 to be the light and to bring out the God colors in the world. Your life and your story brings light. And we are so honored to be with you today on Hope Today. I'm Amy Schaefer. I'm here with Sydney and with Corey. Corey, we're gonna hear about your God story today. I can't wait. Yeah, it's gonna be exciting to really have the opportunity to share my story and details about my story and about my life so that you can get to know my family and me better. So it's gonna be exciting things I'm happy to share and to let people in on some things that you may not know, things that you might have thought from television, but it'll be a great opportunity to share. So I'm excited to talk to you all. Well, we're excited for you to like open up and share because I know all of you when we're able to share our stories, our testimonies, things that we've walked and we've gone through that it gives you hope to know that God is going to be on the other side. Well, you know, if you've been watching Hope Today long enough, you know, we love rainbows. When rainbows appear and many of you maybe haven't heard about this, but did you know there was a double rainbow that appeared over nine on New York City on 9-11? Look at that. Isn't that absolutely incredible? It's incredible. Like look at that God side in the sky. And I was actually on TikTok last night. You know, it was amazing. I just started when I was like scrolling through people to start talking about this double rainbow in New York City and this one girl, Corrie, named me that she was like, I didn't believe in God, but when I saw that I started believing. How incredible is that? And we know that God, when he shows the rainbows all about his covenant. It's all about his covenant and God's promise not to destroy the world again. God's promise, it is God's. He owns it. So for him to display that so purposefully on 9-11, I just believe it did draw all men back to him and to know that there is a God in heaven, that there is life and there are promises of God and we do have a covenant with him. And it gives that essence that God has not forgotten about me. It's that I know the grieving that you're experiencing and that there's so many citizens of New York who are still dealing with that. These are their family members, moms, aunts, uncles, fathers who were lost in 9-11 and to know that God's saying, I see you, I'm with you and I'm covering this city. That must have gave so many people so much hope. So if you're watching and you experienced that yourself, God just know that like God is for you, He is with you and He has not forgotten about you at all. And you know, Kori, I think it is not just a sign for New York, but like you're saying, it's just for all of us. So take that rainbow, I feel like it's a sign over the nation of what God is saying over this country, God is saying over America, God is saying over our family. So I think it is important today when we see those things, it's like, oh, not to dismiss it, but to know that God really does see us, He really does hear us and maybe today that you need some encouragement, just know that we always have our prayer line that is available at 888-665-4483 and we have wonderful prayer partners that are standing by that wanna pray with you and uplift you so no matter if you are here in the Pittsburgh area, if you're watching in Alabama or Florida or wherever, we are always here from you. Well, without further ado, we do wanna get to our dear friend Kori's story. So Kori, take us to your journey, tell us about your God story. Oh my goodness, get to talk about this story. Well, you know, first and foremost, one thing I do wanna say is that I don't want anybody by any means to feel that I have arrived or that I have reached the destination I'm here talking to you and I have made it. No, my story is being written as it's going. God is currently doing things in my life right now. I'm talking about things that I dealt with as a child, things that I didn't understand why God was doing what He was doing. I grew up as a pastor's kid short for PK, well, the other way around, PK, pastor's kid and most people say, oh, you're a pastor's kid. That means like you got in a lot of trouble. And in many senses, I did, but for me, I began to hide as a child a lot because when you have parents who are really big in ministry and they're doing a lot of those things, you don't wanna make their name look bad. Like you don't want to do things that puts them on the front street because I don't know what it is about church culture, but soon as people in the church or in any area of ministry get caught up in something, it's like people are quick to be like, hey, you're supposed to be this and you're doing this and I heard. So I hid a lot as a child and I would go up in my room and I'd play with my toys all the time. I mean, army men, cars, everything. And that was the beginning of my stages of storytelling. I had no idea that God was teaching me as a kid while I play with my toys, how to do scenes and movies and theater. I had no idea. That's why childhood is so important because who you are as a child, you'll see shadows of those and levels and layers of that in adulthood. And those are things that God is doing in my life right now about being someone who doesn't feel like I have the opportunity to be vulnerable. I'm an introvert. I don't know about you all, but I'm an introvert. I mean, it's funny. He's like, how's an introvert work on TV? I would say I'm an ambervert. That's the mixture between introvert and extrovert. But the introvert aspect was that I would internalize things in my life, whether it was a situation at school or there would be times there'd be a girl I liked and the way I would deal with that was get the McDonald's toys that had the little girl doll and I would be the best action figure and I would beat up the guy that liked her. I just internalized my issues a lot, but as I got older in my life, I did not know how to express those emotions and those feelings. I got inducted into ministry at age 15. I was very, very young. My parents saw the gift of God in my life, the ability to communicate and they put me into ministry and although that was very honorable, it made me hide even more because there were issues I was dealing with as a teenager and I didn't feel like I had the opportunity to express them because how does the prayer pray for others that like who prays for others get prayer? I didn't know how to get into the prayer line without being judged. So I would pray for others, but I would go home and ask God to take and deal with my issues privately. And so what that did was, and this is something that people are gonna be very shocked about, it taught me how to lie in plain sight. I got really good at being, hey brother Corey how you doing? Oh I'm doing well, God is just doing some things in my life and I got really good at that script but then I would be wrestling with depression in my teenage years. I would be wrestling with secret sin in my teenage years and so I continued to go through life with two areas of battle that I was facing. One was God I wanna please you, I want you to be pleased with my life, I wanna be used by you. And the other part was God I have these dark struggles, these situations, these systems that I have built in my hiding place that don't give you glory. And those were always at war but yet my public ministry was increasing but my private misery was increasing as well. So I dealt with a lot of conflicting emotions throughout my life. So I was a writer and that's why I wrote The Production Hell, Way to Heaven, which is a production that focuses on eternity, heaven and hell. And a lot of the scenes and the stories were my life and that was the way that I helped people, I would recycle some of that struggle that I couldn't talk about and I would put it in my work and people would cry and I'm like, man, that's me, that's my real story, that's the stuff I couldn't tell people. And so God has been using me, he's been working in my life, he's been getting some things out, trying to put some things in but I made a lot of bad decisions. As you all, as I said before, being a child that didn't feel I can express myself with the greatest sense of vulnerability, I was in ministry at 15, I dealt with a lot of things without therapy and with that I made a lot of bad relational decisions. I felt, hey, let me get into marriage, marriage is gonna fix everything. I think there's a lot of believers that think that, that if I have a problem, let me go marry it away or let me go date it away. And when you do that, you actually make it worse because marriage is a mirror. Marriage shows you who you are because that partner that you choose is gonna see all of the parts of you that we can just mask around people and when we're at work and we're out in public but they're seeing who you really are, which can make you wanna hide even more. So I made a lot of bad decisions and I lost that marriage. And then so on top of that being in ministry, going through a divorce, you have that level of shame and shame is such a driving factor that make people hide even more. I stopped feeling like I had the right to speak. How can he say anything? I mean, look at his life. We heard, we heard and that's what people do. They say, I heard about you, I know about you and you'll deal with that, you'll carry that. So I literally wanted to have a Moses experience where I run away and say, God, I don't wanna deal with anybody anymore. I just wanna be quiet, I just wanna have my little life. What was I doing? Trying to go find my toys again. Trying to go hide again in my life. And you'd be surprised how many men, how many men are in their 30s and 40s and 50s still hiding and trying to play with their toys. You know, he's like wonder, hey man, this older guy got this nice car, he's always in the garage but he never talks about real issues. He doesn't know how. He might've never had the opportunity to communicate his heart. So for me, I was in ministry but I didn't know who I could talk to. I didn't know who I could express to who wouldn't try to kill me if I told them, hey, I'm really dealing with feelings of depression or suicidal thoughts, what do I do? I have to preach. But yet I'm depressed. How do I help the people that I'm trying to lead? And this is why I am a huge advocate on therapy. I'm a huge advocate on prayer partners. I'm a huge advocate on accountability people. I'm a huge advocate on confidants. Not just people who are comrades, I think we have a lot of those in ministry, where a comrade comes along because we have this similar enemy. So we come along, we're fighting the devil together. But confidants are the people that know some of the deepest secrets about you but won't destroy you. They will cover you, they will pray for you, confess your faults one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed. They allow you to ventilate your heart. And I met some brothers and some people along my journey that covered me and protected me. Not in a sense to say, hey, I'm gonna cover you so you can do the dirt that you need to do. But covered me in a sense to say, it's the enemy who's trying to uproot what God has put inside of you. And that's what he wants to do through shame is to silence us so we never feel like there's another day of redemption. But the thing about God is he will never stop calling us. That's the thing. I used to wrestle with God all through my story. I would say, God, you know the things that I've done. You know my proclivities to mess up. Why do you keep calling me? Why do you keep, you know, it's like you see somebody who calls you over and over, you keep screening it, keep screening it. Like you keep calling, stop calling me. But he will never un-call us. He knows who we are. He knows the name that he has given us. And he will never un-call us but he will continually say, you are my son. You are my daughter. You are my child. You are my beloved. I love you. I'm calling you the royalty that you are. And just like whether it's a dog or your child or whatever the case is, they don't know their name but we know the name we give to them. So my son's name is legend. My daughter's name is wisdom. If I continue to say, hey, legend, legend, legend in his direction, sooner or later he goes, that must be my name. I'm legend. I'm wisdom. So God will say, you're beautiful. You're beautiful. You're beautiful. And you may feel like I'm so ugly. I'm so unusable, Lord. Just let me go stand off to the side. I'm not one of those good people. I'm not fasting and praying and in my word every day but God's saying beautiful, called, peculiar people. He keeps calling you until you start saying, you must be talking to me. I must be beautiful. I must be peculiar because every time I get around you you're calling me the opposite of what I feel about myself. So where God is healing me currently in my life and I've been remarried to my beautiful wife, Faith. It's so cool. Her name is Faith. My son's name is legend. My daughter's name is wisdom. And she's a big part of that. When she said that we can name the child legend, it was her idea to actually name him legend. I was like, as a guy I'm like, are you serious? I get to name my son that? I was so excited. I'm so excited. I love it. He's beautiful and what's really wild is I watch him play with his toys and he plays with them just like me. And we were outside just yesterday and he's like intricately in the story and there was two realities that happened. One, there's me playing with my toys like how I did but the other part is, is he gonna be that hider like I was? And so I spend extra time with my son to make sure that he can feel vulnerable to express things that are happening in his life. So what God is doing in my life right now is that internal dialogue that I've always had to say you're not enough and you failed, you messed up, you've crashed, you've made mistakes, that internal dialogue is being challenged by the word of God. And I have to continually, even out loud, audibly begin to say the goodness of God in my life. I can't just let it rest in my mind because I think one of the things about shame is shame does connect with the level of truth in your life. You did do it, right? You did mess up some things. And so the shame goes, you know what? The evidence is there, I messed up. Therefore, I'm going to pronounce a declaration over my own life. But what God is saying is that despite what you did, I only see my blood. And that was what I did not understand about the sacrifice of Jesus. I did not understand that when we walk in his righteousness, we are cloaked in his covering. God's like, I don't see that. I see my son's sacrifice over your life. So when he says I throw it into the sea and forgetfulness, he literally is saying, what are you talking about? Why are you leading from something that I forgot about? So I've had to learn to say, God, if you've called me, you're not a fool. You're not mistaken. God makes no mistakes. You know who you are. You know who I am. And you also are aware that the only reason why I may feel the shame that I feel is because the enemy knows the glory that's in our mouths and in our lives. And so the key importance that I've learned is spending time with God. Because there's been times I've dealt with imposter syndrome. If you are familiar with imposter syndrome, that is a paralyzing emotional experience where you feel like I'm not the one, I'm not supposed to be here. This is somebody else's life. This is somebody else's family. This is somebody else's money. I'm not supposed to be here. I don't deserve all of that. The presence of God gives us a fullness and an assurance and a safety to know I'm right where I'm supposed to be. I'm right who I am supposed to be. And I can find safety in that. So now where I am in my life is I'm at a place where I don't do ministry too much. I've been asked to come and speak here and there. But right now it's the ministry of home for me. God is finally able to get things into me because I'm not so busy doing things for everyone else. It's a season where I felt guilty about because I was always out preaching. I was always out doing things. But now I actually get to let God minister to me. I'll go into some ministries and I'll sit in with my family and I'll be able to just get fed, take notes. And no one's going, hey, it's the man of God. You know what I mean? I can actually enjoy the presence of God. And so he's writing that story. There's so much more that's in me from productions and from movies. I'm very big in film now. I do a lot of film. I do a lot of photography. But I think it's all putting things together for what God wants to do. But ultimately, he wants his character and his principles to be the highest thing in my life. He doesn't want just performance. I grew up performing. I grew up feeling like, God, to earn your love, I have to perform for you. So let me get on a mic so I can perform for you. Let me help your people so I can earn your love. And that was the furthest from the truth. And just a note to anybody who's trying to do ministry or pursuing ministry and thinking that that is the highest endeavor of God's affirmation, that is wrong. That is wrong. And I see a lot of people do that. I see a lot of people thinking, man, I gave my life to the Lord. I gotta do something for him. Do it because you love him genuinely and authentically. Don't do it to try to buy back something. You know what I'm saying? People do that. I need to do this because I owe you. We will never be able to pay the payment that God gave, that he paid for our life. We will never be able to do that. And I used to do that because I did not understand grace and what that really meant. I did not understand it. I thought that grace was, man, I'm out of money. Can you lend me $20? All right, I'ma lend you this $20, but next time you better have it. That's what I thought grace was, that God got me covered a couple times, but now, son, it's on you. No, grace is the power and the unmerited favor of God that allows us to even do anything, to even speak right now. It's God's grace. It's his power. And when I see grace that way, I'm understanding that there is nothing we can do outside of God's presence. And there's nothing we should wanna do outside of God's presence. So now in my life, at this point in my story, with my family, my two kids, my wife, business, and everything that God is doing, I give all glory to him that he's continually being in that story. I will make more mistakes, hopefully not the mistakes I've made before. I wanna continually learn, but I'm grateful that God has given his time, his patience, and his love to me so that I'm here with you all right now. So that's the story. Glory, that's such a rich story. Was there like an awakening, so to speak, somewhere in your young adult age? It seemed like something significant happened before you met faith. And what did that look like? I realized I wasn't perfect. See, when you're young and you're going through things and you're not making really bad, sinful decisions, you get this arrogance that, oh man, God's using me. You know what I mean? And then I started falling into my own personal sins in high school and then in college it was horrible. So now it was like, oh my goodness, I need the same God that I preached to people. So that's when the humility started and that's when the awakening said like, you know God, I need you. Forget about what I'm telling everybody else. I need you for myself. That was rude to me. You know, it just says you're just saying that Corey of just like how I think a lot of people can relate exactly where you are. Can you just take a moment to pray for that person that's like, I can relate to you man, I've been there, I know what it feels like to fail and to feel like the world is crumbling in, but I just need you Jesus. Can you just take a moment? Father, I thank you for this individual that's listening right now, God. Let transparency be the doorway to healing, to know God, that you don't want us just because of what we can do for you, God. You want us, period, that's it. We are your children. Help us to get away from the facade that we feel like we have to earn something, God. That is a mentality of sacrificing bulls and goats in the Old Testament to try to get in front of your presence, God. But when you died, you ripped the veil, meaning you gave us access to your presence. All people now have a direct hit of the Holy Spirit. We can access you just by praying and coming together. So God, right now, God, we access you and we say, Father, endow us with your love, endow us with levels of affirmation like never before, that we won't need what the world gives and we won't need what we've done in our life as accomplishments to give us affirmation, but our affirmation would come just from your presence alone. We need a dad hug, we need a God-sized hug to feel those voice in our life. We thank you, we know that through this experience and through this story, God, that people will come closer to you like never before, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Cory, for your transparency and everything you shared. I know it was like, it was so touching and impactful and we know that you were touched and blessed by that and be sure to call us if that is you, that you really need to know today that you are affirmed and that you are loved by God. When we come back, we will continue our 21 days of prayer and a time of ministry for you. We're gonna talk about going from the dark to light, we'll be right back. Every now and then, life gets the best of us and we need a reminder to keep calm and trust God. Simple but striking, the keep calm and trust God box of blessings provides messages of reassurance to help carry you through tough and challenging times. These small cards fit into the palm of your hand and will turn your focus to the one who is in control of everything. Inside, you'll find 51 colorful double-sided cards featuring a combination of inspirational scripture verses and faith-based quotes. Add it to a get well basket or use it to encourage a teacher, family member or friend or save it for the time you need encouragement. Be sure to ask for the keep calm and trust God box of blessings when you give today. It's our way of saying thanks as you encourage others by providing life-changing Christian television through Cornerstone TV. Call us at 888-665-4483 or give at ctvn.org slash donate. Welcome back to Hope Today. We are on our 21 day prayer journey and today it is day 16 and the focus of today is courage to be light in the darkness. And we first wanna just say thank you to the hundreds of you that have been along with us on this journey. It is so powerful when we're able to gather together to specifically focus on God and we are so grateful for each and every one of you that has joined us. And you know there's still time to get in on the 21 days of prayer so you can always go to ctvn.org slash journey that's ctvn.org slash journey. And today our scripture comes from Joshua 1.9 and you're probably very, very familiar with it but we're gonna hone in and focus it on it today. It says this, have I not commanded you? This is God, be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Amy, what are your thoughts on that? No, those are like, those are some strong words. Do not be afraid. I have commanded you. Do not be fearful, be courageous. Like this is the time for you. Maybe like Corey was saying, you're an introvert and you just struggle and you just wanna hide and you just wanna back away but I'm just saying that the spirit of God is in you. He will help you. He will give you courage. He will give you that boldness to go out. Like we're a city set on a hill, we're light bearers and the light bearers cannot just keep it to themselves. So I just prayed today that, man if I could come in there and just like grab your hand and say, let's go. Let's go into the world. Let's step out of the box. Let's step out of our comfort zone. Let's step out of faith. I mean, do you know what it's like as a guy or a girl to sit here and just share vulnerably your story and your struggles and what you've gone through? I just pray that our step of faith as we each share our story will inspire you to maybe just step out and you're sitting at Panera. You got your favorite soup and salad or whatever and you just maybe tell somebody your story sitting next to you. I mean, just take that one step. Corey, you never know who you're gonna reach when you just step out in that boldness. People need our stories. They need it so bad. When we were talking about that scripture, don't be afraid. I like to go deeper and say, what is the fear? What is the real fear? Is it the rejection that when you go forth people are gonna say, you don't know anything about God? What is the fear? Is it the fear of your life? When we really submerge into God, he gives us a confidence that says, you can do this. You can do all things. You can do anything through Christ Jesus. And that is the real focus. It's not just building self-help and saying, come on, Corey, come on, you can do this. And coaching yourself. It is God, you can do this through me. And I want you to be present in there. So that is really what transforms that darkness into light through that transparency and knowing that without God, we can do nothing. You know, Corey, as you were speaking, I just hear the Lord saying, He wants to take the muzzle off of your mouth because for so many of us, it's like because of the trauma, because of things that we walked in, it's like the enemy just keeps you crippled, keeps you silent. You don't want to say anything. But this is a season of time that we just declared a decree over you today to take the muzzle off of your mouth. God has given you a mouth to be a mouthpiece. God wants you to be a witness. It doesn't, you don't have, just like what I love what Corey was saying. It's not about, I think a lot of people do have this desire. I want to be in the pulpit. I want to have this ministry. Do you know that the thing is that you need to just seek and know your calling and what God is calling you to do in your sphere of influence? Maybe you're a teacher. Maybe it's in your family. Wherever you may, like God has called you, be that voice in the midst of the darkness. The world is waiting. They're not flooding and coming to the churches like they used to because God, I really believe in the season. He's like, I'm sending you out to be a witness, to be at that Panera bread, to be on the streets of Pittsburgh, to be wherever God is calling you to be in that grocery store. Maybe go to Walmart, go to a giant eagle, go to a place where people need Jesus, y'all. People are hurting, people are dying, spiritually dying. But we just want to keep it all to ourselves and we don't want to declare the goodness of the Lord and what he's done for us. Shame on us. And I just truly believe as we see all the signs that are happening right now, we see what's going on in Libya, we see what's happening in Egypt, we see what's going on all over the world. We don't know when Jesus is coming. Things are warming up, things are happening. It's getting serious, it's getting real. And God is calling on us in this generation and in this season, it doesn't matter your background, it doesn't matter what you've been through. Take the muzzle off of your mouth and go and declare the goodness of the Lord and tell somebody who needs to know. There's too many people right now with suicidal thoughts. There's too many people that are on their deathbeds and they just don't know where they're going, this is real. Do we believe this is the greatest news ever told? Do we believe the power of what Jesus did for us when he died and he rose again, that the blood works? That's where God is calling us to in this season. And we just want to encourage you today to be that light in the midst of the darkness because it's gonna get darker, it's not gonna get better y'all and we just have to accept it but we know that we are called as the ecclesia, as ambassadors of Christ to be there and to love people like never before. Amy, quick thoughts. So we pray for you in Jesus' name, boldness. Go out, step out in faith. The world is waiting for the manifestation of the sons and the daughters of God. You're it, you're the light and we'll see you tomorrow on Hope Today.