It’s Not Over: There is Hope After PART 1 - Sheridan Correa - Revival of Hope 2026

This workshop has been in my heart and in the making since Christie asked me to do it. That was what March and I left Greenville. We were up here for an event and I left Greenville on the whole way home. I just hear the Lord talking to me and talking to me and talking to me. And I'm gonna weave in some biblical principles, but I'm gonna teach out of my life in with it. And several years ago, when I lived in Phoenix, Arizona, I lived there for 18 years and I discovered hiking. Any of y'all like hiking, been hiking, I love it. Put me out in the desert, in the barrenness and I feel like I'm a cactus and a solar panel at the same time. I just love it, it energizes me. But I used to joke that I was basically a billy go. I could climb anything, but to ask me to come down, you're gonna beat me, you're gonna beat me. One day I decided to go hiking and it was like, I think my first hike and it was 115 degrees. And which already tells you something about the quality of my decision making at that point in my life. Now this was my first time hiking and I was so excited, I stopped at the ranger station, I found the map, I planned out the trail I would take. And this being my first time, I didn't know yet how to read trail signs.

I didn't know that they would loop and they would intersect and they would turn into like different trails, I didn't know any of that. So I set off and with the mindset that I usually carry, hey, I'll just figure it out. I'll just get on the trail and on the mountain and if something happens I'm gonna figure it out 'cause I know how to survive and I had a huge smile on my face, I was having the best time out there. The Lord would speak to me on my hikes and on the mountain like nowhere else on this planet. He works with me, heals with me, I process with him but I was having the best time with the Lord and I was helping other people and I was laughing and I was, there was hospitality and I was encouraging and there were people that were slower and I'm like, come on, you can do it. And it was just so fun and I got to the top. And I saw another trail, I just didn't want it to end 'cause I was having so much fun and that trail turned into another trail and turned into another trail and turned into another trail, I don't know, eventually I just got so turned around and I became lost. For three hours in 115 degree heat with no water. Now I pass by so many different people with water and I was too prideful to say can I have a sip of your water 'cause I might be about to die right now. But that smile that I had began out with and turned into something else, it turned into worry, fear and kind of crazy thinking.

At some point I finally sat down underneath a palo verde tree and now if you ever seen a palo verde tree they're kind of twiggy. So it wasn't doing a great job, it's not like a big Georgia gray oak, but there was not a lot happening under there and it was all that I had. So there I sat hot and thirsty, exhausted and lost. And how many of you have been there in your life? Here's the ridiculous part, like I said, there were other people on the mountain that I could have asked for help. I could have said, hey, I'm clearly making poor choices to take and you help me out. But apparently I would rather wander around by myself in the Arizona desert for three hours than admit that I needed help and that I needed some support. Eventually I cut through a little piece of civilization after getting rested and kind of a clearer mind. This piece of civilization was also known as somebody's backyard. I may or may not have trespassed and y'all this is after I was saved, okay? So it's covered on the blood, right? Eventually I made it to another ranger station and the ranger took one look at me and said, you don't look so good. And I told him what had happened and asked how far it was to the North Mountain Park

and not where my car was. And he said it's about another mile and a half and I said, can you give me a ride? And the funny thing about ranger rules in Arizona is you literally have to say I am in distress and about to die, I need help. And here this man is, his name was James, by the way, thank you, James. He said, I need to hear you say it. And it took every hour. trekked out and into the desert with not a great plan. And apparently, well, he gave me some water and he drove me back to my car. And I've thought about that hike many times since then because isn't that life sometimes? We start out thinking where we know where we're going and something happens, a loss, a relationship, a diagnosis, trauma, addiction, betrayal, grief, a decision we made, a decision somebody else made that impacted our life. And suddenly, we look around and we think, how did I even get here? And where do I go from here? That's really what I want us to talk about today, not how to fix your entire life, not how to erase your past and what happened because that's important. God has used for it. He never wastes any part of our story, not how to pretend that something didn't hurt, but how do we recognize where we are,

understand what has affected us, and to begin to discern what is my next faithful step? So welcome to now what? There is hope after and we're going to fill in that blank. Now what? Something happened. Now what do we do? Where do we go from here, Lord? I'm not trying to assume-- I've been taught to not assume, but I'm going to. I assume that you came today because like me, darkness may have touched your life. I assume that you've come because like me, you've been held hostage by hardship, habits that we find ourselves creating and stuck in or hang ups. Maybe you've been damaged by difficulty and adapted poorly by adversity. Maybe you know exactly why you're here and maybe you don't know at all. You're not quite sure. You just love to be out in the heat and humidity in Greenville with us, I don't know. Either way, I'm glad that you're here. Now, we're going to do some work today. Do all of y'all have a worksheet? Yeah. OK. Can we get Rose a worksheet? Hey, Rose. Hey, girl.

My hope today is to create a space for us to be honest with ourselves. I don't know if you're like me, but I'm a really good-- I can be really good at lying to myself and pretending like nothing's going on. So I want to create a really sacred space for us to be honest without shame and without judgment. We're going to make room for God to meet us right where we are. And my hope for you is to hear from the Holy Spirit, experience breakthrough, though you don't have to force it. I don't need you to try to muster something and squeeze something out if it's not there. You don't have to share anything that you're not ready to share. But our time together isn't just another sermon or lecture. This isn't a space to blame others or to judge and condemn ourselves because our Lord Jesus does not do that. He looks on us in our situation with compassion and with love and support and help. So keep that perspective in mind. He is not mad at you. He's not angry at you. He's not disappointed in you. In order for him to be disappointed in you, he would have to appoint you to a state of perfection. And that's not what he does for our lives. You don't have to fix your whole life today. We're just going to look for the next faithful step. And before I say anything else, I just want to take-- I want us to take a couple of deep breaths

together. So scientifically, it has proven that when you expand your chest cavity, when you expand your rib cage and open up your chest, it actually opens up your heart internally and emotionally. So if you want to just stand, or you can do it in your chair also, I just want you to open up your arms. Both arms like you're fixing to hug some back. Let's open it up and take a deep breath in and exhale. Stretch out a little bit. I don't want you to be tight. There may be some things that we are going to be thinking about, or writing down. And it may be heavy. as we are working through this stuff. Whatever you came in here today, carrying, I just don't want it to hold your body hostage and incarcerated. Now let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm Sheridan Karia. I'm the Director of Healing and Restoration Initiatives for Victorious Living Ministries. I have a Master's Degree in Biblical Counseling. I have certifications in trauma and form care. And the reason that I went to school for those things specifically is because I, those are areas that I came out of. And the Bible helped me in my journal journey, my relationship with the Lord helped me in my journey to find the healing and the restoration on the inside that came out into the outside and helped to change

my circumstances. I love working on healing and recovery and trauma and helping other people find their way forward because I have to do that for myself every day too. But that's not actually what qualifies me most to stand here and talk with you about healing. I know healing because I've needed a whole lot of it. I'm 46 and there are still areas that, that well that God has healed completely, that I know that He will heal 'cause until He takes me home, I'm gonna be on this journey. But even that He is healing in me even right now. And I know God as not only my Lord and Savior, but as healer, amen, I know Him as deliverer. I know Him as provider and protector, personally in my life. I know God to be a way maker, a miracle worker, a promise keeper, yes, and the light in my darkness, El Shaddai, the God who sees me. Jehovah Jaira, the Lord will provide. Jehovah Nisi, my banner in which I walk under and Jehovah Ratha, the God who heals. And if I do not declare that and know who I am following, I can get really lost. Do you hear me? But I was the bleeding woman for 13 years as you find in the scripture. I was the man in John 4 who was living among the gravestones because I was like the walking dead for years of my life.

I was King Nebuchadnezzar who was sent out and was crazy until He acknowledged God as the one true God. And what does scripture say? He came into His right mind and a sound mind. I was in the Bible and I'm sure y'all have been in the Bible too in stories. There have been seasons of my life marked by hurt, betrayal, anger, bitterness, confusion, fear, addiction, homelessness, incarceration, a change in jobs. I was a drug dealer for a couple of years. Broken relationships, trauma and the choices that I made that had consequences that I simply couldn't pray away. I had to walk through it. I just couldn't get over it. I had to walk through it. 11 felonies, five misdemeanors, three probations. I deeply hurt people that I cared about and so many that I didn't even know that I've hurt. There's a saying that hurt people, hurt people. Y'all know? What's that? That's right, hurt people, hurt people. But there's also a saying that says, healed people, help heal people, amen. We need each other on this journey. Found people go out and find people. When I encountered God while incarcerated and entered recovery, God radically changed my life. There were some things instantly that He delivered me from,

like my mental illness, like my broken heart and my desire to die and attempting to remove myself from this life all the time. Having suicide plans, they were gone in an instant. But there are some things that He's still healing in me. Healing can be a one-time event for some people and an ongoing process for many of us, if not all of us, 'cause we're not fully arrived ever. But honesty, what is one of the things Being honest with where I am and how I am feeling and how it's impacted my life because of my past, it's still challenging to do today. I have to get really quiet and alone and wake up really early so nobody else and no distractions are up so that I can connect and locate myself because I become so disoriented sometimes. But with Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I don't have to choose that anymore, amen. I am not alone in my struggle. He is in it with me. Jesus is my hope and my victory. And now along the way, there have also been counselors. I've had one that was so life-changing for my life that I wanted to become a counselor because she helped me so much. I've had hard conversations. I've had to forgive much. I've had to ask for forgiveness for so many people. I've had to forgive so many people. I had to learn boundaries

and I'm still learning that sometimes 'cause I'm a really good people pleaser. Recovery. And it's not just recovery from drugs. It is life recovery, which we are all on. Community, learning how to live and do life with people. I didn't like people. I was so happy by myself. But in community is where we become healed. Standing and declaring scripture over my past, my present and my future. People telling me the truth when I didn't wanna hear it, getting back up when I felt like I was knocked down how to ask for help, that was a whole 'nother thing. Surrendering things that I could not control. And like I said, there is still so much healing happening in my life. So I'm not standing up here today acting like I've arrived and that I've reached this state of perfection. I'm standing here as someone who knows what it is to need Jesus every single step of the way and walk the healing journey. And I wanna do that with y'all today for a short amount of time. So let's start by asking a really basic question. What do we actually mean when we say healing? Can you go to the next slide? But thank you. So this is our working definition. Oh, I love when the Holy Spirit gives you something

you're like, yes, that is it. That is it. This is our working definition. Healing is an active journey toward greater wholeness and freedom from the effects of what has wounded, harmed or held us. I love that. Healing is blood, sweat and tears. It is screaming and crying. It is stretching and resting. It is tearing and it is mending. Letting go and growing. Dying to self and becoming. It is waiting when you want to move and moving when you'd rather stay still. Hearing no, saying yes. Doing things you don't wanna do. Facing things rather that you would avoid. Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. All those things encompass healing. It's honesty, vulnerability, transparency, truth, surrender, obedience, gratitude, faith, community encouragement and hope, knowing that this is not where, this is not it. It is not over. There is more to this story. Healing doesn't always feel victorious sometimes. Healing isn't always beautiful as it's happening. Recently, I had to get a skin cancer cut out of my shoulder and I was so excited to go to the doctor's office

for my procedure. Look at me, I'm taking care of my skin because I did not take care of my skin for so many years. And I'd be out there in the desert with no sunscreen 'cause I tan so easily. I'm like, why do I need sunscreen? And you just look so more beautiful in a tan. But I was so excited that I was gonna take care of my skin. I was gonna steward my body. But over the next several weeks, Lord, we just bless wherever they are going and protection, provisioned father, take care of who they're going to. Over the next several weeks after they had carved it out, I went from, whoo, look at me, I'm doing right by my body. and a fearful state, oh my gosh, why is this so tender? Oh my gosh, why does it look like it's key loiting? What is this? I couldn't even touch it, I couldn't even wash over it. I was so concerned and confused. Well, the nerves were coming back and I didn't know that. Collagen starts to grow and fill back in the epidermis layers and it becomes puffy. Well, I didn't know that either, but for a while, I was like, oh my gosh, there's this huge, I have a third arm coming out of my shoulder, this is not good. And I literally sat down with the Lord one morning and was like, oh, help me.

And I got out a little post-it note and I wrote on it, healing is happening here. And I put it on my bathroom window, my bathroom mirror. So every time I saw it instead of like, ew, what is that? Ew, it hurts. I reframed that, I renewed my mind and said, healing is happening here, this isn't the last day of this. And that helped me, it encouraged me, it gave me hope to look forward and look to my future. Listen, sometimes healing just hurts, okay, it's exhausting. Sometimes progress may look like rest, sometimes healing looks like the butterfly, sometimes it looks like the chrysalis, and sometimes it looks like what happens in between, which scientifically is called caterpillar soup. I feel like caterpillar soup a lot of times. And then sometimes I come out and merge on the day, like, bam, here I am. But it's all of those stages. So if your life feels a little like caterpillar soup right now, that doesn't necessarily mean that nothing is happening. Sometimes it looks like getting up one more time. Healing is simply not getting over it, but getting through it. And sometimes the next faithful step feels incredibly small, but small does not mean insignificant. Healing doesn't just change what hurts. Over time, God can use it to change how we live, how we love and who we are becoming,

because He cares about all three of those states. For many of us, healing just isn't a one-time event. It's an ongoing journey. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion. That's Philippians 1-6. Whatever's unfinished in your life right now, that's not evidence that God is done working or has stopped working. It is evidence that you are still in it, and He still is working. Amen? Next slide, please. Oh, you're already there. So why does healing matter? This is really quick. John 10-10 says, "The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy." But Jesus continues that and says, "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full, the abundant life." Looking past the pain that we are in, wounding fear, loss, trauma, addiction, a grief, these things can steal from you. They steal our identity. They steal truths about who God is and who you are. It steals our ability to trust, to love. It steals joy, value, worth, and dignity. It tries to steal all the fruit of our spirit. But Jesus never intended for what happened to us

to have the final word in how we live. Amen? Jesus came that we would have life and have it to the full, all throughout scripture. Jesus invites us to respond. And we see people who are doing life with Jesus when they encounter Him. They have one thing in common, change. We need to trust Him, follow Him, ask for help, get up and go. Healing is something God does, but throughout scripture, we also see people invited to participate in what God is doing. Healing invites participation. Can y'all go to the next slide, please? Brothers, thank you. Healing invites participation. That's what we're gonna explore today, not how to control the outcome of our healing, but how to recognize where Jesus is. And there's one encounter with Jesus that gives us a powerful picture of exactly that. If you wanna turn with me to John 5, if you have your scriptures, I'm sweating so bad up here, y'all. So sorry. John 5, we're gonna be in verses one through nine. I'm reading out of NIV today. Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.

Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheep gate, a pool which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here, a great number of disabled people used to lay. The blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. Oh, sorry. The wind blew my pages. One who has been there, one who has been there was an invalid for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" Sir, the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred, and while I'm trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." And then Jesus said to him, "Get up. Pick up your mat and walk. At once, the man was cured. He was healed. He was made well. He picked up his mat and he walked." I want to stop on the word well for a minute because sometimes when we hear Jesus ask, "Do you want to get well? We reduce healing to one thing. Make the pain stop." And while Jesus does care about that, that is not the only place where we need him.

The Greek word here that John uses, and I'm not sure how to say this. I forgot to even look up how to pronounce this, but it is had Jesus. There you go, that's what it is. It carries the sense of well-being, healthy, or sound. And in this encounter, Jesus is speaking to a man who has lived with a physical condition for 38 years. That's a long time. Jesus asks him a question, and then something extraordinary happens. He tells the man to get up, pick up his mat, and walk. And the man does, thank you. Jesus, absolutely thank you so much, friend. Has the power to heal miraculously? The man didn't complete 12 steps. He didn't go to rehab or physical therapy for six months or slowly regain his strength. One word. One word. And he was healed. He was sound. His body was in full alignment and working right. He was well. Thank you, Lord. Jesus spoke and he got up. And I believe in that Jesus, y'all. How many of y'all believe in that Jesus? Jesus, yes. I may have mentioned this before, I don't remember.

I believe in his miraculous power in my own life because I've experienced it. When I encountered him, the years of mental illness and torment and voices and diagnoses that I had been experiencing for all of my life were gone. And like gone gone. Gone gone. Like dead dead. The desire to use drugs vanished. And within a moment, God gave me a new mind and a new heart and immediately started downloading new desires into my life. But some things God changed in a moment and some things he has been healing in me for years. And he does that through truth. Community, counseling and treatment and the things that I've already said. Now I want us to be careful with the Jesus' question. Do you want to be well? I don't hear condemnation in that question. I don't hear well if you really wanted to be well. You would have done something by now. like he's missing something. I don't hear that in Jesus' question. Jesus sees this man before he invites a response from him and that matters. Jesus sees you in your situation the way before he's even inviting you to participate in what he wants to do in your life. He sees you. El Shaddai sees you. And while this man's encounter is a miraculous physical healing it also gives us an opportunity to reflect on our own lives because some of us, probably most of us are all of us, sometimes we become accustomed to carrying something and so much that it becomes a part of us. So much that like the mat, the mat was an extension of this man.

And I doubt that he liked it. I doubt that he wanted to choose that. I doubt he certainly did not want to stay where he was and even in our own life that is true but sometimes, and we have learned how to organize our lives around our mat. We know how to survive here. And I believe the Holy Spirit's already stirring up some things inside of your hearts and I thank you Lord that you're bringing the impurities, you're bringing the things up to the surface so they can be skimmed away so that you can deal with them. But moving toward wellness may invite something different for us than it did for this man. So here's the question I want you to consider. What might moving toward wellness require of me that surviving where I am does not. Let me read that again. What might moving toward wellness require of me that surviving where I am does not. You don't have to answer that question right now. Just hold on to it as we move through the workshop because that's what we're going to explore together. That's part of the journey. How do we begin moving from where we are toward greater healing freedom and restoration. How do we get from point A to point B. Now I've collected a lot of re words. The prefix re for many years. So many in fact that I named my ministry, re-life ministries. I think I have over a hundred to a hunt sorry 200 re words that God has not only done in my life but I see him do in scripture. Because God is a God of another chance. God is a God of new beginnings. God is a God of his mercies are new every day. And as I prepare this workshop I realize that the healing journey is full of re words. Not because healing takes us backward. It makes everything exactly as it was. Some things can't and shouldn't return to what they were. But sometimes restoration means learning to live forward. Restoration means learning to live forward not backward. Changed wiser freer and more whole. So let me give you our road map which I think has been up there. Yeah. Y'all see the road map? Oh you're turning around. Is it on the other screens too? Okay. It's on the TVs. That's our road map. It's also on the top of your page. If you can't see the TV reflect, recognize, rebuild, reorient and respond. That's our road map. That's what we're gonna work through today. Underneath those words on the on the TVs. There's five simple

words. Name it, notice, get up, discern and move. We're not trying to solve your whole life today, although I think I would want that. We're looking for just one something heavy and difficult surfaces in you during this time where we are processing some painful things together, I want you to know that you're not alone. You're not alone. And if it gets too heavy, please feel free to either raise your hand, step to the side, step to the back. Julie, Julie, can you stand up really quick? Julie is here as a support person and she will come and pray with you, love on you, breathe with you, whatever you need in that moment. It's okay to it's okay to pause. It's okay to catch your breath sometimes. So we begin where healing often begins not by fixing anything, but by becoming honest where we are. So that's our first step. We reflect and we're going to name it. In John 5, we encounter a man who has been lying on the map for years. The man represented where this man had been living. Like I said earlier, it had become part of him, part of his life for a very long time. That's the image that I'm going to borrow for today. So what is your mat? Where are you longing for healing? For freedom and for restoration? You may know that answer immediately or maybe you're not quite sure how to name it. So let me give you a few questions to help you consider. What hurts have you learned to live around? What are you tired of carrying? Where do you feel stuck? I see some of you already writing. So we're going to play some music as you just contemplatively reflect on what your mat may look like. I'm going to give you just a couple of minutes. You don't need to talk to anybody. Just sit with that question, pray. If you want to write whatever comes, it doesn't have to be something heavy or the most horrible thing, although it can be also the Lord might want to do something in that space. 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 27836. 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. You