The following program
discusses sensitive issues
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related to addictive behavior.
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Parents are
cautioned that some material
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may be too candid
for younger children.
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Welcome to
Celebrating Life in Recovery.
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My name is Cheri.
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Have you ever been
so plague by road rage
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that you just want to
rip someone's head off?
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Our guest is like that.
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You got to join us,
it's an incredible story.
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Welcome.
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You know all the season
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we're using the
acronym celebrations,
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talking about not only
health message physically
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but the health
message with belief
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and environment and exercise
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and all that kind of
stuff and the reason we're doing
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that is I
initially try to get healthy
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just trying to do with my head.
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And my head is not detached
from my body or my environment
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so we gonna do all of that.
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And today we are
looking at E in celebrations,
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the second E and
that's environment.
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And when we talk
about environment
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we talk about it
as if environment
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is just a stuff around
us, like I got just got back
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from British
Columbia Hope Camp meeting.
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If you want to see
something beautiful,
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you should go
there, it is lovely.
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There are lakes and hills
and the people are beautiful,
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but the environment just-- just,
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it just will rock
you, it's so beautiful.
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And so, I took walks and
went outside and to breath
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and all that kind of
stuff and was just blessed
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but then how about
the emotional environment,
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because sometimes we
kind of separate those out
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when we think of environment--
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when we think of
just what's outside.
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But the emotional environment
I want to tell you a story.
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And the story is I have a
friend that invited me over
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and I'm gonna
change her name totally
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because, you know,
it's just a bizarre story.
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But I'm gonna call her Shelley.
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So Shelley invites me over,
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she lives in a
different country.
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I just met her
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because she watched
Celebrating Life in Recovery.
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She was trying to kill
herself, it was a big deal.
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And she says,
you know, come over
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and so I end up going over
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and it's-- I am with her kids
and I'm hanging out of place
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and all the sudden
her kids start acting up
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and I mean these are feral kids
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and I don't
know if anybody knows
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what that means by
feral, totally out of control,
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sticking things
in the microwaves
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that have metal on it,
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there's smoke coming
out of the microwave,
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things are all over, I
mean it was just so bizarre.
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One of our kids took
a bagged shredded cheese
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and cut the top of them off
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and flung it all over the place,
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I mean it was just crazy.
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And the whole time my
friend who now is my friend,
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the girl that I
met is looking at me
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and she is
talking and she's not--
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I mean she is
looking straight at me
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and she's just
talking on and on and on
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and I'm so glad you're here
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and, you know, I've been blessed
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and her kids are
screaming on both sides.
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And I'm thinking, you know,
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the kids are
screaming on both sides.
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They're trying to
get her attention,
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they grabbing her face;
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they're trying to
turn her face towards her,
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she's got her eyes faced at me
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and her face facing them
and still talking, you know
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and I'm just
thinking this is crazy
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so I excused myself and
I went into the bedroom.
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In this house
there was no door knobs.
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I'm not sure why that was
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but my room did
not have door knobs
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so the kids just
busted in the room,
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I'm trying to-- I
could have hid under the bed.
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I just wanted to
escape, it was so crazy.
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And so I just
pretended I was dead.
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You know 'cause
these are little kids,
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you know, so I'm thinking
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I'll just pretend
I'm asleep or dead
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and I'm an addict in recovery.
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I can out pretend
you. You know what I mean?
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So I'm laying on the
bed, they're jumping over me,
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literally jumping over
me running around the bed.
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Jumping over me,
running around the bed.
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Jumping over me,
running around the bed.
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They finally got
tired of that and they left.
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And then I go back out
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and she is still
doing that kind of,
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you know, Cheri,
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I'd like you to pray
for me and pray for ministry
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and pray for
this and I'm thinking
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I want to pray
for you as a mother
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you know, because
man, I was like kid, I was,
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you know, I felt
like my whole life
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I was trying to get someone's
attention my whole life.
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I was trying to
get someone to see me.
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My whole life I was
trying to get someone
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just to say man,
what do you need,
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you know, and so
I'm watching these kids
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and my heart is breaking
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not only for
them but for myself.
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And finally I
just thought, you know,
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I had to be honest with
her and I said, you know,
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I can't pray
for you for ministry
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but I will pray
that you will be a mother
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and that you will
stop disassociating,
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you'll be able to see your kids
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and then for-- at one
moment that was really weird
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because I thought she
was just gonna cut my throat
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'cause she was just
so, I, you know, I thought,
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you know, she's just
gonna be angry and hurt
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and I mean you don't
talk about someone's kids
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and how they parent and stuff.
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And so I thought all that
kind of stuff is gonna happen
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but what happened
instead is she started crying
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and she said okay,
talked about her mom
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and her mom's
disassociation and the fact that
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as a child her
mom didn't see her
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and it was just this
incredible healing time
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and we prayed and you know
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we prayed for the
kids and we prayed for her.
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And then I went to
get ready for the day
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because I was
speaking and I've got ready
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and I just felt
like the God said to me,
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Cheri, that's
exactly how your mom was
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for she had
five kids, not three.
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And she couldn't
give you guys anything;
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she didn't have it to give it.
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She didn't have
a lot of support.
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And I remember for
the first time in my life
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just seeing my mom
in a whole different way
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and my heart broke for her.
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I wanted to call
her and say I'm so sorry
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'cause I had no idea
what it must have been like
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to live in that kind
of chaos and just survive.
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And when I did get home,
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I did call my mom and
I say-- you know saying,
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would you please forgive
me because I didn't know.
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My whole life I've
told all these stories,
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all of these abusive.
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It was really sad,
I mean to not be loved
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and not be bonded with my mom,
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all that kind of
stuff was really sad,
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but I never understood
that she didn't have it.
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And she didn't have it to
give and once I understood
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that even my
stories feet different.
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When I asked her to
forgive me and she did you know.
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I-- you know I really believe
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that God showed
me even at one point
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that every time I
needed her from the time
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I was one, two, three years
old every time I needed her
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and ran after
her to get something
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and she couldn't give it to me.
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She felt shame,
anger, depression.
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She would drew
further into herself
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and I didn't know.
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I mean I didn't know
and I just want to say
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some times in your
emotional environment,
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you can stay
with the same stories,
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you can stay with the
same reality of your past
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but as you heal,
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you are literally
going to start seeing things,
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maybe in a different way
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and your emotional
environment will change.
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And as it
changes, let it change.
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You know it's gonna
change how you view things.
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It's gonna change
how you tell stories.
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It's gonna change the compassion
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you have for the people
that even have wounded you
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because that's
what healing is about.
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And so we gonna
talk about environment.
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I want to introduce to
you to someone that came in
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and in a business
sense completely changed
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our environment at
True Step Ministries
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and he now is an
executive director of operations
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and he's an incredible guy.
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And it was really
funny when someone said man,
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you should, you
should look at hiring Bob.
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I know that you need
someone and when they said
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that, I think we had
about 20 bucks in the bank
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so, if you have any
money please send it to us.
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But anyways we just
didn't have any money
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and I'm thinking
how do you hire someone
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when you don't have any money
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but I was walking
down the hallway of church
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and I looked up and I saw Bob.
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And I said, hey Bob,
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you know someone
said you should hire me.
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Well, Bob was out of work.
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He's like well, you
know, let me pray about it.
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You know, and so you know
we did hire him and he came in
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and really
changed our environment
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at True Step Ministries.
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And I want to bring him
back on the next segment
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to introduce him to you.
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Let you see how he did
that and then hear his journey
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because it's incredible.
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We'll be right
back, stay with us.
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