 Welcome to Hope Today. Today is a day for you to receive hope, for you to receive the love of God. We're so glad you joined us here on the program. I'm Tom, I'm here with Angela and Sidney. Sidney, tell me about hope that people can expect today. Well, today, you know, we're gonna talk about a very serious topic that is, you know, a buzzword right now in our culture, in our community, and even needs to be expressed in the church. You know, you may not realize it, but we all experience some level of childhood trauma and sometimes it's crippling. And coming up on Hope Today, we're gonna talk to counselor, pastor and author, J. Otis Ledbetter, about how to come out of it. We're gonna discuss the symptoms of trauma, how to move past coping, so you can start to flourish. You know, Angela, this is such an important conversation that it's important for us to get to the root of it so that we can walk and be healed and have that journey of freedom that God desires for our lives. Yeah, it is. It's a process. You know, our entire journey together in this, through our trauma, is a process, but there is hope for us today in the process. That's right. Well, it's good that the program's called Hope Today, then, and we're so glad you joined us. I just wanna, we love when you write in, we love when you let us know that the program is hitting home and making a difference in your life. And I have to read this, this is from Nancy. She mentions that she loves watching Move Your Mountain, which is another program that we have on Cornerstone. They take communion there. She really enjoys that. And she said this, I just love the new faces on Hope Today. CTVN has grown so much in the past 43 years. I am so grateful and asked for prayer for her family, but she loves new faces. Here's a new face right here, Angela. And, you know, I just wanna take that opportunity to let you know that if you wanna know more about our ministry, and I'm sure you do, you can get our Hope Today newsletter. This is free of charge. You can just call the number on your screen and they will, you know, sign you up for this. And there's some great stuff in here. We've always got an article. There's highlights, the whole schedule's in here. And there is an article with Angela and her family. There it is, you know, a great article about it. There's Angela, you are preaching intense up there. Look at you. Look at you, look like you're gonna get somebody or something. You know what, and there's a great picture of her family there too. I don't know if you can show that Larry. There it is, look at that. What a wonderful family. That's great. And just there's an update on our dear friend, Tom McGuff, formerly one of the hosts here. And also, if we go to the back, there is a wonderful recipe from Dashing Dish. And so it is an important thing. It's something that has a lot for you. And I would encourage you to call and sign up. You know, we're just so glad that you are tuned in to us today on Hope Today. And Angela does such a joy to have you part of the team. And you know, one thing we love about doing here on Hope Today is we love creating a space to talk about conversations that are so needed right now in the body of Christ. You know, so many people are hurting. We know with the pandemic that there was so much pain that came out of it, so many things that came up to the surface. And so we just love to take these moments for you to talk and to speak to your spirit, to help you process things that you've walking through and you're going through. And as always, you know, we always have our prayer line that is open and available at 888-665-4483. Well, do you suspect you're still struggling and suffering from the effects of childhood trauma sometimes, no matter how large or small, and it's holding you back? Well, there's hope. Pastor, counselor, and author J. Otis Ledbetter proves that God definitely has this single out for you. He's written the book set free, released from the damage of trauma to provide solid biblical examples and practical tips on how to cope. Otis, we are so glad that you're joining us today. That's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Well, Otis, I know trauma is a big buzzword right now that a lot of people are talking about, you know, in the world, mainstream culture, and even in the body of Christ. But before we dig in into the practical tips, can you define what trauma is that laid the groundwork for our conversation today? Thank you, Sidney, because that's exactly what we have to do. What is trauma? Trauma, everybody in our life that I've ever met in their life has been wrongly accused, has been unfairly treated. And for some of us, those barbed memories have caused the swilling of resentment in our hearts. We've gone through events that have caused us to know not how, we don't know how to react. The trauma from it is so overwhelming, we don't know how to react. Everybody's been through those, but trauma is not an event. And if we can come to the point where we understand what trauma is, then we can get through it and we can get healed from it, get hold from it, and begin to move on. But trauma is actually the chronic reaction to that event. That's why three people can go through the same event and only one experienced trauma. And so where we are today is we live in a world where the leaders are going from room to room, turning out the lights. And the spiritual darkness hanging over this nation is creating a fearful anxious and uncertain climate. And because of that, people are on a daily basis living down the road. It's like counselors say, you have one traumatic event here and you don't get over that, another one will come later in your life, you don't get over that, another one will come. And as a counselor, you have to move back into those what we call emotional flashpoints and you have to deal with them one-on-one. And yet those people are dealing with them, all of them at the same time and they don't know how to get out of it. And so what I like to say is with our heart swollen with the poison of Euro-resentment, we've kind of refused to let Christ pull the thorns. We're kind of like small children who cry about our pain to anybody who'll listen to us, but we will not allow anybody to touch the solar. And we've chosen to respond to that traumatic event horizontally rather than vertically. And our focus is strictly on ourselves and the wrong that's done against us. And if we keep our mind that way, we will never move any further than the traumatic event and we will experience trauma in our life ongoing. Odyssey, I just love how you're unpacking and helping, setting the groundwork of what trauma is because we hear it so often and what it is and we may think that we have trauma but not truly understand the deep nature of it. And I like what you said is like a lot of us are dealing with it horizontally but not vertically. So can we talk for a moment, what does it look like to vertically be dealing with your trauma and what are some of the symptoms of trauma, because some of them might be watching, be like, I don't even know if I'm really walking through this, but how are some of those symptoms of knowing like, there's something going on here. My body is trying to speak to me what's happening. Well, I chose the five most likely. Excuse me, five most likely things that will show up and what will show up is fear. Now I think that's the first thing and to live with a fear is, well, it's almost unbearable. And the fear when you can't get over that, the next thing you're gonna experience is anxiety and the anxiety then leads to something that makes everybody leave you and that's mood swings. You'll have sometimes small, sometimes violent mood swings. People don't know what to expect when they come near you. The fear, the anxiety and the mood swings which will cause you to isolate. Isolate is the ultimate, if you're out there and you are feeling right now, I need to get away from everybody, I just need to be on my own, don't go there because isolation causes hopelessness which causes desperation. And when you get through isolation, hopelessness and desperation, the other end of it, Elijah tells us the other end of it is suicide. Elijah said when he isolated himself, you know, I'm no better than my ancestors. So God just take my life. He got under the broom tree, he was ready to die. And the beautiful thing is, oh, let me take one more step. After isolation, you'll go to lying, you'll live lies. And Alexander Sotzenitsyn coined the phrase, live by lies, don't live by lies. That is so true. The apostle Peter, that's exactly what he did when he saw the first, well, the man he knew was Messiah. And he put his faith in him and he saw him walking away with the enemy. That traumatic event, he pulled his sword, he swung his sword, didn't get the head, didn't get the high priest, got the servant's high priest ear. And then when he was by himself, everybody else ran away, he lied. He was with the enemy and we lie to create a safe place. We've got to have a place where we can be, where we're not touched. And the average team today, when they're faced with living by lies and isolation, the only way they know to overcome it is through a chemical means, isolate yourself so you can get out of the reach of the hateful, because there's a lot of hate in this world right now. And then that team, when they can't do that, they'll live by a lie. And what are we seeing? That's what we're seeing today, trying to be what you're really not. Greatest safe place around themselves, fear, anxiety, mood swings, isolation, hopelessness, desperation, then just all comes in. And that's why we're seeing the amount of suicide we're seeing. You know, Odessa, this says you're explaining about sort of what the root of our trauma is and what we're walking through and going through and how these lies are created. One thing, can you break down, you talk about it, you touch about it in your book, is that there's overt and the subtle trauma that creates those lies, that creates those isolation that manifests into these unhealthy patterns, these toxic patterns in our lives. Yeah, I think most of us on the whole are we've experienced a subtle trauma, maybe even the trauma of the unknown. And when you hear somebody begin to talk about the I can'ts, I can't because, I can't go there because, I can't trust the Lord because, I can't do service because, the I can'ts are an indication that that person has subtle trauma because that's the next thing, I can'ts get you away from everybody else. And that's the trauma of the unknowns. And I kind of like in the book, I kind of try to pull that where everybody can understand it. When I was seven year old, my buddy and I went through a haunted house. The first time we ever went through a haunted house. And the excitement of going through it was a traumatic thing alone because we had heard all kinds of stories about how you're gonna get zombies and ghosts and all of that sort of thing are in there. And when we got through it, we realized on the other end that there were no zombies. Those were people we knew that were dressed up like zombies. There were no ghost, ghoulish ghost. And the blood that they saw was chocolate syrup. It wasn't real. So the next time we went through a haunted house, we were prepared for it. But that was sort of a subtle thing that got us prepared for the next time. Or I think a better illustration is like the old cartographers when they thought the world was flat that the explorers who were gonna leave, they didn't know if they were gonna go off the end of the earth or not. So areas that were unexplored, the cartographers who would ride on the maps, here be dragons, here be fiery serpents. And yet there were some explorers that would go into the unknown. They would explore anyway. And when they got there, they found out there were no dragons. They found out there were no fiery serpents. They did find out there were a lot of problems and it was really difficult to go where they were going. And so what happens with the overt trauma and the subtle trauma, the subtle trauma is sort of in the unknowns. When we don't know what's gonna happen, if we go that direction, that really creates its own trauma. And then the overt trauma is things like physical harm, an abusive dad, an abusive spouse, rape, all of those horrible things that happened. Most of us aren't there. Most of us are in the subtle trauma, but the reaction is close to the same. It is an ongoing chronic reaction, whether it's subtle or overt trauma. Chronic reaction that keeps us from reaching our full potential or what God really wants us to be. And the whole idea of the book is to look at the characters in the Bible that Jesus dealt with and see that it can be overcome. Mary and Martha went from fear to faith. Job. Anxiety to assurance. And so when I was teaching about this with my congregation, that was the comfort. Somebody's already been there. They've already got through it. They've already been healed. So why can't I? You know, Otis, it's like talking about, I love that the Bible does point us to that other people in the Bible that they walked through trauma. They dealt with trauma. So what are some tips or what are some practical things that we can glean from the Bible, from the Word of God, to help us when it comes to walking through trauma? Because it truly is a process. It's a lifelong thing. I'm one of those, I'm in the overt category and experience certain things. So it does when it gets deep down and just really, it's important to have the spiritual aspect when it comes to our healing and our journey when dealing with trauma. Yes, and let me say, before I get to that, what you said is it's important to have the spiritual effect. When I was writing this book and I was doing the research and the due diligence on it, I talked to many educators. And because I'm with parenting partners and we're running those circles, they were good to talk with me about it. And Sidney, did you know every one of those educators when talking about trauma informed only would talk about the social and the emotional, the social and the emotional damage that was done. And after a little while, I heard the social emotional, social emotional. And I said to one of them, I said, well, it's a three-legged stool. There's another leg on that stool. You're sitting on the two-legged stool. And you know what they said to me? They said, yeah, it's government. I said, no, it's not government. It's spiritual. It's social, emotional and spiritual. And if you leave the spiritual out, then you're leaving out one of the most critical steps that a person can ever come because we're spiritual beings. And it doesn't really take a brain surgeon to figure that out. There is an afterlife. We know this is not all there is. God's put eternity in our hearts. We know this is just the staging for that eternity. And because they only talk about the emotional and the social, they're not gonna get to the problem. They can't get down to the problem. You have to get to the answer and the answer is spiritual. And so what we have to do, the first thing a person has to do is accept your situation as being from the Lord. That is the number one thing. Accept your situation as being from the Lord. Act on the offense and not the defense. And I go through and I talk about the negative thoughts that flood into our minds and we allow ourselves to live in the negative and the Bible is the opposite of that. Paul said, whatever things are pure, whatever things are noble, whatever things are true, whatever things are a good report. These things, he went to the positive side. And if you're gonna get out of the trauma, you're gonna have to manage those negative emotions, not let them manage you. You manage them and then you move positivity in because, and you need to have quality thoughts. Negativity does not bring in quality thoughts. Positivity brings quality thoughts and that's what Paul was trying to do when he wrote that verse in Philippians to bring in quality thoughts. Quality thoughts are positivity's favorite food. And once those are there, you start thinking on there. Your life begins to change immediately because you don't think about the I can'ts anymore. You're thinking about the I can's and this can happen to me. It was like Job when I went through Job. The first three chapters are nothing but trauma. I mean death, destruction, loss, trauma. The next 37 chapters, 27 chapters are him looking for the answers. And you see what he was looking at. He went from anxiety to anguish his three friends. That's what they call it. We've seen Job's anguish and it is deep. And then he went to arguing with God and with his friends. He went to arguing and then he looked for answers and then he got assurance. And so there's a pathway from and out of those emotions that trauma creates. If you want out of anxiety, if you look at Job, he went from anxiety to anguish, didn't resolve right away to arguing, didn't resolve right away and to answers and then to assurance. And so there will be a pathway for everybody who's had a traumatic event happen to them. And particularly for those who are chronically reacting to that traumatic event, there is a pathway. It won't be the same as Job's but it won't be dissimilar either on your way out. I love what you're just explaining, Otis is just the pathway. Cause that is a big thing. It's just like changing the way that we think and we process and we go through it. It will renavigate our life. I know that's been something that's so true in my life. And I know for some that are out there right now that maybe it's just, it's changing our thought patterns but it's so important to have people to help us along the way. And so Otis, can you just speak to that person right now that's still been listening? They're like, I am dealing with these chronic thought patterns. I need help. What would you say to them? What are the steps that they need to take towards our pathway of healing today? Well, first of all, I would say to them, I wish it hadn't happened to you. And I'm sorry that in your life you have experienced that. And if I had a magic wand, if there was some way I could leave it over you and get rid of that, I would do it in heartbeat. And there actually is a magic wand. And it's the cross. It's the cross of Christ. It heals everything. But in it, near the end of the book, I love this part because I love comebacks. I love sports and I love to see somebody who is down and it looks like they're not going to even place. And yet they wind up winning. And I talk about my favorite one is Dave Waddle. And probably there's hardly anybody old enough that's listening today. They remember Dave Waddle in the Olympics. He's the runner that wore the baseball cap. And before they outlawed that, and he was so behind. And yet he won the Olympic gold in that race. When he was so far behind the whole pack, I like comebacks. And I like to think of the guy on the football team who, you know, it's three seconds left. It's 31 to 30. His team's losing. He's the kicker. Okay, he is trusted to make his team win. He goes out for a 40-yard field goal. He kicks it and he misses. Goes to the left. It's over. His team loses. He falls to the turf, grabs his helmet in his hands. And he lives with that for a year. For a year. And he sees it, Sidney, over and over in his mind. And if anybody's ever experienced a trauma, especially one of the overt traumas, they see that over and over in their mind. They relive that like an instant replay. They hope this time there'll be a different outcome. But replay is always the same. It never changes. Don't bet on a replay, that'll change. That ball for that kicker will always go to the left and it will always be outside the gold post. And yet next year, there's another season. He can prove himself. He's got a chance to prove himself. He's got a chance to make a comeback. And at the end of the book, I write a lot of things about making a comeback. And I've seen people come back from trauma. I've seen people be totally healed. If I could, I would have brought one lady today who the overt trauma is incredible. And you could meet her. She was down to leaving her husband and her family and headed to the homeless camp. She didn't feel like there was anything for her. And when she made her comeback, well, today in the church, she's one of the best ministers we have in the church, but make a comeback. And I wrote these things. And if you'll forgive me, I kind of want to take the book here and I want to talk about these comebacks. That the destructive behavior, there is destructive behavior. The destructive behavior is in order to accommodate fear, stay actively panicked. Why won't people get rid of the fear? Why won't people get rid of the anxiety, get rid of it because we're comfortable in it. And I liken that to the children of Israel when they finally got from under the boot heel of the Pharaoh in the Egyptian army and they were free and things didn't go their way. What did they want? They wanted to go back into slavery. Why would they want to go back into slavery? The reason is because it wasn't comfortable. A lot of people say they were comfortable with their pain. No, they weren't comfortable with their pain. They knew the rules back there. They knew how to navigate the pain and they knew how to live with it. And so because this is new to them, the comeback is new. They'll want to go back to that because they know the rules. There are new rules toward the Promised Land and you've got to live those new rules in order to not long for the old rules. You've got to learn how to navigate. So in those comebacks, the destructive behavior says, when you feel anxious, don't fight it, just let it be. No, you don't. The comeback is when you feel anxious, you do whatever you can to make it go away. And there are things you can do. If they tell you, if you lower your breathing to only six breaths a minute, you can't have an anxiety attack. Six breaths, if you find out things like that and you make them go away for destructive behavior says, coddle in decision and embrace mood swings. No, you don't. Wavering is intolerable. You just won't do that. Thank you so much. We are running out of time with everything that you reported to. So this is so good. And we just declared a decree. It is the year of comeback and all that you shared in your wisdom. Thank you so much, Otis, for joining us. And this book is set free, Release from the Damage of Trauma. Thank you, Otis, so much for your heart, your ministry and your wisdom and insight. God bless you. God bless you too. What a great discussion. And, you know, Sydney, one of the things is it should be easier for Christians to be the people that acknowledge these things. A lot of times we're the people that hide them the most, you know, the ones that we feel like we got to be right. Don't we feel like we got to be the religious people and we got to have it all together? Be willing to be open, be willing to acknowledge your pain. You know, I think that it was really important that he pointed out in Job that the, a tenth, basically, of the book of Job is focused on the pain and the anguish he suffered. But the last portion, the majority of it was walking through the process of discovering and resolving that pain. You can only get there if you go vertical. Trust in the Lord and know that there is hope for you today, even in the midst of your pain, your processing and your discovery. And there is another side. There's another side to your trauma. I am living proof of it. I remember having like thoughts and flashbacks and just different things. So if that is you today, just know there's the other side with Christ, with help, with therapy. You can do it. You can live the life that God has always called you to live today. Amen, amen to that. God has that for you. He wants that for you. This is not an intellectual exercise. It's freedom in Christ. You can have that today. Seek God, seek help. God has good things for you. On tomorrow's Hope Today, ever struggle to make sense of the difficult season you're walking in? Speaker and author Joelle Malm helps you see above the struggles in your life and reminds you that God really is working all things together for your good. Don't miss tomorrow's Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.