal. We think that that's what everybody's house is like. So at a young age in my teens, I started drinking. And Southern California, I'm just going to say that it was out there. It wasn't the South. I love the South, I live in the South now. But it was not a good place to grow up. I started running with the wrong crowd. And by the time I was 19 years old, I was addicted to alcohol. And I did my first line of crystal methamphetamine. That first line of crystal methamphetamine took me on a journey straight into hell on Earth. I didn't care who I stole from. I didn't care who I hurt. I didn't care who I lied to. It took first place in my life. It had a death grip around my throat. Along the way, I got married and divorced a couple times. I was in domestic violence relationships. And along the way, I had a little boy. And his name is Tyler. And I think we have a picture of Tyler as a little boy. Yeah, that's Tyler on his first birthday. The marriage was not good. And my response to problems in life was to run away.

Anybody ever think that when life gets hard, you just want to run away. You know, I've got all these problems, the job, the people, the medical diagnosis, the circumstances. So if I could just run away, if I could just get from where I'm at to way over there, I could get a fresh start. And so when Tyler was about two years old, I decided I was going to run away from all my problems. And I took him and I ran across the country from California all the way to Tennessee. And I was going to start that new life. The only problem was my biggest problem was there in Tennessee. I was my biggest problem. I was an alcoholic. I was a drug addict. And I made excuses for it. I would be like, poor me. I went through all these abusive relationships. Poor me. I was born with spina bifida. Poor me. My left leg was amputated below the knee as a result of ulcers. Poor me. I always had a reason to numb myself with alcohol and drugs and not face reality. And I didn't have skills for facing reality. So I got to Tennessee and I knew that I needed God.

I believed in God just because I was running from him. Didn't mean that I didn't know he was real. I knew God was real. I just didn't know how to get to him. I didn't know how to reach him. One time I went to a church and I went in the back of the church and I sat down and I'm sure I smelled like alcohol. And people were looking at me and staring at me, but nobody would talk to me. And when I would meet their eyes, I would look and meet eyes with somebody and then look away. And so I left church that day thinking that God surely wouldn't want somebody like me because his people didn't want me. And that's why I'm so grateful for Christi Overton Johnson and victorious living ministries is because we get to go in to the people who think that nobody wants them, that nobody believes in them. We get to go in and we get to share the love of Jesus with people like JC and people like me. And it's life changing, not just for them, but for us who go in. So I was living in Tennessee for a couple years and my son's dad ended up finding us. And we went through a very bitter custody battle and divorce. It was very ugly. I had been living the whole life that goes along with alcohol and drugs. We don't have time for me to list all of the sin. And the sleeping around and all this stuff, all this stuff. I was kind of the woman at the well. And all of that got brought out into the courtroom.

And I was put to great shame. And I knew that I was going to lose my little boy. And I panicked. And during that custody battle, I took my little boy. And I decided I was going to what? And so I took him and I ran to Mexico, which if you're here tonight taking notes, I want you to write down, do not leave the country during a custody battle. Do not take your child out of the country. But that's what I did. And after about a week in Mexico, I thought, well, that was dumb, Julie, what are you gonna do now? So I was coming back across the border to try to talk to the police, and they were waiting for me. And they put me in handcuffs for the first time in my life. Put me in the back of a police car and they put my four-year-old Tyler in the front of a different police car. And as we were driving down the freeway, I heard his little voice come over the police radio and he said, "Hi mama, I love you mama." And that was the last time I saw my little boy for 16 years. And you would think that that would have been the end. You would have thought that that would have gotten me to straighten up, but when addiction has you by the throat, it was, I couldn't do it on my own. And I didn't yet know that Jesus Christ and his blood and his stripes and his name were able to break off

everything that the enemy meant for harm. Right after I lost custody of my son, my dad died of cancer. And so as you've probably heard, it's one thing after another thing after another thing, and after my dad's funeral, I decided I was gonna end my life. And I got a bag of clothes and I went back to Mexico with a plan to take my life. I didn't go through with the plan, but I did spend two years in Mexico continuing the downward spiral. At my lowest point, I was living as a fugitive on the run in Mexico with a meth lab in my bathroom, and the Mexican drug task force was raiding my house. But at that same time in that rock bottom dark place, the Holy Spirit was chasing me. He was pursuing me. I would drive by a church in Mexico and it said Iglesia Pentecostal or Iglesia Baptista. And I would get excited and something in my heart would go, there's something in there for me. But, and I'm gonna go on Sunday, but on Sunday, I wasn't sober, and I didn't wanna go if I wasn't sober, so I didn't go. During my run amuck in Mexico, I ended up stepping on a rusty nail with my only remaining foot, and I nailed my shoe to my foot. I didn't know it because of the neuropathy,

and I walked on it for a couple days because I was on a drug binge hanging out in partying. And when I got home and I tried to take that shoe off and it wouldn't come off and I saw the rusty nail, my heart sunk. A doctor saw how swollen my foot was and a red streak was going up and he said, "Julie, you need to get back to America "because you're gonna lose that leg soon." I got home from that doctor's appointment, and it was like the last straw. I had lost my son and my dad and so much, and yes, much of it was my fault, some of it wasn't, but it was this final thing that broke me. And there is no better place we can be than broken before the Lord in a way that drives us to our knees in prayer. And I got home from that doctor's appointment and I fell to my knees and I started crying out to God. And this time I was like, I didn't know how to pray. And I told him that, I said, "God, I don't know how to pray. "I don't know if you're listening. "I don't know if you can hear me, but God, I'm dying. "And I need you to become the center of my life "or I'm gonna be lost forever." And that's all I knew. All I knew in that moment was I needed God to be the center of my life and I needed all of him. And I prayed that prayer and I even went so far as to say, God, do whatever it takes.

Well, when you say that, God will do whatever it takes. But what comes after that is gonna be exceedingly abundantly above and beyond anything that we could think, dare, ask or imagine according to his spirit and his power that he puts in us when we surrender our lives to him. So that night I went to bed and I got up the next morning, the mafia came over and I didn't think God heard me. They asked me to take drugs across the border for money and I did not feel different. My circumstances didn't appear different. How many times do we pray? How many times are we praying right now? to be healed. We want to experience breakthrough. We want to see our friends and loved ones come to Jesus and we're not seeing anything change but just because we don't see with our eyes doesn't mean that God is not it worked behind the scenes. I said yes I would take the drugs across the border and I let them duct tape four pounds of crystal meth amphetamine around my waist. A woman drove me to the international border and when I got out I started to walk through the pedestrian crossing to America and as I was walking through a U.S. Marshall who stops you know people here and there because I prayed the prayer God do whatever it takes right. Do whatever it takes. I was the one she stopped and she said I wanted to know how long I'd been in Mexico and I've always been a bad liar. I may be I may have been an addict and a mess and a train wreck but I was never a good liar. I thought I was but I wasn't and I ended up telling her what I was doing and I turned myself in. That was not my plan. Yeah praise the Lord. That was not my plan and in that moment I heard the voice of the Lord speak to my heart and I knew it was God and he said two years Julie and I shook my head. I knew he was telling me I was gonna do two years and I and he said it again two years and I thought God must not know federal sentencing guidelines for crystal meth because four pounds is a life sentence and I was arrested I was

taken to the federal prison in downtown San Diego and that is when God sent a group of prison ministry volunteers like victorious living ministry into that prison and a woman asked me a question that literally changed the course of my life. That woman prison ministry volunteer came over and she sat on my bunk and she said did you know that Jesus loves you very much and the tears started to roll and I said not me you don't know what I've done and she kept insisting that no matter what I had done that Jesus Christ loved me and that he would forgive me and that he died on the cross and paid the penalty for every bad thing that I had ever done and that if I would ask him to come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior and turn away from my old way of running with the devil and follow Jesus that he would make me a new creation that was January 8th of 2001 Jesus has not only set me free he has kept me free I ended up only doing 22 months in federal prison because the judge looked at me on my final sentencing day and said I see something different in you but what I want you to know is that I was free before that judge ever said I could get out I was free for the first time on the inside of that prison and I had joy I was running over to the corrections officers and I was telling him I gave my life to Jesus and I'm gonna do life in prison and I'm gonna serve Jesus right here and they would laugh at me and I just had all this joy and the joy of the Lord went so far beyond my circumstances it still looked like there was no hope for my life the United States of America versus Julie Devere Fitzpatrick and and even when my circumstances had hit rock bottom with no visible hope I had more joy than I had ever had in my life and geography what side of the razorwire fence I was on did not matter I had a huge gaping infected ulcer in the bottom of my foot but I read my Bible and in Isaiah it said that by Jesus stripes I was healed and my simple child like new believer faith said Jesus paid for my healing and so I got together with a group of women in that prison and we began to lay hands on my foot the top not the bottom and we prayed and in two months time there's huge gaping hole filled in filled in filled in and new skin grew over where the hole used to be and I still have my leg today at my foot

I will never not tell people what you have done for me. And so I went and filled out a little request to go to the medical, and I went and I showed the doctor who had sent me back to the sixth floor and waited for gangrene to send in to send me out for amputation. I told him Jesus was gonna heal me, he laughed at me. And then I went back in two months and I said, "Do you remember how I said Jesus was gonna heal me?" And he said, "Yes," and I took off my shoe and sock and stuck it in his face. I said, "Well, look at this." And he ran out of the room and he shut the door and I was like, "Oh, no, I'm in trouble." And he brought back in all these medical nurses and guards and they were all looking at my foot like it was the eighth wonder of the world. And he got right up in my face and he said, "I know Jesus did that because that was impossible." That's a miracle. (audience applauds) Right before I got out of prison, I was called to the chaplain's office and I was told that my mom, who was anxiously awaiting my release so I could get out and live with her, that she had just died in her sleep. My sisters weren't talking to me, I had nothing and no one but Jesus. And I learned in that moment when I got out of that prison

that when we have nothing and no one but Jesus, he is really all we need. I asked God, yeah, praise him. I asked the Lord, I said, "God, I wanna get out. "I wanna be a productive member of society. "I wanna go to college 'cause I promised my mom "I was gonna go to college. "I want to become, you know, I wanna get off probation "and never drink and use drugs again. "God, I wanna see my son." And I can tell you that he has done all of that and more. I got my first degree three years after I got out of prison, I was graduating with 20 scholarships. I was the Chancellor's Award winner who gave the speech at the graduation. And that's not because I'm smart. If my husband was here, he would tell you, she's not smart, she's an airhead. And she just studies a lot and God helps her. But Romans 9.25 says, "God takes nobodies and he makes 'em somebody's." In other words, he wants to show his glory. And those of us that the world looks at and says, "Oh no, that's impossible." I met and married my husband right around the time I graduated with my first college degree. And his story is also in that magazine. And it is also in the book. But he gave his life to Jesus after his first wife of 20 years died of breast cancer.

He was a mean drunk cheating abusive senior chief in the United States Navy. And her death is what broke him. We all have things that break us, don't we? That bring us to the foot of the cross in the arms of Jesus. We got married and I promise you that is not the same man. God transformed him. But God's never done. This conference is it's not over. And what I wanna tell you is it is not over. Not only is it not over, but God didn't just bring me to the other side of prison. He didn't just let me out and give me a husband and give me, we've been doing prison ministry together for 20 years. After 16 years of not seeing my son, he got on a plane from California. He flew to Florida and he got off that plane and came running to me, arms wide open. And threw his arms around me. (audience applauds) And my son is the one who wrote the forward, not the forward, the introduction of my book. And he ends, this paragraph says, "This is what my boy wrote." The same boy that said, "I love you, mama." This book will powerfully impact your life if you're willing to open your heart

to what God wants to do in you through the author's testimony and hopefully your hope for the future and your expectations for God to do a miracle in your life. Well, overflow as you come to understand why it is significant that this introduction is written by Julie's son. My name is Tyler and this is my mom's story. This is what God can do. (audience applauds) And you know, if God did nothing more than that, my goodness, this is a lot, right? Wouldn't you think like Julie, this is like exceedingly abundantly above and beyond. But God is never finished. Not only is it not over, he's never finished. The Bible says that surely his goodness of mercy will follow you all the days of your life. God's goodness of mercy are still chasing me down. I wrote my book, and it got published in 2023. And God told me to get it into every prison and jail, juvenile facility, addiction recovery center, and around the world. Well, across the nation and around the world. Now, I'm nothing a nobody but a one-legged ex-otic, ex-fellowing with no business sense. Honest, I'm just being real with you. But the Holy Spirit had a plan. The Holy Spirit is all we need. I'm not saying it's not good to have a college degree

or, you know, get educated or prepare or plan, but the Holy Spirit is the one that opens the doors. The Holy Spirit is the one that makes things happen. And so the book right now is in, God has made a way for it to be in all 50 states, in prisons, and it was also translated last year into Spanish. And it is now in prisons throughout Mexico, but God wasn't done, that's a lot, right? That wasn't the end, it wasn't over. God sent me to Mexico, God opened up a door. They gave me a passport, our country gave me a passport. 'Cause God told me he wanted me to go to the nations, and I'm like, well, I guess if you do, you'll give me a passport. And I went and applied, and he gave me a passport. And then he opened up a door for me to go to Mexico City with 300 books, and so if you can imagine this, and then in this year, that was last year, this year in June, I went to see you down Juarez with another 300 books. And here I am, the woman who was smuggling drugs into America. Now I'm smuggling the hope of Jesus through my book, back through the border, to take into prisons and give to prisoners and give to men and women in teen challenge addiction recovery centers. And it's just, it is never over. It's never over. When God gets us through one thing, and it doesn't it seem like we face another battle

and we face another battle. And I know that people in this room, you've probably, am I right, we've all faced a battle. Yeah? And we get through that battle. And James 1, 2 through 4 says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you go through trials of many kinds. Because you know that the testing of your faith produces what? Perseverance. And perseverance must finish its work. So you will be mature and complete, not lacking anything. When I gave my life to Jesus, it wasn't like everything got easy. Things were hard. But God showed me and taught me that he can walk with me through the fire and that I'll come out the other end, not even smelling like smoke. And prepared for what he has next for me. Amen? Amen. And I want to just tell you that God took my sorrow and he turned it to joy. He took the depression and he turned it into joy. He took fear and he turned it into faith. So great that I will go wherever he tells me to go. I got to go into the most dangerous men's prison

in Mexico last year. And they didn't tell me that there was a riot in there two years earlier and a bunch of officers were murdered by the inmates. They just brought me on in there to share my testimony. And I still would have gone. But I saw these marble statues of these officers and I thought, as we're going in, oh, that must be the employee of the month. And then when we come out, I find out, no, those are officers murdered by Mexico's most dangerous criminals. But when I went in there, I saw men sitting in gray sweatpants and gray T-shirts. And I didn't see criminals. I saw somebody's husband. I saw somebody's father. I saw somebody's son. And these men looked at me and they didn't know I was going to share my testimony. But as I was sharing my testimony, they were just looking, making eye contact. And when I gave an altar call and asked them if they wanted to give their lives to Jesus, who wanted to, out of 135 men, over 100 of Mexico's most dangerous criminals, got up and came to the altar with their arms raised, tears flowing down their face, hope coming from their eyes. And afterwards, they were running up to me.

They wanted me to sign the book and the guards were like pulling out their shotguns 'cause they didn't know what they were gonna do. But they were just so sweet. They needed hope. They needed the same hope that you and I need. And that hope, it never ends, it never dies. God's never done and it's not over. It's not over. And so what I wanna do is I wanna just, we have a special time of prayer. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna go into a special time of prayer. And if you need prayer and if my story and JC's story has given you any hope tonight for whatever situation you are going through, whether it's a situation in your family, whether your family is torn apart, God restored my sisters back to my life. My name is Aunt Julie. I walked my son Tyler down the aisle at his wedding. Now my name is Grandma. It's never over, it's not over. God's not done if you have a situation in your life. And you need and want me to pray, us to pray. There's a prayer team and stand and agree. Jesus said we're two or more are gathered. I am right there with you. And if two or more of you agree, it shall be done. And we wanna bind our faith with yours tonight

for whatever need you have. God sees your need and he is here. The Holy Spirit is here, heat and sweat and all. The Holy Spirit is here to meet us. And so right now, I just wanna first of all, ask everybody to just bow your head and close your eyes for just a moment. And I don't know people in this place, but what I wanna do before I invite people up for prayers, I do wanna know if there's anybody in this room and you have either not given your life to Jesus ever or you've given your life to Jesus and you have straight away. And you've listened to the stories and the testimonies and you're saying, you know what? I want that Jesus. I want that Jesus that JC told us about that can deliver us from fear. I want that Jesus that Julie talked about that'll give me joy upon layers of joy and bring me through one fire and strengthen me for the next and bring me through and give purpose to my life. If you're in this place tonight, I'm not gonna ask you to get up and come running over here, but I just wanna know if I can pray for you, right where you are and I just wanna ask you, if you wanna give your life to Jesus tonight, would you just raise your hand? Would you just raise your hand and let me see

that tonight is the night, that you wanna make that choice, that decision, to surrender your heart and your life to Jesus. (gentle music) And you can also come up front and you can get prayer. We will pray with you, I will pray with you, whether you need healing, whether you need a breakthrough, freedom in an area of your life. I'm here to pray with you, the prayer team is here and we believe God is gonna touch you and we believe that it is not over in Jesus' name. There is still hope, amen. (audience applauding) ♪ I'm no longer a slave to fear ♪ ♪ But I am a child of God ♪ ♪ I'm no longer a slave to fear ♪ ♪ Yes, but I am a child of God ♪ ♪ You unravel me with a melody ♪ ♪ You surround me with a song ♪ ♪ Of deliverance from my enemies ♪ ♪ Till all my fears are gone ♪ ♪ Sing it out ♪ ♪ I'm no longer a slave to fear ♪ (gentle music) ♪ But I am a child of God ♪ ♪ Yes, I'm no longer a slave to fear ♪ ♪ Wave to fear ♪ [MUSIC PLAYING] From my mother's womb

You have chosen me Love has called me by my name And I've been born again Into a family Your blood flows through my veins Everybody said I'm no longer a slave to fear But I am a child of God Oh I'm no longer a slave to fear But I am a child of God Yes I am a child of God Yes I am a child of God I remind myself I am a child of God I am a child of God Thank you for watching our broadcast Are you an incarcerated brother or sister Who needs encouragement? Write to us At Victorious Living Correspondents P.O. Box 2751 Greenville, North Carolina To view Victorious Living Magazine in its entirety Please have your chaplain contact us at 352-478-2098 Or email us through our website at vlmag.org We are happy to provide our Victorious Living Magazine Free of charge in bulk with or without staples [MUSIC PLAYING]