 The Bible says that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father. And you know, that's a wonderful thing to remember that whatever good and perfect thing you have today, all the good things you have come from God. Welcome to Hope Today. I'm Tom. I'm here with Sidney. I'm here with Amanda. Amanda, tell us what's going on. Oh my goodness. You are gonna wanna stay tuned for this interview today. It's with Carrie Garcia, but she's gonna help us. You know, if you've ever dealt with isolation or maybe comparison of body image, you minimize yourself, addiction, maybe ministry hurt or people pleasing or maybe you're worried about money. There are so many things in life that can hang us up. And Carrie is truly gonna help us walk and be free. So stay tuned for this interview. She has a powerful testimony of how God's brought her through as well. You know, Amanda, I love when we have the opportunity to help you be set free because our desire here on Hope Today, when you're watching from Cornerstone, from wherever you are, like in Pittsburgh, Florida, Alabama, California, Tokyo. I don't know where you're watching from, but our heart and our desire is for you to be whole in Christ. And you know, one thing that is coming up, you know, parents and families are gearing up to head back to school. And this weekend, a church at McKeesport invited us to their community event to help students get ready for the new school here. You can take a look at this video, Life Community Church at McKeesport, held a back to school event this weekend on Saturday. The church has outreach you dozens of families from the community. Every child was able to pick out their own backpack. How awesome is that? The event also provided free haircut you see right there to boys and even men in all the community there. There was also free hot dogs and a prayer tent. And we just want to say a big thank you to Pastor Frank of Life Community Church for inviting us. You know, Tom and Amanda, he said that more than a hundred students were able to get backpacks. So what an incredible thing. Oh, it is. I know a lot of churches do that sort of ministry, but it's just another way God wants us to reach out. He wants, you know, he's given us all these opportunities to reach out and he wants us to reach out in a way that touches some life somewhere with the gospel. You guys, I've got to share it. If you were watching last week, you noticed that I wasn't on the program. And that was because I had myself an interesting time. I fell off my bike or actually fell with my bike down, trying to make a U-turn a little too quick on my bicycle. And which is not that uncommon for me to, you know, maybe take a little tumble here or there, but I knocked myself out. Got a little scar here. Linda covered it up pretty good, but yeah, I was knocked out. So I'm, you know, coming to with EMTs all around me and another biker stopped by to help me out. I don't know who you are, but thank you, sir, for stopping and getting me to a bench. And so, yeah, I took a little time off last week recovering from that. I'm fine, no, no extra, no concussion, no, got a little sore hip and everything, but thank you for your prayers. Wow, Tom made it through. Wow, speaking of all that trauma, let me tell you, we have some trauma, you know, as the body of Christ, I know we've had guests on here before and they're telling us, you know, we're not going on vacation. When you come to Christ, you've been our boot camp. So let's get our armor on and let's be willing to do life. But I praise God that you're well and that you're here with us. And our next guest is a pastor, author and CEO who shares her journey to inspire change in others. Carrie Garcia was once held captive from her own past, but eventually found victory through Jesus. In her newest book, Free and Fully Alive, she shares how you too can find freedom from your past and live the abundant life God wants for you. Carrie, welcome to Hope Today. I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Amen. Well, Carrie, if you would just take a moment and familiarize yourself with our audience and give us a little bit of your own testimony. Yeah, well, first I'm just so excited to be on a show that says Hope Today. Because I think for me growing up and maybe there's a lot of people out there that can relate to this, that oftentimes we think of hope as being something that we're gonna get when we go to heaven or this elusive word that we don't know how to apply to our hearts today. And this was me growing up. I'm Cliff Note version as I'm a pastor's kid and I grew up in the church. But when we would go home, we didn't talk about the secrets that were going on in our home. We didn't talk about my mom's pervasive eating disorder or her severe mental illness that really drove her at about the age of 50 to commit suicide. That feels like a really big story for a lot of people listening and there goes, man, that's a big story. I don't have that. But can you relate to the story of how I felt? Sitting in a home where I didn't understand, does God just want me for performance? Does he just want us when we act good? Where is God in the midst of the heart? And if he has an abundant life for us, what does that look like and why am I not experiencing it? For years I had to numb the pain of that I was holding through addiction, drug addiction. And then really just went into ministry thinking that would be the thing that saved me. And I still found myself just in that behavior modification kind of cycle of false freedom, trying to find external things to heal an internal issue. And it wasn't until I really started getting honest with my story that I found that hope is actually available to us today. Amen. Which you're gonna bring this to the table for us. What we love to do is to bring your book to life for our audience. And I know the drawing that you have in here is this bridge. And I think of a bridge like Jesus, bridging that gap that we had that separated us from God. But you call it connection, parentheses, grief. Talk to us about this bridge and a little bit about the process that we all have to go through. Yeah, that's such a great question. To break it down really simply and quickly, there are stories in our lives that have shaped us. There's a God that formed you, but there's a world that shaped you. And those places of shaping have marked you. They've taught you things that have moved you away from God's goodness for you. And when we don't know how to handle those stories, we kind of lock them up inside us, forgetting that they're there. And the problem is, is that we move into cycles of false freedom, trying to find or do things that will help us mitigate the harm or the hurt that we feel. What we see in scripture though, is that there is a bridge that we don't have to fall into the pit of behavior modification, that God is a God of heart transformation. And he does that actually through drumroll, grief. I know we hate that. We just wish when we could just skip over and go to redemption and it would be wonderful. But what we've seen in scripture is that when we bring the honest places of our heart, connecting to ourself, what's really growing on. And we bring that before the Lord, not just giving it to him, but really inviting him into the grief. When we are able to do that, and we can connect with others through our grief, having someone hold our story. It's in those places that we thought we just wanted to forget about and leave behind, but are still playing themselves out in our everyday lives. When we can grieve that, and that's held in a way that's honorable and kind, we actually see our hearts begin to heal. Kerry, I love about getting honest with our story. You've used the term false freedoms a couple of times now and behavior modification. Could you explain to us, what are those false freedoms? What are examples of those that we use to try to get over things, but they're not really getting us to the place we need to be? Yeah, I mean, there's obvious ones, right? The ones that we would deem as bad. There's addictions and different things that kind of keep us from God. But what about the subtle ones? I put ministry in my book because for many years I used ministry as a behavior modification. If I could just serve God, if I could just be seen as, if I could give a good message, then maybe my heart where it's felt the most broken would heal. Behavior modifications are basically anything that keeps us away from God really entering into the honest places of our hearts. That can look like people pleasing or climbing the success ladder or ministry. Those things aren't bad, but when they're used as a way to keep us from the stories that have harmed us or the hurt that we feel, they actually become bondage and they become idols in our life. And that's what I mean by those behavior modifications rather than true heart transformation. Wow. So one of the questions I loved because it has the word lament and I think that this is something that right now God is speaking. A now word to all of us is about this lamentation. Why do we need to lament our place of wounding? Well, let's look at Paul. When Paul speaks, he writes this letter to a group of people that aren't doing really good, right? And he writes this letter and he gets information back and it's like they are so grieved of what he's said. And he's like, look, I'm sorry I've grieved you but I'm not like sorry, not sorry. And I'm not sorry because the grief you were sitting in without Jesus and honesty was moving you towards death. But the grief that I'm inviting you into is actually moving you towards hope. And this is what I mean when I think when the scripture says lament, when he's talking about grief, he's not actually talking about despair. That's the absence of God in your lament. But when we bring God into our grief, that is where hope rises out of the dirt, out of the tears, out of the valley like places. And when we avoid that, we actually aren't sitting in any kind of hope. It's just despair. And I don't think that the church is actually teaching grief very well. It's a beautiful gift that not only Jesus modeled, but it's given to us to actually bring us closer and intimacy with our Savior. Amen. You talk of this experience. I just love your transparency in your book as well. And it deals with envy, but you were like in the seventh grade. And I think this is something basic, but I think it's something that every person, if you've got skin, a flesh body, you've dealt with this. So bring this down for us. Yeah, I mean, envy is our great disconnector, but it's not something that we really talk about. And when we do, we use it in words like comparison, we're always gonna compare. And there's actually good things about comparison. Paul says, follow me, do what I do, and you're going to learn how to be like Jesus. But that the comparison that turns to envy, it roots in the places of a disconnected and discontented heart. We see this with Cain and Abel. It wasn't that the offering wasn't good. It was that the state of his heart was not honest. And he says, Jesus says to Cain and Abel, to be careful and that the enemy is crouching at the door of your heart. And so when I talk about envy, this is a heart issue where places that you desired, goodness that you wanted has been assaulted, it's been attacked, and it's moved you from places of good desire into counterfeit or tipped into envy. And this is the place we have to get honest about, not for condemnation, but for invitation. God, would you come into the place of my heart rather than letting the enemy crouch and assault and attack? And that is the postured heart that I think we have to look at when we look at envy. Kerry, what has God shown you about himself in those wounded times? So where, like we sometimes say like, where was God in this? Where was God in that? Well, what has he shown you? What has his heart been revealed to you when people get true about that traumatic story? Where was God? Yeah, I mean, I can only speak for me and I'm sitting with thousands of men and women over the course of years. It's a long process to understand just like what David said when he says in Psalms 41 through three, I cried out and I had to wait patiently for the Lord. That doesn't mean that he wasn't present, but his deliverance took time because we have to break self-reliance and pride. What I've learned is that in my long suffering, it is not that God is absent. He's actually present in my pain. And that's how I define freedom. I define freedom not by the absence of pain, but the presence of God in my pain. And it is there that I start to experience a fully alive life holding grief and gratitude in the same breath, hurt and hope in the same breath, fear and faith in the same breath. So what I've seen about God is that he's not wanting me to eradicate one emotion over the other, one story over the other, but that he wants us to bring all of it. And it is there when we suffer long that he's present most and that we get to experience and hold both. Hey men, this is so powerful and we wanna see everybody walk through. I love your, you kind of give us this trail and it's from hate and disgust to name the shame, engage the trauma, share the grief, gratitude, connection and calling because this process is vastly connected to individually us walking out the calling of God. So talk to us about that as well as the freedom movement that you have going on. Yeah, I mean, who doesn't love a good diagram? The book is full of them because we are formulaic people. We wanna know what's one, two and three? How do I do this? And although there is mystery and wonder in God, he's also not a God to just leave you to try to guess that there really is a process in which we surrender and repent and bring our lives before the Lord for ultimate freedom. And the outcome of that is a so that we don't do all of this just so that we can have experience for ourselves. We do it so that we can share that with the world. Free people, free people. Yes, hurt people hurt people, but free people, free people and the freedom movement, which is my nonprofit organization is the outcome of a girl plucked out of obscurity, living a life of just crazy abandoned of all things good and God saying, hey, if you're willing to surrender your life to me, I want you to go out into the world and help people hold their hearts, teach them how to hold each other's hearts in a world that is ravaged with chaos. We actually not through our knowledge, not through our pedigrees, but through our stories that we get to sit with others. And it is in that place where we've experienced redemption or even a taste of it that we can actually help free others. And so we do trainings on how to help people do that and how to help people heal in their story and go help others heal in theirs. We partner with churches around the globe to do this and just really begin to teach you, hey, God is for your story and for your healing, but not just for you. He is here to actually help you sit with others. And I believe once you start tasting freedom, ah, you can't keep it to yourself. You can't, you won't have to worry about, what's my calling? What am I gonna do? Out of the particularities of your pain will come the particularities of your calling and where you were wounded and redeemed, you will go and find those same wounded places for others and help them see redemption. Amen, this is so powerful, Carrie. There's nothing more that Jesus wants for each of us other than to walk in freedom. Would you mind just taking a moment and praying over our viewing audience? I think a lot of freedom begins with a prayer. So I just, would you do that for us? Yes, Jesus, we just thank you, God, that we have the opportunity to bring all of our hearts before you. And so God right now in this moment, wherever anyone is watching from their homes or in their cars or just maybe even sitting on their lunch break, God, right now, would you meet them in their heart places where the fragile places of their heart that says, this is the part that I can't bring to you, God. And yet your whisper says, I've seen it all, I know it all, and I want to be close to you. And although you have suffered long, I have been with you. It is in this place, God, that they can cry out in full honesty. And as you are invited in, God, their heart will begin to heal. And so God, I pray that they would not hide from you and that they would hear your voice in the cool of the garden of their life, God, where you are saying, where have you been and where are you wanting to go? And it's here in communion that we can walk in further freedom and hope will rise and hope will find us today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Before we leave you, Carrie, I wanted to ask, so somebody who's watching, what's their first step? What's their next step? I mean, they've heard what you've shared and it's really resonated with them today. Where, and they might be getting some of that from church, they might not be. But where do they go? What's their step? Well, Tom, shameless plug, they should buy my book free and fully alive. But if they choose not to do that, that's okay. The first step I would say is get out a pen and a paper and just begin to write these three things. What do I think about all the time that ruminates in my mind? What do I feel about that? And what do I need that I'm not getting or didn't get? Those three questions will help illuminate. And then on the end of that, I would say, this is the opportunity to invite God in. Don't just give it to God, invite God in and ask Him, search me and know me God, show me what I need to do with this and how we can move together. So I would start with those three questions, a piece of paper and a pen will get you pretty far. By all means, get the book, everyone. By all means, no problem there, get the book. Amen. Well, thank you, Carrie, so much for just sharing your heart with us. We so appreciate your obedience to the Lord. It was an honor being here with you today, truly. Well, stay with us because when we return in 60 seconds, we're going to look at a scripture that shows you how you can partner with the Father and bring His goodness to the land of the living. We'll be right back. No matter your age or circumstances, God wants you to move forward. Join best-selling author and teacher, Dr. David Jeremiah in a masterclass, revealing how to live fearlessly. You'll discover that it's never too late to find your purpose. Dr. David Jeremiah reveals powerful ways for people of any age to live a life that's meaningful. Inside forward, you'll uncover strong Bible teaching coupled with incredible real-life stories and practical biblical insight. Learn how God wants to expand your dreams, give you divine direction, equip you with tools to overcome fear and much more. Request your copy of this life-changing book when you support Cornerstone Television. Call 888-665-4483 or give online at ctvn.org slash donate. Find air times for a turning point with Dr. David Jeremiah at ctvn.org. Donate and request his book forward. Thank you for your partnership with Cornerstone TV. We're so glad you're joining us on this Monday on Hope Today and we just wrapped up just moments ago, our conversation with Carrie Garcia and what an empowering conversation about freedom, of how we have to deal with our grief, we have to deal with our pain, we have to visit those things that we don't want to talk about, we have to visit those things that are deeply rooted in us, that are actually holding us back. And as we were coming on air, God was just speaking to me then to ask you this question, what secrets are you sitting on? What secrets are deeply buried within your soul and with your spirit that you are just clinging onto and that you're carrying and you are not letting go? In this season, I truly believe that God is doing a deep-rooted work that he's been speaking over and over again when it comes about this term of trauma. What traumas have you been dealing with? What traumas have you been walking through? Because can I tell you that those things, they will hinder us back. They will stop us from walking in the fullness of our calling. And the one thing I know from firsthand experience, the enemy would love to keep you trapped, would love to keep you silent, would love to keep you stuck so that you can't move forward, that you don't share because guess what? I guarantee the moment you open up and you share about your story, maybe it's with addiction, maybe it's sexual trauma, maybe it's something domestic violence. Who knows what the secret may be for you today? But the moment that you're able to open up and say this happened to me, I guarantee you there's so many other people that will say, you know what? That happened to me too. And I have been in situations in this past seasons of life where I've been able to open up about my story, about my trauma, about things that I've walked through. And can I tell you the freedom that I've experienced and the freedom that I see in others? And so we have a scripture that as we talked about earlier today that we want to share with you to stand on this. We love it from the book of Psalms, 2713. And it says this, I remain confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord and the land of the living. When you give your all in your life to Jesus, when you just give him your life and you say, God, I surrender it all. There is such goodness there. Yes, it can be hard. We're not promising everything's gonna be perfect and wonderful. But when we allow our long suffering, we put it in the hands of Jesus and we allowed the Holy Spirit to breathe on those broken places in our hearts. There is such freedom and transformation and healing that happens in there, Amanda. Amen. Just talking about being open, I can remember in our family, here we are, we're in ministry and we're doing a lot of outreach and stuff. And when you walk through family, drama slash trauma with your children or whoever it might be in life. And I can remember there's those tendencies like you don't really want anybody to know really what's going on, but yet you are struggling tremendously and all alone. And I can remember just as God was like challenging me to begin to share of my own story, one time was here on a set, on a Friday. Lord did not challenge you too much. You were an open book and that was good. That was good that you were willing. But like you said, the freedom that comes and the people who are like giving me a call or texting or saw me at church and they're like, listen, this is what I've been. And you're like, oh my goodness, you had no idea until you get vulnerable yourself. I think God is really desiring that of us to remove a mask. Don't pretend and it's still giving glory to God. It's inviting him into this situation and it's a beautiful thing because not only do I get to walk free, but I got to pray for other people who finally let the cat out of the bag and now they're walking in freedom. So it's a ripple effect. It's beautiful. It is beautiful. And the fact that you were able to minister to others is so much what Carrie said that you're gonna find your calling in that place. But I just wanted to say that verse that Sidney read, it's from Psalm 27. And if you have a chance today to look at Psalm 27, it is so powerful. But one of the key things about it, listen to this in verse four, it says, one thing I have asked the Lord that I shall seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in his temple. This is all done in the course of relationship with God. God has not left you. God has not abandoned you. God has not said, oh well, there's something about you that I don't want. No, he is fully embracing you, fully drawing you into himself. There's a relationship aspect there. We've talked about it so much about what real Christianity is, this relationship with God. But God is desiring that relationship with you today that you would just, look, it just says meditate in his temple that I will behold his beauty. It's not like you have to do anything. It's not performance-based, it's relationship-based. You sit there at his feet and absorb what he wants you to know. One of the one things I just love so much about God is I know that we're all walking through something. And I think a lot of times in church or we just walk and we try to put on a face on or like, I'm okay and I got it together. And sometimes you are just crushed that you just feel so beaten low. But I love that we have a God. Think about this for a moment. The creator of the universe allows us in these moments when we are completely shattered within our souls to come to him and to say, here. Like Jesus has come and like I will give you rest. Like that you were heavy-laden like all these things. Like Jesus, there's a great exchange that our God has where he's just saying, can you just give me my pain? I see the sin, I see the destruction. I see what's happening. But I wanna take it from you and allow you to just be in my presence. I mean, there's been multiple times in my life where I've literally, I've had screaming matches with God. I'm like, what is going on? But even in those moments where I've been so real about the pain and the suffering that I'm going through, there's a moment where I just feel like I'm just gonna lift my hands up and surrender. And I'm gonna praise you anyway. And I don't understand what the outcome's gonna be. I don't understand what you're doing God right now. But I'm gonna trust you. I'm gonna believe you. I'm gonna part the rest in my life some way, somehow. I don't have to figure it out. And we want you to do that today. So we just even ask you as we're wrapping a close here on hope today that you take a moment to make an altar and you get before the Lord and you give him those things that are holding and hindering you back so that you would experience freedom today. Amen. I just wanna, after you read Psalm 2713, it says in verse 14, Yes, wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord. Amen. It says in Sidney's verse there right before that that I would have disbared if I had not believed that I would have seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. It's not just in heaven. Praise God for what we have. Secure in heaven. Nothing can take that away. But you're gonna see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. There's healing for you. There's change in your situation. I just get this feeling. There's somebody right now watching this program saying I need that. I desire that. I've been a Christian for decades but I haven't reached this one place, Lord. I haven't reached healing in this one place. Today is the beginning of that. Don't despair. You're gonna see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living right now and it begins today. Have a great one in him. On Tomorrow's Hope Today, offering hope through true stories of unimaginable circumstances. Speaker and author Jeanette Chafee shares her miraculous story of surviving a mid-air plane explosion and how God is using her miracle to inspire others to trust in him. 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.